Chapter 14
UNDER THE PASSIONOAK
SUMMER
The Citadel was always quiet in the last days of the semester.
Everybody was keen to finish up their things, and they’d party after it was done—the next week would light up with parties and celebrations all through campus, but on the last day of finals, everybody was either prepping for one last exam or spending their day recovering.
Tomorrow, the first day of the hiatus period between classes ending and graduation for the exiting fourth-years—tomorrow would be alive all across campus.
But for right now, it felt like I was the only person at Starfall.
I’d finished my last exam in the morning—my easiest class of the semester, Potion Identification, so I’d been able to phone it in a little—and I’d gone back to my dorm to give my friends big, crushing hugs and pack up my things.
Another copy of the flight potion I’d made, one I wouldn’t be able to use with Cadence, packed up with all the rest of my things to be forgotten for the summer.
Plenty of people stayed on campus for the hiatus period, but my family wanted me back right away, so I gushed to everybody about how I’d see them at the graduation ceremony to cheer on our graduating friends, told them to enjoy their hiatus, and I took in an enchanted interplanar-pocket suitcase that squeezed everything into one small carryon bag that rolled along after me by itself as I walked out of Dragon House, into the Citadel, and towards the transit station at the base of Marveille District, with its great big passionoak tree out front, its leaves the pink of a sunset corona.
And the whole time, I kept looking for anyone, anything.
Any sign that maybe there was going to be a person jumping out to steal my heart away under the tree boughs and make me believe in love after Cadence.
But I wasn’t looking hopefully—rather, scanning in anxious anticipation, praying to the saints and to the ley lines and the old dragons and every force that was powerful in this world that there wouldn’t be something.
The transit station was busy, all the other students leaving after classes crowded in around the wide, shallow building and the ornate tramcars going in and out, carrying passengers out of the Citadel and towards the major transit hub where we’d get our trains, planes or automobiles to head to our respective homes far beyond the wards of Starfall.
I lined up with an anxious tangle in my gut, hyperaware of how close I was to the passionoak tree as we filed into the outdoor line, keeping my eyes straight ahead, trying not to draw attention. Not something I was used to doing.
And my heart sank and shattered when, not far from the delicate pink boughs of the passionoak tree, somebody tried to cross to the other side of the line in a hurry and slammed right into me, a thump against my side that sent me stumbling and tripping over my luggage, and I heard their voice call no, reaching out and grabbing my hand before I could fall.
“I’m so sorry,” she said—a short girl with scruffy blonde hair and wide brown eyes, a little disheveled and panicked looking. My true love? I felt bitterly sad, and I had no way of explaining to her I wasn’t just furious she’d run into me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m just fine, thanks,” I said, voice light and icy. She tensed up, quivering a little, and I felt like I’d just kicked a little baby galobalo.
“Oh, saints, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I have a potion if you’re hurt?”
“I’ve got my own potions. I’m an alchemist.”
“Saints. Of course you are. Oh, god, I’m so sorry. I can, um… give you… materials? My wand? My… luggage?” She was clearly on the verge of a breakdown. I sighed, a hand to my forehead.
“Look, the only thing I want is the girl who left me just before finals, I’m not mad at you.”
“Oh.” She relaxed a little, shoulders falling. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for the resting bitch face. I didn’t mean to glare at you.”
She smiled nervously at me. “I hope you get her back. You know—love conquers all! At least, I think so.” She tented her hands. “I’ve got to get my situation sorted out, but, um… good luck, okay?”
I stared at her for a second before a distant kind of acceptance settled in my chest, and I nodded. “Thanks. You too. With your situation.”
“Eek—I’m gonna need it,” she blurted, taking off again, squeezing through the line and over to the other side, running towards the help desk.
My true love, huh? She was kinda cute, but… I’d been expecting fanfare, the heavens opening and shining magic light down on me, but this was just a girl. Just an encounter with someone that could have led to something meaningful if we pursued it.
Between true love as foretold by a magic vision and true love as foretold by a magic flower, I knew which one I wanted. Love wasn’t something to prophesize. Who did that? Put their own feelings into someone else’s hands to decide?
“Ma’am—”
I jolted when I realized the station attendant was talking to me, and I noticed I was at the front of the line, spacing out with the tram car open in front of me.
I laughed nervously, stepping inside, and I sat down by the window glazed with fey-charm filigree where I could see the bustle of Marveille Station outside, my luggage slotting itself into a compartment.
A few other people squeezed on with me, sitting down around me and pressing me into the corner, and I tried to relax before, horrifyingly, I felt something move against my body. Something crawling inside my jacket.
I felt the color drain from my face, and I swatted at it, getting looks from everyone around me—the solid shape of something under my jacket—and I wrenched it back just enough to see—
Oh, god. A snagweed. It had curled up in the inside pocket of my jacket and had apparently hidden in there while I’d—
“Knot?” I whispered. “What are you doing here?”
It was Knot, for sure—he raised one little vine tip in acknowledgement when I said his name, and he reached for the potion on the end of my potion sleeve inside my jacket, and I swatted him away.
“Hey—don’t touch that.”
“Ma’am—is there a problem?” the attendant said, and I pressed my jacket against my chest again, turning back to him.
“No—no, no, it’s just Knot.”
He paused, waiting for more. “It’s just not a problem? That’s not too reassuring.”
“No, not not like not, Knot like Knot.”
He looked at me like I was talking to exters. I felt myself sweating bullets. Inside my jacket, I felt Knot move to grab the potion again, and I reached into my jacket to swat him away from it.
“Sorry. Uh—familiar acting up.”
“Keep it under control in the car,” he said, going back to his spot by the door.
“Yes, sir.” I leaned back into my jacket. “Knot. Knock it off.”
He reached for the potion again, and I shoved him back into the pocket as the doors sealed shut. Jeez… I’d have to get in touch with Cadence somehow to get him back to her. I had no idea when he’d done this. Going after that potion…
I found my heart racing as I slipped my hand back into the jacket and clasped it around the potion, warm to the touch. The one he’d been after—that extra Arcane Conduit extension.
I only had that potion because of Cadence. I felt like, as long as I had it with me, there was a bit of Cadence that would stay with me.
Except that once the car started moving, I felt a stab of longing, watching the streets move until we passed by the South Gate, the Citadel shrinking away behind us, and I suddenly felt desperately like a bit of Cadence would never be enough.
Not just in memory or just in waiting, anticipation that maybe I’d see her again and maybe one day it would work, but in that I loved her and I wanted to see what would happen if we gave us a chance.
I wanted to see what other kinds of potions we could make together.
I didn’t care about true love. I cared about Cadence.
“Excuse me—sorry.” I pushed past the person sitting next to me, standing up, and I quivered in anxious anticipation as I opened the luggage compartment door, my luggage rolling out with an expectant air, like it was curious what was going on.
I didn’t know what was going on right now either. I wanted to find out.
Knot had always been a sensible little vine. I got now what he was trying to tell me.
I slipped the potion from my jacket, popped open the vial, and I didn’t think twice—I knocked it back, the shimmering taste sour on my tongue as I swallowed it back, magic instantly shimmering through my body and out to my fingertips.
I felt it lifting me up, bright and awake and alert and alive, and I felt the eyes of the tramcar on me as I drew my wand, a ripple of magic running through me.
Fate could decide what would happen from here.
“Sorry,” I said, to the car at large, by way of explanation. “Gotta handle this familiar situation.”
“Ma’am,” the attendant said, giving me a weary look now, but I didn’t give him the time to complain this time—I pushed the window open, and I cast a spell I’d tried a million times before, except this time it reacted with the flame of magic that rippled through my veins, the potion empowering me, and I climbed out the window.
I heard everybody moving in the car behind me as I went, the attendant calling after me, but I picked up in a swirl of magic, and I pushed off from the ledge, my heart racing faster as I dropped—and in a flare of magic energy, I lifted, the force sweeping up from below me and catching me before I hit the ground, and I—well, I screamed a little bit.