Chapter Ten
Hurrying through the empty corridors, Cassara tried to ignore the water dripping from her clothes, leaving an incriminating trail in her wake.
The chill air sent goosebumps dancing across her skin, but her heartbeat was still light, buoyed by the lingering thrill of mischief.
She was nearly back to the dormitory hall when voices echoed from behind her, breaking the quiet.
“—telling you, Evie, someone must’ve left a window open. The floor’s all wet.” Liri’s voice floated forward, curious and slightly puzzled.
Cassara froze, glancing down at her dripping coat and damp boots, wincing. Gods.
“I don’t think windows leave footprints,” Evie’s voice came next, dryly amused. “Maybe it rained?”
“Rain doesn’t leave footprints either…”
Cassara turned sharply toward the dormitory, attempting to quicken her pace without outright running. But Liri’s steps sped up behind her, shoes tapping rapidly against the stones.
“Wait—Cass? Is that you?”
She exhaled slowly, accepting her fate, and turned around with a sheepish smile just as Liri caught up, Evie just a few paces behind.
Liri’s eyes widened. “Cassara, you’re—you’re soaked! What happened?”
Cassara offered a casual shrug, forcing nonchalance despite the flush warming her cheeks. “Little misadventure. Nothing serious.”
Evie raised an eyebrow, folding her arms skeptically. “That adventure wouldn’t have involved a certain tall, irritatingly confident blond legacy student, would it?”
Cassara struggled to keep from grinning, turning away with exaggerated dignity. “I plead ignorance.”
Liri burst into laughter, linking arms with her, ignoring the way water soaked into her sleeve. “Come on, let’s get you back to the room before anyone else decides to investigate the trail.”
Cassara groaned softly, resigned, but allowed herself to be tugged gently forward toward their dorm, warmth blossoming in her chest at the effortless camaraderie. “Fine. But not a word to anyone.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Evie replied smoothly, eyes sparkling with amusement as she followed behind them, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Not yet, anyway.”
They reached the door to the dorm room just as Cassara managed to wring a final stream of water from the hem of her coat. Liri gave her a theatrical once-over and muttered something about finding towels and possibly a mop. Evie reached forward to push the door open.
Cassara had hoped the dorm would be empty. Unfortunately, it was not. Sonia lounged on her bed, brushing out her hair with long, practiced strokes, while Talia sat cross-legged at her desk, reading in silence, barely glancing up.
Sonia didn’t bother hiding her smirk as Cassara stepped inside, trailing water and damp confidence in equal measure.
“Well, someone had an eventful evening,” she said, eyes gleaming as they flicked pointedly to the puddle forming beneath Cassara’s boots. “Let me guess, you decided to wrestle a leviathan in the showers?”
Cassara smiled sweetly, peeling off her coat and draping it over the chair by her desk. “Not quite. Though I wasn’t the only one who ended up drenched.”
Sonia’s brush paused mid-stroke.
Cassara continued, hanging her coat over the back of her chair and turning with a faintly wicked tilt to her mouth. “I imagine he’s still trying to dry off somewhere. Possibly reevaluating his choices and tending to his bruised ego.”
Evie coughed behind her hand, trying to smother a laugh. Liri looked between them, eyes wide with the dawning realization that this was definitely about Julian.
Talia, still flipping a page, muttered, “Poor bastard.”
Cassara offered no names, no clarifications, just a languid stretch and a casual stroll toward her trunk, the picture of amused satisfaction.
Sonia’s jaw tightened ever so slightly before she turned back to her mirror with a too-casual toss of her hair. “How charming.”
Cassara didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said casually after gathering her things from her trunk and making her way towards their shared bathroom.
By the time Cassara emerged, skin flushed from the hot water and her hair damp but free of steam, the dorm had quieted into the hush that always came just before lights dimmed.
She padded in on bare feet, now dressed in soft nightclothes, black with subtle embroidery at the cuffs, regal even in rest. The flicker of magelight had dimmed to a low golden glow, casting gentle shadows across the room.
The other girls were already in bed. Sonia’s curtains were pulled tight, a faint rustle suggesting she still fidgeted under her covers.
Liri’s were half-drawn, a soft snore already rising from within.
Evie’s, of course, were neatly closed, with the glow of a reading crystal still faintly visible beneath.
Only Talia remained awake, still seated at her desk, spine straight, head slightly bowed. Cassara passed behind her on the way to her own bunk and glanced down, then slowed.
Talia wasn’t reading, and she wasn’t taking notes either.
She was drawing.
Ink flowed clean and confident from her pen, sweeping into curved horns and thick, armor-plated limbs.
The creature had a lean body like a hound, but its head was crowned with a jagged crest of bone, and its eyes, four of them, were wide and feral, ringed with flame or maybe smoke.
A long tail curled along the bottom edge of the page, and beneath it, in small, spidery script, was a label:
“Wyrd-beast. Name unknown. Possibly extinct.”
Cassara hovered, just a second longer than she meant to. “What is that?”
Talia looked up, startled, though not flustered. “Just a thing I saw once, in a dream.”
Cassara raised a brow, considering, but didn’t press. “Looks dangerous.”
Talia offered a quiet shrug. “The interesting ones usually are.”
She smirked faintly at that, then turned toward her own bed without another word.
Once nestled behind her curtains, she reached beneath her pillow and withdrew the small, worn journal she kept tucked there, the once-gilded lettering on the cover now dulled to bronze—K. L. Her mother’s initials: Katrinel Lorellan.
She ran her fingers over them before letting the weight of the journal settle into her lap, the cracked leather soft beneath her fingers.
For a heartbeat she hesitated, then flipped past the first few pages, dates and entries she remembered from years ago when she’d snuck it from her father’s study, too young to understand half the words and too stubborn to stop reading anyway.
She found the place she was looking for, near the beginning, where the ink was still strong and the handwriting neat with effort. Her mother’s voice rose from the page like a whisper reaching across time:
First Day, Vallemont.
I still can’t believe I’m here.
The spires are taller than I imagined, and the glass dome in the Orientation Hall actually sparkled when the Trial of Echoes started. Everyone said it was only refracted light, but it felt like something more.
My Echo was…strange. I saw a version of myself standing at the head of a Crestboard, beast at my side, flames all around. Not burning. Not harming. Just…warm. Like belonging. Like home. That’s what I want, I think. Not the fire, but the place it lights up.
I met my roommates tonight. Isadore, the pretty legacy, is exactly what you’d expect. Graceful, perfectly postured, already ranking herself against the rest of us. But she smiled when I complimented her braid, so maybe she’s not all frost.
Then there’s Nareen. She’s rough around the edges, all elbows and laughter. I like her. She elbowed a second-year who tried to steal her dessert and didn’t even flinch when they threatened her. I think she’s fearless.
I want to be like that.
ACS class was a disaster. I could barely get the conduit straps fastened without slicing open my thumb. Why does magitek have so many wires?
No. I didn’t cry. I didn’t quit. And I already have two friends who I think will last a lifetime.
That has to count for something, right?
Cassara’s eyes lingered on the page, her thumb tracing the edge of her mother’s looping “K” at the bottom of the entry.
There was a strange tightness in her chest, not sadness, not exactly.
Just… a sense of closeness. A reminder that Katrinel had once sat in a bed like this, worried about beast rankings and ACS class, hoping for friendship and dreaming of fire.
A girl trying to belong.
Cassara exhaled quietly, then closed the journal and pressed it gently back beneath her pillow, the warmth of the words still flickering behind her eyes.
The last class of the day had let out into the late afternoon sun, the buzz of voices spilling into the courtyard outside the eastern hall.
Students clustered along the stone paths and low walls, some reviewing notes, others already forgetting them.
Cassara was halfway to the dorms, still mentally untangling the mess that was the morning’s resonance drill, when a familiar tone caught her attention—sharp, clipped, and unmistakably Verena.
“I’m just saying,” Verena was telling someone, loud enough to draw a small cluster of onlookers, “if you can’t handle basic extraction drills, maybe you’re better suited to maintenance work.”
Curious, Cassara veered slightly, enough to catch a glimpse of Oliver standing stiffly a few paces from Verena, his shoulders hunched and his gaze pointed somewhere just beyond her. A few students nearby were pretending not to listen. No one moved to intervene.
Oliver kept his voice low. “I didn’t ask you to step in for me.”
“No,” Verena said coolly, “but you are slowing people down, me included. I’m just being honest.”
Cassara stepped forward, her stride smooth, voice sliding in like a blade. “Funny. You’re not usually this talkative when Gideon’s around.”
Verena’s head whipped toward her. The shift in expression, surprise first, then irritation, was brief but telling.