Chapter 3
Maeve
MY FIRST YEAR AT COVEN Crest, I felt like an ant in an anthill, always battling against the current in the crowded halls, hurrying to each class to ensure I wasn’t late.
Now, as a fourth-year, everything feels different.
I know these halls like I know my own reflection.
And instead of getting swept up in the waves of students moving through the corridors, I find the underclassmen flowing around me, stepping out of my way as I navigate the castle.
On my way to my first class, I spot a few familiar faces, friends I haven’t seen since last year, and I pause to say hello and catch up. But I pause one too many times, and the clock signaling the start of our class period starts chiming through the halls just as I step into the history wing.
Not a great way to start my year.
I up my pace and arrive at the classroom door just as it’s closing. Quickly, I catch the door with the toe of my boot, preventing it from latching. After a long moment, the door starts to open, and I look up into the face of—
My heart stutters when I meet his gaze, and for a brief moment, it’s as if the stone drops away from beneath my feet, making my stomach feel like it’s in a free fall.
His eyes are unnaturally, inhumanly dark, like still water on a moonless night. His eyelashes are long and black, his pale skin is flawless, and his mouth—
No.
I immediately stop myself.
Whoever this man is, he looks like a distraction, and that’s the last thing I need this year.
“Pardon me,” I say as he finishes opening the door. Then I ease past him, feeling the other students’ eyes on me while I climb the stairs to an open seat in the lecture hall.
The man closes the door, then moves to the front of the classroom, standing rigidly behind the lectern. On the board behind him is a name: Professor Severin D’Arques.
Oh.
Of course.
He’s our new history professor, the one my stepbrother, Aric, told me about before he packed his bags and moved to Faunwood this past summer. He said his roommate’s great-uncle would be teaching here this year, but I didn’t think he’d look anything like that.
And I’m definitely not the only one noticing, if the pink cheeks and whispers of the women—and some of the men—around me are any indication. Don’t they know vampires have impeccable hearing? He can probably—
“History is unkind to those who confuse intention with control,” Professor D’Arques begins, and his voice, deep and smooth as fine red wine, makes a bolt of energy tingle along the length of my spine.
I force the response down, ignoring it, and reach to pull a fresh notebook out of my bag, then set my quill and inkwell beside it.
“Magic answers intention readily,” Professor D’Arques continues. “That does not mean it submits to it.”
He steps out from behind the lectern, his hands clasped behind his back. The buttons on his crisp gray vest shine in the morning light coming through the classroom’s windows.
His dark eyes sweep the students in the lecture hall, sharp and assessing.
“The most catastrophic failures in magical history were not caused by recklessness, but by success—or the illusion of it. Magic that fails is obvious. Magic that appears to work is what leads to disaster; it encourages false confidence and delays the moment of failure.”
I cross my legs and lean forward, tipping my head. Somehow, he’s already got me intrigued.
“This,” he says, turning toward the board and picking up a piece of chalk, “is why elemental anchoring was outlawed following the Tempest Cataclysm.”
He writes The Tempest Cataclysm on the board in flawless script—like something out of an ancient grimoire—and all around me, quills scratch against parchment.
“Power that must be maintained is already unstable. Power that convinces you it is permanent is worse. Nothing is permanent.” He turns away from the board, leveling us with another sharp look.
His words remind me of my energy sphere, of how hard I’ve been trying to maintain and control it, and a little flicker of irritation goes through me.
“The Tempest Cataclysm remains one of our clearest examples,” Professor D’Arques continues, his voice steady. “Can someone tell me what the cataclysm was?”
A hand goes up at the front of the classroom, and when called upon, the student says, “The storms went haywire. They demolished most of the city and are supposedly still there today, making the city uninhabitable.”
“This is not supposed,” Professor D’Arques says, making the student turn red.
“I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes; the storms still exist, and they are unrelenting.
They were anchored, measured, and studied by a conclave—until their control revealed itself to be an illusion. And the results were catastrophic.”
That flicker of irritation returns, biting harder now.
Control is an illusion? Control over my storm magic is what I’ve spent years working toward.
Suddenly, my mouth is moving, and words are pouring out before I can stop them. “Respectfully, Professor, that assumes instability is a flaw rather than a property.”
His eyes flick to me in a fraction of a second, and another shiver sweeps down my spine. Perhaps it’s because he’s a vampire, an apex predator. The intensity in his eyes almost makes me want to shrink away. Resisting that urge, I hold his gaze and sit up straighter.
“Storm energy doesn’t want to be static. It wants to move, to equalize. The elemental anchoring didn’t fail because the storms resisted control—it failed because the conclave treated movement as error instead of design.”
Around me, my peers turn to look my way, then back to our professor, tension building in the cool classroom air.
He’s still standing at the chalkboard, one hand holding the chalk but no longer writing. “The elemental anchoring that caused the cataclysm failed because the system required constant control. The moment that control slipped, the pressure had nowhere to go.”
My heart thrums a little harder at his challenge. “That’s a failure of design. If the energy had been given somewhere to move, the pressure wouldn’t have built to that point. Storms need guidance, not dominance.”
A low murmur rises around me.
“You speak with confidence.” He narrows his eyes slightly. “Do you possess such mastery yourself, Miss . . . ?”
He doesn’t know me, doesn’t know anything about me, yet the barb still pricks me right where I’m vulnerable. My storm magic thrums inside my veins, a well of energy I can summon but can’t hold—can’t control. Not entirely. And not in the way I need to if I want to get that fellowship.
I clear my throat, then project my voice through the silent lecture hall. “Vandermere. Maeve Vandermere. And no. Not yet. But I know what happens when I try to force it. The energy spikes. It fights me. When I let it move, it stabilizes. Briefly. But long enough to prove it’s possible.”
I just have to figure out how to contain that movement long enough for the sphere to hold; I need it to remain steady if I ever want my energy sphere hypothesis to work.
“Brief stability is not mastery,” he says. “This is the temptation of dangerous magic. It convinces us that partial success is evidence of future control. But that is not always the case.”
Again, with no way of knowing what I’ve been striving for or how hard I’ve been working, his words lance through me.
I will have future control, I tell myself. I just need to keep working at it.
Professor D’Arques holds my gaze as he says, “Now open your textbooks to chapter 15.”
The room comes alive around me, the tension disrupted as pages flutter, but I can still feel it dancing under my skin, like a bolt of lightning wanting to explode.
Control.
The word echoes in my head as I pull out my history book.
And from her place around my neck, Isis whispers, “Hmm, I think I like this one.”
I squeeze my quill and grit my teeth.
I’m not so sure I agree.