CHAPTER 8 RAYA
RAYA
The Sapphire’s escape is all the Academy can talk about for hours.
A Hue has never evaded the Council’s justice quite so publicly before, and to have done it in a flurry of Red magic—from right under the nose of three trackers and the elder in charge of their guild, no less—the whole castle is up in arms.
As the only Shade to have witnessed the truth of what transpired in the court chamber, I spent a full bell telling the trackers what I saw, another bell ducking compliments for breaking free of the glamour so quickly, and another one after that trying to sidestep the question of how, because admitting that I bribed my ex so that I could live down to my reputation and become fate-touched wasn’t really an option.
Though it is still a problem.
And not the kind I’ll be able to hide come tomorrow’s class.
Just this morning, the future made a resolute point of denying me answers, after only offering me a single vision that was as impossible as it was insulting and abstract.
Nothing in the books I searched shed light on anything it showed me.
Nothing explained how I could have seen my own death, or why the future would bother harping on about some romance—and a super fucking illegal one, at that.
A Shade and a Hue.
Together.
In love.
The very thought is enough to shudder me senseless.
That’s not a future I would ever allow to happen—regardless of whether it was fated or not.
Or impervious to change. Fernay can take his assertion and shove it somewhere crass.
Professor Lyons has also taught us about this type of path before, but he held that they’re averse to change, not impervious, and I’m more inclined to believe him than some centuries-dead scribe.
Averse just means I’ll have to try harder, and that’s if I even accept that anything in that vision has a basis in fact.
Which it doesn’t.
“Raya—are you listening to me?” Akari tosses a pencil at my head, snapping me back to the present.
“Yeah, I—what?” I try to shake the guilt from my expression.
I’ve not yet told her about the open question or the preposterous premonition that came after.
I meant to, I really did, but the moment I returned to our room, she demanded to hear the same story I’d told the trackers, then she demanded that I accompany her to the archives so that we could study up on Hues, and then it just .
. . didn’t feel like the right time anymore.
We’d veered too hard towards a different subject.
“I said: are you sure all three of them were halves?” she repeats, glancing up from the book in her hands. “It was pretty chaotic in there, could you have maybe . . . gotten it wrong?”
“I saw their eyes, Kiri—and they were as close to me as you are now. No spiked rim, not burned black. Then when the third one compelled me, his irises definitely flashed.”
“Okay, well, then that makes the girl a . . . Bronze and him a . . . Gold,” Akari says, turning my insides to ice.
A Bronze, a Sapphire, and a Gold wielding Red magic in an Orange-convened trial.
That’s every single color from my vision.
“Erm . . . and how exactly did you decide that?” My foot taps a nervous staccato against the table. Of all the visions in the world, this can’t be the first one I actually get right. It just can’t be.
“By looking at this list of known Hues and their gifts.” Akari spins the book around.
“According to this, only a Bronze can interact with their surroundings in the Gray, so no other half breed could have unlocked the chains—and it would explain why you saw her open the door instead of wisping through it. Her physicality wouldn’t allow for wisping.
Then, since you’re certain the second one didn’t use a pre-spelled charm to compel you—”
“He didn’t,” I say, adamant. If he had, then not only would I have found some spent crystals in his wake, but his eyes wouldn’t have flashed Red with the casting.
“Then he must have been using live magic, so his gift has to be stealing power, and that equals a Gold.” She taps the relevant paragraph.
“But that—” Doesn’t make any sense, does it? “Can a Gold even steal enough magic to glamour an entire chamber of full-bloods?” A feat that, on a good day, would be a struggle for a seasoned Shade.
“Who the hell knows.” Akari shrugs, pointing to another Hue on the list. “This says that a Sapphire can sense the presence of other Shades, so how did this one get himself caught in the first place? And this part claims that only an Emerald can cast a stable In-Between—the rest are supposed to be pretty terrible at it—which also doesn’t fit with what you saw. ”
No, it doesn’t. All three of them made it look easy, like the spell was an afterthought, not a strain.
“So basically, nothing about this is adding up?” I sigh, my nails raking deep trails along my scalp.
“Not even a little. But you do know what it means, right?” The enthusiasm in Akari’s voice is at direct odds to the defeat in mine.
It means I’m no closer to disproving my vision.
It means our guesswork has failed to set us on the right track.
It means I should really tell Akari the whole truth already.
“That . . . the Academy’s not as impenetrable as we all thought?” I say instead.
“Well, yes, that too.” Akari snaps the book shut and leans hungrily across the table. “But it also means that there are three Hues in
Sarotuza right now.”
I instantly catch up to her meaning.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting ideas.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not, Ray. This is like .
. . the mother of all opportunities. A month away from guild selections and there are three prizes running around the city?
Imagine how grateful the Council would be if we were to round them up?
I bet they’d let us skip trials altogether.
Hells, they’ll probably even give us a reward. ”
It’s a nice fantasy—and not unlike the one that drove me to chase after the Hues in the court chamber. A way to knock my future onto a brighter path.
Or you could make things worse, the more cautious part of me is screaming. Play right into the future’s hands.
Except that’s not how it works. I remind myself of the same truth I’m constantly telling others.
You can’t stop the future from happening by burying your head in the sand; you have to do something—change something—or else you’re deliberately leaving your fate to chance, and I refuse to sit around and do nothing when there’s even the slightest possibility that this Sapphire and I might wind up falling in love.
I should not, cannot, and will not let that happen.
“Getting out of the castle won’t be easy,” I say, starting with the obvious obstacle to this plan.
“The portals have been on lockdown since the escape and I doubt we’re the only ones who’ll think to ask for an exception.
” Because if Akari had this idea, then every other ambitious Shade in the Academy is likely having the same one, and the last thing the trackers are going to want is a bunch of acolytes interfering with their hunt.
And even if none of that were true, we’d still need to come up with a good reason for why we should be allowed to leave the castle.
Ever since the Divine Meridian started bleeding Shades, the portal keepers have been strictly controlling our comings and goings, and that leash has only grown tighter as his number of victims climbed into the double digits.
For the same reason it should have been impossible for two Hues to get into the Academy, it’s going to be impossible for us to get out.
“No . . . but we have something the rest of them don’t,” Akari says, waggling her brows.
“Which is?”
“Your faaamousss parents.” She stretches the word like gum. “I’m sure they’re just dying to congratulate their daughter for breaking through that glamour so fast, seeing what no one else did.”
“Argh, I promise you they’re not.” The prospect is downright nauseating.
The only kind of seeing my parents have ever wanted me to do is the kind that takes place in a tower.
So while they may be glad to hear that I did something right for once, their interest in my triumph will dissipate the second they realize my power wasn’t involved.
“I mean, I know that—and you know that—but the portal keeper doesn’t.” Akari’s smug to the point of giddy. “If we say you’ve been summoned, he’ll believe us.”
Yes, he probably would. That’s the upside to having powerful
parents: you get away with bending the rules. The downside is that if I tell the portal keeper that I’m off to visit my parents, then I would actually have to go visit my parents, or else the lie would get back to them in the end. It always does.
“We’ll be in and out, Ray,” Akari promises, as if reading my mind. “You’ll show your face, give them the highlights, then I’ll step in, make some excuse, and we’ll be on our way. Simple.”
I guess it would be simple.
Unpleasant, maybe—depending on my parents’ mood—but simple.
And you could ask them about the other part of your vision.
A more pressing agenda suddenly takes root.
I’ve been so consumed by the path that leads to a Hue, I’d all but forgotten about the one that leads to my death—to every Shades’ death.
If there’s anyone who could shed light on that impossibility, it’ll be the two most decorated Indigos the seers’ guild has ever trained.
That alone makes this a trip worth taking.
Once the decision is made, Akari and I don’t linger. Our chances of beating the trackers to the Hues are slim to non-existent as it is, and they only grow slighter with each minute we delay, so we quickly pack away the books we’ve been studying and speed off to put this escape plan to the test.
“Erm . . . Ray . . . is there something you’d like to tell me?” We’re almost to the portal hall when Akari spots the problem waiting for us outside the door, the Blue Shade tracing our approach with narrowed eyes.
Oh, fuck. Killen. Every part of me sinks, the memory of our fight searing through my veins like acid.
I can still see the hurt I inflicted in the lines of his face, hear the echo of my words thunder between us.
I ended things because I didn’t love you.
He didn’t deserve to learn that truth quite so callously—or at all, if I’m honest; he was better off not knowing it.
That way, he could keep laying the blame for our split at my feet.
“I don’t know why he’s here,” I say, though I do have my suspicions.
Killen always was good at seeing the big picture, and if there’s anyone who would benefit from a reward for the Hues’ capture, it’s him.
He probably spotted this opportunity long before we did.
Which makes the real question: why is he loitering out here?
“Give us a minute, okay?” I tell Akari. Then I stride over to Killen and drag him out of earshot by the sleeve before he can betray my secrets.
“You haven’t told her yet, have you?” He instantly puzzles out my intent. “About the open question?”
“No, I haven’t—and would you please keep it down?” I hiss, shoving him back into an empty classroom.
“Sure, I’ll keep it down.” He shrugs as I pull the door shut behind us. “If you take me with you.”
“Take you with us?” I gape at him. “You don’t even know where we’re going!”
“Oh please, we both know you’re going after the Hues.
By way of your parents, I’m guessing, since they’re not letting acolytes out of the castle for anything else.
” The bitter edge to his voice suggests that he’s already tried his own luck and failed, stuck around in the hopes that we’d fare better.
“You’re right, we are going to see my parents—but that’s it,” I say, because what’s one more lie when I’m about to spin another ten.
“Come on, Raya, you owe me.” This time, Killen’s words are less a taunt than they are a plea. “My spell’s the whole reason you were able to see through the glamour so quickly, wasn’t it? All I’m asking is for you to return the favor.”
Which he wouldn’t do unless he was truly desperate.
Killen needs to chase this reward just as much as I need to impress the Council, and that’s a reality that should sway me.
It should blunt my irritation and erode the selfish urge to go after the Hues alone.
But the truth is, I don’t see how I could explain his presence to Akari, and the portal keeper is more likely to bend the rules for two Shades instead of three.
Especially if he’s already turned one of them away.
“It wasn’t a favor, remember? You were handsomely paid.
” So I play the villain, and for the second time in the space of a few hours, I watch my words blow Killen’s pupils wide open and rob him of breath.
Hurting him really is the one thing I’m spectacularly good at.
“Now, if you don’t mind, we’re just going to visit my parents.
We’ll barely be gone a couple of bells.”
“Fine, be that way.” His jaw hardens, the storm in his expression clouding over as if to say: if that’s how you want to play it, I can be vindictive, as well.
“But if you aren’t back exactly when you’re supposed to be, I’ll be telling Professor Lyons everything I know.
Akari, too, since you’re too much of a coward to tell her yourself.
” The threat lingers long after he’s shimmered out of the classroom.
Everything he knows is enough to get me expelled from the Academy.
It’s enough to get my magic bound early and ensure that I’ll never see the future again.
So go fix it. Instead of indulging the panic, I shake off the guilt and rid my face of the dread.
If Akari and I come back with three Hues in tow, nothing Killen can say will matter.
If we do the impossible, my magic will remain safe.