Chapter 11 – — Professor Cane, Fracture and Form
Chapter Eleven
“The Upper Veil did not create angels to be kind. It created them to endure. Kindness, if it comes at all, is a choice they make despite themselves.”
— Professor Cane, Fracture and Form
Professor Cane breezes into the room like she’s late to a garden party rather than a lecture, her curly brown hair piled loosely on top of her head and held in place by what appears to be a paintbrush.
Silver rings adorn nearly every finger, and her flowing emerald-green dress looks more suited for a summer festival than a classroom in the frozen north.
She’s fae. I can tell by the pointed ears peeking through her curls and the way she moves, fluid and unhurried, like time is something that happens to other people.
Her face is heart shaped and lovely with laugh lines around her eyes and a mouth that suggest she smiles often.
If I had to guess, I’d put her somewhere in her fifties, though with fae that could mean anything.
“Hello, my darlings,” she says, dropping an armful of books and scrolls onto her desk with a dramatic thud. “Welcome to Fracture and Form. I’m Professor Cane, and I’ll be the one putting you back together when the other professors inevitably break you.”
A few students laugh nervously.
“Every week we will be covering a different bloodline. You can’t heal what you don’t know, and I’m going to make sure you know everything there is about each bloodline, including humans.
” She perches on the edge of her desk, crossing her legs and letting one embroidered slipper dangle from her foot.
“This week we’re starting with angels. Gorgeous creatures.
Terrible patients. Very particular about their wings.
We’ll get into all of that, but first I need a volunteer. ”
Her eyes scan the room, bright and mischievous.
“An angel volunteer specifically. Don’t be shy. I promise I won’t bite.” She chews her lip. “Well, not in class anyway.”
More nervous laughter. I feel Jace tense beside me.
“You there.” Cane points directly at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. “The handsome one with the silver wings. Perfect. Come down here, darling.”
Jace resigns himself to the inevitable and stands. I watch him descend the tiered rows toward the front of the room, his wings folded tight against his back like he’s trying to make himself smaller, but he’s too tall, too broad, too obviously an angel to blend in anywhere.
“Don’t look so nervous,” Cane says as he reaches her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m simply going to use you.”
She gestures for him to turn around and face the class.
“Name?”
“Jace.” His voice is steady, but I can see the tension in his shoulders.
“Lovely. Now then, Jace. Extend your left wing for me. All the way, darling, don’t be modest.”
His wing unfurls slowly, stretching out to its full span, and I realize I’ve never seen him do this before. Not fully. The feathers are pale silver, almost white, layered over each other like armor made of moonlight. The wing itself is enormous, easily six feet from his shoulder to the tip.
“Beautiful,” Cane murmurs and shifts closer, running her fingers along the upper edge where feathers meet flesh. Jace flinches slightly but doesn’t pull away, and I have to put a hand over my mouth to keep from giggling.
“Pay attention, darlings.” Her voice shifts, still warm but with an edge of authority beneath it. “This is not decoration. This is not for flight, not primarily. An angel’s wing is a weapon, a shield, and a warning system all in one.”
She traces a line down the wing’s leading edge. “Thirty-seven bones in each wing. More than your entire arm and hand combined. Every single one of them can fracture under the right conditions.”
Her fingers stop at a joint halfway down. “Here. The medial humerus is where angels break most often. In battle, they instinctively shield with their wings.” She looks up at Jace’s face. “It’s a reflex, but it means this joint takes the worst of it.”
I’m barely breathing. Jace is standing completely still, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on some point at the back of the room. I wonder if he’s embarrassed. Either way, he looks beautiful, and I think Professor Cane is enjoying this.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” Cane asks him softly, pressing gently on the joint. “The vulnerability there. Angels always know where they’ll break. It’s instinct.”
“Yes,” Jace says quietly, “I can feel it.”
She holds his gaze then pats his wing affectionately. “Good boy, you can sit down.”
He folds his wing back and returns to his seat beside me. I want to say something, but the look on his face tells me to leave it alone. I have to chew on the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
Cane turns back to the class, all business again.
“No bloodline can generate current,” she says, pacing slowly in front of her desk. “We all draw from what exists around us. Well, almost all, but blood mages are a topic for another day, and most of you aren’t ready for that conversation yet.”
A few students shift uncomfortably. Cane waves like she’s brushing the thought away, and my mind immediately goes to the headmaster.
“Angels evolved in the Upper Veil, where current is thin. They learned to survive on almost nothing. They have to regulate, contain, and stretch every drop of current until it’s nearly gone.”
She holds up a finger. “This makes them extraordinarily efficient, the best stabilizers on a battlefield. They can hold a wound closed, halt a magical surge, even slow fissure expansion when no one else can. It also means they have no reserves. When an angel burns out, they burn out completely, fast and hard and often permanently.”
Her gaze sweeps across the room, pausing briefly on the few angels at the front then moving on.
“An angel who pushes too far doesn’t just get tired, darlings. They fracture, and I don’t mean their bones.” She says, then lets out a soft, breathy laugh that’s slightly unnerving before continuing. “Now let’s do an in-class assignment labeling angel wing bones.”
The great hall is warmer than anywhere else I’ve been on campus.
Massive fireplaces anchor each end of the room, their flames crackling and popping, casting flickering light across the long wooden tables.
Frost creeps along the edges of the tall windows, but where Jace and I sit on a bench near the glass, I can feel the heat from the nearest hearth seeping into my bones.
I tear off a piece of crusty bread and dip it into my bowl of beef stew. The meat is tender, the broth rich and peppered, exactly what I need after a morning of hollowstags and angel anatomy.
Jace sits beside me, close enough that his wing occasionally brushes my shoulder. He’s been quiet since Cane’s class, and I’ve been trying to find the right way to ask about it.
“Can I ask you something?” I say finally, keeping my eyes on my stew.
“Always.”
“In Cane’s class, she said angels aren’t emotional creatures, that you have to learn it like a language.” I glance at him. “Is that true?”
Jace turns a chunk of bread over in his hands. “For most angels, yes, emotion doesn’t come naturally. It’s something we observe in others and slowly learn to replicate. Some angels never bother. They go their whole lives feeling nothing beyond duty and instinct.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It’s not lonely if you don’t know what you’re missing.” He looks at me then, his blue eyes shining. “But once you learn to feel something, you can’t unlearn it, but you can block it out. Turn it off.”
I hold his gaze. “And did you have to learn?”
His jaw works like he’s chewing on the words before he says them. “I used to think I was broken. I felt things other angels didn’t. Worry. Attachment. Fear of losing people.” He shakes his head. “My family thought it was a flaw, something to be trained out of me.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No.” He turns to face me fully, and there’s something raw in his expression. “And when it comes to you, Mae, I don’t have to try to feel anything. It’s always been there, since we were kids. I’ve always felt at ease when I’m close to you.”
My chest tightens. I don’t know what to say to that or what I’m allowed to feel in return.
Before I can respond, a dramatic groan cuts through the moment.
“Move over. I’m dying.”
Lux drops onto the bench across from us, her pink hair disheveled and her face flushed from the cold. She slumps forward, pressing her forehead against the table and I move my tray to make room.
“Clementine?” I ask.
“She made three people cry. Three in the first hour.” Lux lifts her head enough to glare at me. “And now I have my dad’s class. This day is a nightmare.”
“At least you survived,” I offer.
“Barely.” She sits up, stealing a piece of bread from my plate. “I need sustenance. And therapy.”
Another figure slides onto the bench beside Lux. Blonde hair, a glint of metal at her lip, and an expression that says she knows exactly what kind of entrance she’s making.
Ellavee.
“So you never made an appearance at the party last night.” Lux says, before taking a drink of water.
“I had somewhere to be,” Ellavee says, completely unbothered. She picks up a spoon and examines it.
“Somewhere being a boy’s room,” Lux adds.
“A gentleman’s room,” Ellavee corrects, taking a bite of her stew. “There’s a difference.”
“How was that, by the way?” Lux asks, raising an eyebrow.
Ellavee smirks, evidently full of stories. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Since when?”
“Since now.” She shrugs and starts to play with her lip ring. “New year, new me.”
I laugh through my nose, and Ellavee’s sharp eyes flick to me, but then her lips quirk up on one side.
Movement across the hall catches my attention. I look up without meaning to, and there he is.
Draven.
He’s not sitting with the other bone year students. He’s at a table near the far fireplace, surrounded by older students, blood and breath years by the look of their red and blue emblems on their black clothes.
Malric sits beside him, leaning in to say something. Draven stares ahead with that placid expression.