Nina
Fifteen portraits line the front of the Starflare Ballroom.
Sam Reeves. Deidre Mitchell. Elizabeth Bradley. Gabriel Dumont. Francis Willingham. Deacon Park. Leo Martinez.
I keep going until I’ve catalogued all fifteen students. Fifteen lives erased in a single night.
We’re sitting shoulder to shoulder in the seats that were brought into the ballroom. What’s left of the faculty sits in a row behind the podium, their expressions calibrated to the appropriate mixture of sorrow and resolve.
Helen Finchman’s recording orbs drift above the crowd. One near the podium, one by the main entrance, and one floating near the faculty section. Four others are scattered throughout the ballroom, their surfaces catching the flickering light of the memorial flames.
Headmistress Constance stands at the podium, commanding the hushed space.
“Their flames burned bright, and though they’ve been extinguished too soon, their light will never be forgotten.”
It’s standard memorial language. I’ve read enough Council reports to recognize the template.
Beside me, Vera stares straight ahead, her muscles tight. We haven’t spoken much since the hellhound attack. She’s been sleeping with the lights on, flinching at shadows, and I’ve been pretending not to notice.
Constance continues her speech, but my attention drifts through the crowd.
Avery Chambers sits three rows ahead, her shoulders hunched like she’s trying to disappear into herself.
Tobias Cane sits with the other Council members, his pale eyes fixed on nothing. He hasn’t looked at Avery once during the ceremony. He hasn’t looked at anyone, really. He just stares at the portraits like he’s watching eight centuries of traumatic memories playing out before his eyes.
Helen stands near the faculty section, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, the picture of a grieving administrator. But her gaze sweeps the room between dabs, her fingers reaching for her pearls whenever one of her orbs repositions.
The ceremony stretches on with more speeches, more carefully worded tributes, and more flames lit in honor of the dead.
Constance steps forward for the final tribute. “We commit their memories to the Spirit Flame, where they’ll burn forever in our hearts.”
Fifteen people rise from the front row—friends, roommates, and emberlink partners of the dead. Each one carries a candle to the memorial brazier in front of the Spirit Flame, lighting them with magic and adding them to the collective blaze.
The ceremony ends with a moment of silence that stretches long enough to become uncomfortable. Then Constance dismisses us, and the ballroom erupts into the controlled chaos of dozens of people trying to process collective trauma.
I don’t move immediately. Instead, I wait, watching the crowd thin and tracking Helen’s position near the faculty section. She’s speaking with Professor Delia Carver, nodding sympathetically at whatever the woman is saying.
Her orbs drift overhead, recording everything.
All except the one hovering near the second-floor balcony, positioned at the entrance of an alcove that overlooks the ballroom. It’s far enough from the crowd to avoid notice, but close enough to watch.
I count to sixty, then slip through the dispersing people to the side staircase. No one pays attention to me. I’m just another grieving first-year looking for a quiet place to fall apart.
The alcove is a small, recessed space with a stone bench, partially hidden by a decorative column. It’s the perfect location for a private conversation—or a private breakdown, if anyone asks.
Helen’s orb hovers at the entrance, its golden surface angled to the main staircase. It’s an early warning system, so if anyone approaches, she’ll know.
I settle onto the bench and wait.
Three minutes later, Helen appears at the top of the stairs.
Her handkerchief is tucked away now, her maternal grief replaced by cold calculation.
She crosses to the alcove without hesitation, lowering herself onto the bench beside me with the practiced ease of someone who’s done this a hundred times before.
“That was longer than expected.” Her gaze flicks to her orb, confirming our privacy. “The investigation is officially closed. The story’s been accepted.”
“And the Council members?” I ask. “Are they leaving?”
“Michael’s staying longer than originally planned.
He wants to review the safety protocols personally.
” Her mouth curves into a thin, practiced smile.
“I’ll be teaching Fire Philosophy and Practices until a permanent replacement is found.
Tobias will remain as well, to assist with student counseling. ”
I nod slowly. Michael Aldridge, my uncle, the family traitor who joined the Council forty years ago and never looked back. I’ve spoken to him exactly twice in my life—one of them being here, at the academy—and both times felt like being examined under a microscope.
“Is there anything else I should be monitoring?” I ask.
Helen’s gaze drifts over the balcony railing to the ballroom below, where people are milling about in clusters of shared grief. When she speaks again, her composure slips.
“I’m worried about them, Nina.”
The admission catches me off guard. Helen Finchman doesn’t admit weakness. Helen Finchman doesn’t worry, at least not where anyone can see it.
“The Quest Crew?” I ask, since that’s what I’ve been calling them in my notes.
“They’ve gone five days with no contact.”
“The lack of contact doesn’t necessarily mean they failed.”
“I know what it doesn’t necessarily mean,” she says, the sharpness in her tone quickly turning soft again. “But the Lost Islands have claimed better sailors than four students and one professor on a stolen ship.”
She’s right. Most ships that enter the Lost Islands don’t leave. Crews that survive don’t always stay sane. The Aldridge archives are full of accounts, and none of them are pleasant reading.
“The Lost Islands have never seen a Revenant before, and Logan’s powerful, even amongst the Blood Coven,” I remind her. “Kieran Cross is the best weapons master in centuries. And Jade…” I trail off, because there’s no saying what Jade is truly capable of.
“Power isn’t always enough.” Helen’s fingers twist together in her lap.
“I keep running the variables. The currents around Scylla, the temporal distortions near Charybdis, the cyclops, the sirens, the Laestrygonians, and the dozens of other dangers they’ll possibly have to navigate before reaching the Pillars.
The odds of their survival lessen significantly by the day. ”
Her observations are clinical, but underneath them, fear bleeds through. Because I’ve been running the same variables and arriving at the same uncomfortable conclusions.
“I have to believe Logan will succeed and bring Jade to Ambrogio as planned.” She straightens, like she’s convincing herself as much as me.
“After everything we’ve invested in positioning him, in protecting his cover, and in keeping the star touched hidden from the Council… ” She takes a breath. “It has to work.”
“And what happens once Jade reaches Ambrogio?”
“That’s Gwendolyn’s domain.” Helen waves a hand, although her eyes gleam with undisguised hunger.
“But the goal has always been the same—a star touched fighting for the Revenants would be unprecedented, and Jade’s lightning combined with Revenant strength will make her the weapon that tips the balance in our favor. ”
Weapon.
The word echoes in my mind.
It’s hard to picture Jade Harrington as a weapon.
She can barely sit still long enough to finish a class, let alone execute the kind of calculated manipulation that weapon-level power requires.
She projected every emotion so loudly in Pyropsychology that reading her was like standing in an open doorway.
Yes, Jade has raw power, but she feels too much, too loudly, and too publicly.
She’s a wildcard, and those in power—whether those people are the Council or the Revenants—never like wildcards.
“This is what we’ve been working for.” Helen’s genuinely enthusiastic now, the vulnerability of moments ago sharpening into hunger. “Logan positioned us perfectly by gaining Jade’s trust and making her dependent on him. He’s very persuasive when he needs to be.”
Persuasive.
The word lands wrong. Because in our world, persuasion means compulsion, memory manipulation, and reshaping someone’s thoughts until they believe what you need them to believe.
It means smoothing the edges of their will until they can’t tell the difference between their own desires and the ones you’ve planted there.
It’s the tool the Council uses to maintain control, and the one the Revenants swore they were fighting against.
Helen straightens, her vulnerability vanishing.
“There’s one more thing.” She glances at the ballroom below, where the last clusters of people are dispersing. “Tobias.”
“What about him?” I ask, remaining calm. It’s the type of calm that only comes with a lifetime of practice.
“He’s been avoiding me for days. He won’t meet my eyes, and he flinches when I enter a room.”
During the memorial, Tobias stared at those fifteen portraits like he was seeing ghosts. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hands were trembling. His gaze kept drifting to Avery, but he always stopped himself before focusing on her completely.
I don’t know what happened between them, but I need to find out, sooner rather than later.
“I’ll watch him,” I say, leaving it at that.
“Good.” Helen rises from the bench, smoothing her skirt with practiced efficiency. “The Aldridge family has been invaluable in all of this, Nina. Your mother would be proud.”
I doubt that. My mother’s proud of results, not methods. She’d want spreadsheets, leverage, and quantifiable returns on investment.
“When the Revenants rise, your family will have a seat at the table,” Helen continues. “Everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve sacrificed… it will all be worth it.”
“I look forward to it.” The lie slides out smooth and practiced.
Helen doesn’t notice. She never does.
She gives me one last nod, then crosses to the stairs, her heels clicking against the stone. Her orb follows, drifting after her like a loyal pet.
I watch until she disappears around the corner. Then I reach into my bag, pull out my notebook, flip to a fresh page, and start writing.
Memorial concluded. Cover story holding. Helen anxious but functional. Tobias deteriorating. Avery worsening.
I pause, my pen hovering over the paper.
Deteriorating. Worsening.
They’re such clinical ways to describe what I’ve been doing.
After all, I’m the one who told Avery to meet me in the Crone Chamber, since the truth-telling properties of that space would make her answers to my carefully selected questions land harder.
I encouraged her be open with Tobias about her feelings, so they would grow to trust each other.
I told her about the passages, and I’ll eventually help her pass the trials.
When Avery and Tobias uncover what happened to Oliver, it will look like they discovered it themselves. They’ll be two broken, grief-stricken people, drawn together by circumstance, stumbling into a conspiracy too big to ignore.
No one will trace it back to the Aldridge family. No one will suspect me. My hands will be clean.
I should feel satisfied. My family taught me that information is currency, manipulation is an art, and that it’s important to pit all sides against each other while positioning ourselves to profit from the chaos.
Instead, I’m tired. Because if my family finds out what I’ve been up to, they’ll be horrified.
The Aldridges allied with the Revenants for power, protection, and a seat at the table when the Council falls. We support Gwen’s goal of creating a world where the Council’s thousand-year stranglehold on magical society finally breaks.
And here I am, their perfect daughter, systematically sabotaging everything.
I close my eyes and let the truth settle over me.
I’m not Team Revenant anymore. Maybe I never was.
Gwen promised freedom from Council oppression, but what she’s building isn’t freedom.
It’s just a different kind of control. The Blood Coven wants to use Jade as a weapon, just like the Council would.
They talk about liberation while planning to reshape a teenage girl into a tool for their revolution.
Both sides treat people like pieces on a board. Both sides lie, manipulate, and destroy anyone who gets in their way. The only difference is which lies they tell themselves while doing it.
But the star touched…
I open my notebook again and flip to the page near the back that I’ve been adding to for weeks.
Four goddesses. Four champions. Four wild cards.
Ruby Grace: Champion of Luna, the moon goddess. Magic: earth, wolf shifter, and illusion. Location: Pine Valley. Status: safe harboring and recruiting supernatural forces.
Amber Benson Fairmont: Champion of Sunneva, the sun goddess. Magic: sun, possibly fire. Location: Manhattan. Status: preparing for war.
Sapphire Hayes Fairmont Solandriel Draevor: Champion of Celeste, the star goddess. Magic: water, air, and astral projection. Location: fae realm. Status: allying the Summer, Winter, and Night Courts.
Jade Harrington: Champion of Tempest, the storm goddess. Magic: fire (weak) and storm (strong). Location: Lost Islands (presumed). Status: volatile, unpredictable, and potentially the most powerful of the four.
In the Scorched Circles, Jade threw fire that wasn’t quite fire.
On the hillside near the Obsidian Caves, she pulled lightning from the sky and killed every hellhound while fifty survivors watched.
She trips into catastrophe and stumbles out the other side changed but intact, dragging more chaos behind her every time.
If she survives the Lost Islands, and if Logan brings her to Ambrogio, she’s going to have to make a choice: join the Revenants, destroy the Revenants, or create a third path.
I hope she can decide what she wants to fight for, instead of allowing others to decide for her. And from inside Blaze Academy, surrounded by Helen’s orbs, Tobias’s broken mind, and Avery’s growing curiosity, I’m going to do everything I can to help.
Because someone inside these walls has to fight for the third option.
And if that someone is a first-year Aldridge with singed fingernails and a notebook full of secrets?
Then so be it.