CHAPTER 9
The darkness within me rose up at the threat, prepared to protect me from the blast.
No! I inwardly shouted at it, frantically trying to shove it down and raise my hands at the same time.
The second I covered my face, the flaming ball exploded like a detonating bomb.
The sound was deafening, but I didn’t cover my ears, too busy protecting my eyes from being burned in their sockets.
I waited for searing pain to rack my body, for my clothing and hair to catch on fire. For my skin to melt off my frame.
Nothing happened.
The intense heat faded, and the fiery glow winked out.
A sudden voice cut through the smoky air. An angry one. I dared to crack open my eyes and peek through my fingers.
“I will not tolerate such undisciplined recklessness in my class, Mr. McGrath,” Professor Seacrest shouted in Blaze’s face.
“This is a demonstration, not a trial, and any grievances you have with other students will not be aired in this arena. That stunt will cost you greatly, now get out of my sight. You’re done here for the day. ”
“But, Professor Seacrest, I—”
“Out!”
Blaze’s face turned beet red. He looked ready to argue some more, but instead, he whirled and stormed off. I watched him go, lowering my hands once more to my lap. My shaking hands.
That had been close. Too close. I’d almost become charred filet mignon.
Angry at him but equally angry at myself for not anticipating the attack, I worked on slowing my frantic pulse. Blaze cast me a scathing look, but in doing so, completely missed the look that Thorne was directing at him.
I blinked. Blinked again. Maybe my brain was fried from all the smoke inhalation, but Thorne didn’t seem pleased that Blaze had almost finished me off. He actually looked . . . pissed. Like really pissed.
Hmm. Probably because he wanted that honor. Well, he couldn’t try to kill me for at least a year, so he’d better get used to the idea of others trying to.
When Blaze was gone, Professor Seacrest resumed the demonstrations as if nothing had happened.
Despite his ire, he hadn’t even checked if I was okay.
At least he’d stopped the fiery blast from pulverizing me.
He might despise my family name like everyone else, but he didn’t want me dead—in his classroom, anyway.
From my peripheral, I saw Thorne resume his spot against the wall, but his posture seemed stiffer than before.
I snuck a glance at him, and sure enough, he was stiff as a board.
A muscle jumped in his rock hard jaw, and I knew he was grinding his teeth together.
His eyes were narrowed to slits, but they were no longer focused on me.
He was watching the other students, even Professor Seacrest, so intensely that I couldn’t help but frown a little.
Good grief, he didn’t have to broadcast to the whole class that I was his to kill. That heated gaze of his practically shouted, She’s mine to destroy. Back off.
Whatever.
The narrow brush with death had soured my mood, and when Thorne swung that gaze my way, my scowl deepened.
Making sure he saw how pissed off I was, I haughtily raised my chin and looked away, blatantly dismissing him.
When I felt his eyes continue to bore holes in the side of my head, my bravado wavered.
Had I seriously just snubbed the most powerful warlock in the third year? What was wrong with me?
Everything, apparently. Might as well own it. At least while my anger held.
Student after student performed their demonstrations, some more impressive than others.
Most of them seemed to be showing off for Thorne rather than their peers or the professor.
Couldn’t really blame them. He was the school’s Head Prefect.
If anyone was going to advance them up the hierarchy ladder, it would be him.
One word of affirmation, and they would shoot from the bottom to the top overnight.
He didn’t appear all that impressed with the demonstrations, though. Even when it was the Cosmics' turn to perform their magic, his expression didn’t change.
Despite my ornery mood, I grew more and more nervous the closer it came to my own demonstration.
What could I possibly show them that wouldn’t make me the laughing stock of the entire class?
If I stuck to simple magic, word would spread like wildfire that I was without a doubt an empty name, one that needed to be erased once and for all.
So busy worrying about my own performance, I almost didn’t notice when Alma Ramirez took the floor.
I forced myself to pay attention to her, certain she’d try to target me somehow.
She turned to murmur something to Professor Seacrest, and with a nod, he walked over to a table on the far side of the arena and returned with what looked like an empty glass vial.
Alma took it and faced the students again, a sly little smirk crossing her lips as she raised her free hand. In an instant, deep blue magic engulfed her palm and fingers. Focusing on the Earth Elementals across the room, she curled her fingers in a “come hither” gesture.
I couldn’t see what happened right away, but one of the Earth Elementals suddenly gasped. Soon, they were all reacting, and I leaned forward in my seat to better see. When I finally realized what Alma was doing, I tensed all over.
Tears. She was stealing their tears.
The targeted witches and warlocks continued to gasp and exclaim as she coaxed the tears from their eyes and beckoned them forward. Instead of dripping to the floor, the tears floated in the air, following Alma’s command by traveling across the open arena and slipping inside the vial.
She targeted group after group, forcing every student she focused on to give up their tears. Even her fellow Water Elementals cried like babies, whether they wanted to or not. When the vial was almost full, she turned to the last group, the Darkens.
While she coaxed the tears from them as well, it became abundantly clear that she wanted to save me for last. As I waited, I sat so straight in my seat that it probably looked like a poker was stuck up my butt. The waiting seemed to go on forever, but not even a minute had passed.
Please run out of time, please run out of time, I silently pleaded.
No such luck.
Finished with the other Darkens, she turned to me, that sly smirk of hers widening.
I braced for whatever she had in store for me, instinctively knowing this wouldn’t end well.
She might not have plans to outright hurt me like Blaze had, but what she wanted to take from me didn’t exist. I hadn’t cried in years.
No matter how hard I’d tried to force the tears out, they wouldn’t come.
She was going to fail. She was going to fail in front of everyone. And it would be all my fault.
I should be glad to see her fail. She’d nearly drowned me, after all, almost causing me to fail the Initiation Trial. An eye for an eye, right? Gran would approve.
But as she curled her fingers at me, beckoning my tears to come forth, I felt no satisfaction when they refused to cooperate. She might fail to procure tears from my body, but that failure would only further mark me as a pariah. As an oddity. Just one more reason to shun me.
When no moisture leaked from my eyes, Alma’s smirk slipped. Curling her fingers again, she tried a second time, but nothing happened.
“Wrap it up, Miss Ramirez,” Professor Seacrest warned. “You’re running out of time.”
Alma’s lips formed a tight line, and she curled all five of her fingers into claws.
I felt the pull of her magic, the command to release my tears.
She pulled and yanked, looking more desperate with each passing second.
My eyes burned under the strain but remained bone dry.
Her hand began to shake, her energy rapidly depleting as my body refused to bend to her will.
“Time, Miss Ramirez.”
With a frustrated cry, Alma clamped her hand into a tight fist and yanked.
I coughed. Coughed again as fluid rapidly filled my lungs.
Pain stabbed my chest, worsening every time I tried to suck in air.
My survival instincts kicked in, and I started to cough in earnest, desperate to clear my lungs, to breathe.
“Enough!” a deep voice barked.
Surprise trickled through me. Was that Thorne?
“Miss Ramirez!” another voice snapped, this one Professor Seacrest.
Alma dropped her hand with a gasp, and I immediately felt my lungs drain.
Coughing a few more times to clear my windpipe, I raised my head to look at her.
She was trembling all over, bewilderment and devastation written on her face.
A lone tear slid down her cheek as she whispered, “Dios mio, that wasn’t supposed to happen. ”
“I should say not,” the professor said, striding forward to take the vial of tears from Alma before she dropped it.
“I’m going to mark that down as a loss of control rather than a blatant attack on a fellow student, but the high bar you set in the Initiation Trial has just fallen, Miss Ramirez. You may take your seat.”
More tears slipped down her face as she left the arena’s center, her shoulders slightly hunched and golden braid falling limply down her back.
One glance at the other students confirmed what I’d feared would happen.
Their expressions ranged from disappointment to pity, the reverence Alma had garnered from her early win now tarnished.
But they weren’t just looking at her. They were looking at me too, openly gawking as if I was an alien creature from outer space—just like I’d predicted.
Too afraid to find out what expression Thorne now wore, I avoided glancing his way.
He might have ordered Alma to stop, but I didn’t for one second think he did so out of concern for me.
Whatever his motives, he certainly didn’t care if I lived or died.
The mood in the arena grew more somber after that.
The students still needing to demonstrate actively steered clear of including me in their performances, casting glances at Thorne so often that I finally caved and peeked at him.
Okay, he’d gone from pissed to downright angry.
No wonder they were all looking at him. His dark mood was definitely affecting their performances.
More than one student lost control of their magic, earning a frown and stern word from Professor Seacrest.
At this rate, I could almost get away with doing simple magic. Almost.
I still needed to show off my Darken affinity somehow, but what could I do that wouldn’t end in disaster?
Before I knew it, the Darkens were being called to demonstrate.
Prudence Calloway, the brunette witch who’d spoken to me earlier, used her magic to engrave her name deeply into the arena’s stone floor.
She waltzed back to her seat with a rather wicked smile, leaving Professor Seacrest to deal with the fact that “Prudence was here” had just desecrated his sacred pentacle.
When my name was finally called, I thought for sure my legs wouldn’t be able to support me. Unfortunately, they did, carrying me to the center of the arena before I could order them to run in the opposite direction.
“Your one minute, Miss Mayweather,” Professor Seacrest began, “starts now.”
I froze. Head to toe, I couldn’t move a muscle. My heart stopped. My mind blanked. For several long seconds, I did nothing but sightlessly stare at my expectant audience. This was hell. This was worse than hell. I’d rather be in hell than stuck in the middle of this arena right now.
“Time is halfway up, Miss Mayweather,” the professor said, his voice distant and echoey as if he’d called down a very long tunnel.
Great. I was epically failing this demonstration. What I wouldn’t give to disappear right now. Every cell in my body wanted to disappear, so badly that I shut my eyes and wished for it to happen. Willed it to happen.
Disappear, disappear, disappear!
The magic in my veins stirred, eagerly responding to my cry. I was suddenly plunged into darkness, the world around me muting. I ripped open my eyes to a sea of billowing black smoke. No. Shadow. Panicking, I tried to wave it away, but . . . but where were my hands? Where was I?
No, no, no, no.
I’d disappeared, all right. I’d turned myself into a shade.