Chapter Fifteen
Haide
I’d be lying if I said I slept well last night which is annoying because one, I didn’t even care for my roommate—she spoke too much—and two, what do I care that these assholes immediately blame me for someone dying?
So my track record isn’t that great.
So maybe I did threaten to kill people as soon as I got here.
And okay, there was that one guy in Warcraft class. But that was a misunderstanding—even if he did need to be knocked down a couple steps. Also, I am sort of hardwired to forget when you die off the island, you’re actually dead and it’s really hard to rewire your brain from that.
But the second Creed mentioned the potential of any unknown powers, I’ve found myself more intrigued.
Which brings me to the issue at hand: People keep staring.
Any other day, I wouldn’t give a fuck. I’d wink, but I’m about one bad decision from being torn away from learning more about myself.
Since I don’t know anything outside of the fact that I was born on an island that was created for evil, magical beings.
It’s a dangerous game, to…hope for something.
A game I do not fucking play on principle.
And yet, here the fuck I am.
Rounding the corner to one of the many identical gothic buildings around campus, I pull out my Pathway Codex and flip through the pages.
Before Elena died, she told me this book would be everything I needed.
That the pages are bound specifically for its owner and will do everything to ensure said owner gets exactly what is destined for them.
I call bullshit, but right now, it’s doing a good job at directing me to where my next class is.
SpellChemy 101. Great. Another fancy class I can suck at so everyone can once again point fingers at the weird feral girl Legend dragged off a prison island.
Thirty faces turn at once, hungry. I bare my teeth, a little. Just enough to say, try me.
The book creaks in my grip, my fingers leaving dents in the leather, but I keep my game face on.
The professor’s silver braid coils around her neck like something venomous as she turns. Her eyes flick over me for half a heartbeat before continuing as if I’m just another desk.
Her chalk scrapes against the board without her doing it. “SpellChemy. The art of twisting what should not be twisted,” she says. I know women like her. There are plenty on the island. They may be small, petite, and charming, but one step and they’d drop you.
I think I like her.
Using the edge of her nail, she cleans the rim of her lipstick while staring at her reflection in a compact mirror. “The science of violence.” She snaps the mirror closed with a forced smile that shows all her teeth. “If you’re clever enough to survive it.”
Someone behind me coughs. The sound wet and desperate, but nobody acknowledges them. I think of the pit back home. The way the weak ones coughed right before blood started coming up.
I miss the island. I miss the rogue nature of my people. How they didn’t give a single fuck for the prim and perfect because Exile was where shit like that went to die.
This place is where people like us do.
I stare at the board. Floating chalk writes symbols in a language that isn’t mine and draws shapes that look like they’d crawl under your eyelids. I can’t read it. Not yet. Maybe never.
My face gets hot, and I want to break something.
I can’t do this. Spell casting? Hell no. The only thing I know how to cast is my fist.
I don’t even think I’ve ever heard a spell before.
“Haide?” The teacher calls. I lift a brow in answer. Her lips twitch. Not a smile. A dare. “Since you’re so eager to participate, why don’t you demonstrate?”
My lips roll beneath my teeth. “Um, at what point between”—I point to the door and back to myself—“did I give that impression?”
A few snickers ripple through the room. Fuckers.
I stand, slow, deliberate. The book presses against my thigh as I make my way to the front of the class.
“What’s the spell?” I ask, voice rough. As if I know shit about spells.
“Something simple.” Professor Astra flicks her fingers. The chalk scribbles out a sigil consisting of three jagged lines that intersect like a broken star. “Light a candle.”
I stare at it. Then at her.
She doesn’t blink, and I swear I see a hue of purple swim through her blue eyes. “Magic isn’t just about power, Haide. It’s about precision.”
My eyes snap toward hers, narrowing slightly.
Precision?
Excitement, or something close to it, unfurls low in my stomach. A hum of promise I’ve never felt. Precision, I understand, and the idea that magic might answer to that makes the air taste suddenly stupidly sweet.
Because I know precision.
Instinctively, intimately.
I mean, no shit, right? It wasn’t a choice, but a requirement when you come from where I do.
Especially when you’re born there as the witch of the isle informed me I was.
I am nothing if not the picture of survival.
And survival comes from instinct and instincts are a product of precision.
If not the other way around. Either way, I’m made up of both.
Back home, there was no better fighter, no better hunter or builder.
Precision.
Professor Astra’s lips twitch and I swear she can see it, but she’s no longer the object of my attention.
I reach out, fingers hovering over the sigil. The air hums, but it’s not for me. It’s laughing.
Fine. Let’s see what happens when I improvise.
Chalk dust powders my fingertips. I exhale through my nose, slow, before pressing my palm flat against the sigil.
The class holds its breath. I hope they fucking choke on it.
I don’t whisper the incantation. I growl it, like a curse. A promise. The sigil twists under my hand, the lines moving off the board. My palms begin to warm, and heat spreads through my arm. It’s warm and…right, somehow. Like the fire isn’t rising in me but waking for me.
A low thrum rolls beneath my skin. It’s primal and hungry, as if something buried in my bones has been waiting for this exact spark.
The heat curls up my wrist, as comforting as a wood flame fire on the beaches of my home.
It tingles like recognition, like my body is remembering something my mind has never even learned.
Is this what magic feels like?
I focus harder.
A pillar of black flame erupts, skating the ceiling, casting the room in eerie, flickering light.
My smile splits my face.
I fucking did it!
The professor’s braid unravels a fraction, just enough to see the pulse in her throat jump.
I turn my head, just slightly. Thirty pairs of eyes stare back, wide and white-rimmed.
One girl snatches the grin off my face. Seated in the front row with blond hair and wearing the same prissy face that most Argents carry.
Her hand’s covering her mouth, a pearl—fucking pearl—choker around her neck.
The professor’s voice cuts through the white noise ringing in my head. “Well. That’s…one way to do it.”
I smirk at the girl, slow and feral, before blowing out the flame. “I might like this class after all.”
Professor Astra clears her throat. “It appears you may have found your niche, Ms. Haide.”
Twenty minutes later, I jump up to hurry out with the rest of the class, but a barrier pops up before me, trapping me.
My brows furrow. I search for the source of the spell and find the professor staring right at me.
She puts her palm up, curling her fingers as if to call me to her in the creepiest, unnecessary witchy way I’ve ever seen. The barrier falls and I head right for her.
She smiles at someone behind me then seals us off once again. “That was good work today.”
“I know.”
Professor Astra chuckles, dipping her chin, but then her expression turns serious.
“As soon as you depart today’s lesson, crossing the threshold from class to hall, your codex will grow in knowledge.
” She points to the book in my hand. “Inside, you’ll find many spells you may practice outside of class.
The grounds surrounding the university are protected, so stay within the wards.
You may use the Casting Fields or Flying Grounds should you wish to practice. And something tells me that you will.”
“Something tells you right.” This is the first thing I’ve been successful at here, and I need to know if there is anything more to it.
I need to know if Creed was right.
Professor Astra nods lightly, holding my gaze, and my spine prickles in alert.
I cock my head. “Now that you got that out, what is it that you truly wanted to say?”
“Be careful when calling on fire,” she says without pause.
“Why?”
“Because you are no Fae, which means you do not possess elemental magic, and yet the element was eager to answer your demand. Dare I say, it was compelled to.”
Her words loop in my mind, and even by the third pass, still make little sense. “You know, for being a school, all you people in charge could really benefit from a speaking class or something.”
Professor Astra’s brows raise in surprise, but I just pop a shoulder and head out. For the first time, I’m not rushing to avoid the failure, a feeling I didn’t even know before this fucking place, but the opposite.
Today, I did something a real gifted can do.
Legend is going to—
My feet freeze mid-step.
No. We don’t run to royals to…ew. Share accomplishments?
“I swear to the gods, Haide,” I murmur to myself. “Keep your head fucking straight. You don’t want to impress him. The opposite, in fact.” He would smirk and say he couldn’t wait to see more, and he’d mean it.
More of that warmth stretches across my chest and I scrape my nails across it, annoyed.
Ugh! Stop.
Pushing through the sea of gifted, I can’t help but stiffen. My mind might be high on magical fumes, if that’s a thing, but my body feels wound tight, just waiting for one or more to prove themselves a threat. Or attempt to come off as one, anyway.
A few hundred steps later I’m crossing paths with others.
I mean, damn, how many fucking students does this place have?