Chapter 14
Mastery may tame the flame, but never its nature. Sooner or later, all fire consumes.
—Elemental Mastery IV: The Covenant of Fire
The rest of the month goes by uneventfully for the most part, at least by Whittaker standards.
We nearly lost a Black Squad fire-wielder during the third week of classes.
His attempt at fire basics backfired—literally—and the blast left his face and hands raw enough that his parents brought him home to recover.
A second-year lost three toes in Elemental Dueling after his earth-wielding opponent dropped a boulder on his foot during a counterstrike.
My birthday passes at the end of September—I turn twenty-three, which feels both too old and not old enough for everything I’ve been through this past year.
I haven’t told anyone in my squad—or Noa.
I’m not big on birthdays and try not to draw attention to it.
I celebrate it quietly with a phone call to my mom and an extra dessert from the mess hall that night.
Aside from the expected weekly run-ins with Stella during Potions—where she never misses a chance to roll her eyes or make a passive-aggressive comment about my work—she hasn’t challenged me on the sparring mat again.
Whether that is her decision or someone else’s, I don’t know. And I don’t care enough to ask.
My control is improving. I can execute nearly every elemental task without flinching now. But I’m careful. I watch the others. Measure myself against them—not too fast, not too much. I’ve learned how to sand down the edges of my ability so it doesn’t cut too deep.
Because I’m quickly learning that attention at Whittaker is like currency, and I can’t afford to be expensive.
There was a time before all this when magick came to me as easily as breathing. When wonder was instinct and power wasn’t something to fear.
But now… I feel like a firehose learning how to turn on just a trickle. Or a volcano trying to simmer instead of erupt. Every drop feels like a battleground, every pulse a negotiation. It’s not just control I need.
It’s trust.
In myself. In what I carry.
In the part of me that I’ve been told to fear—even when I don’t say it out loud.
How do you trust the thing you’ve always been warned might destroy you?
I stare through the window beside my bed, watching the trees ripple in the breeze. The water is quiet tonight, but I can feel it.
Calling.
Remembering.
It wants me to remember too.
And sometimes—I wonder if I was wrong to answer.
Because every time I dam it down, try to suppress what I am, I pay for it with headaches that start just behind my eyes and grow into a pulsing, full-body pressure by nightfall. Like I’m holding back a storm and cracking at the seams.
Noa is starting to notice. He thinks I’m straining to force my magick out. But the truth is worse.
I’m killing myself trying to hold it all in.
“It’s not supposed to come easy,” he murmurs. “But it will—little by little. You just started, Cel. Don’t hold yourself to the same standard as people who’ve been wielding for years.”
We are sitting propped against the carved headboard of his bed, my back against his chest, nestled in the vee of his legs. Our bodies fit together like pieces long meant to align. His hands massage my temples in slow, soothing circles.
He’s not mentioning the short years I practiced in secret with Gavrail, and I don’t correct him.
Guilt sits heavy in my throat—lying by omission, letting him believe the wrong version of my learning curve. But I know there is truth to Gavrail’s warnings. The inherent risk in letting anyone know the depth of the power I am only just beginning to understand.
I’ve started researching in secret—visits to the Whittaker Library under the guise of studying.
Books tucked behind other books. Notes hidden in my room.
Passages I mark and copy. Names in news articles I don’t recognize but now can’t forget.
There were Magicks who vanished—Magicks like Hayden, the Black Squad first-year.
Some taken. Others found dead with no trace of weapon or cause. No bruises. No blood. Just… gone.
No one could explain it. And no one really tried.
It’s easier not to ask questions in a world where power is everything and bloodlines hold secrets.
But the one thing they all have in common is that they were all different.
Powerful. Strong. Capable of magick that didn’t fit neatly into anyone else’s rules.
* * *
History class doesn’t help. It just gives my fears more skeletons—and more names.
We’ve started diving deeper into the ancestral lines that weave through the schools and politics of magick. Turns out, magick isn’t just something you have—it is something you inherit, passed through generations like silver or land or secrets.
When something is inherited, it becomes valuable. And when something is valuable, people want to control it.
The bell’s echo hasn’t even finished fading before the room exhales—first-years surging toward the aisle like we’ve been held underwater for an hour and finally allowed to breathe. Chairs scrape. Books snap shut.
Professor Straits remains at the podium, pen still in hand, expression unchanged—as if she hasn’t just dismantled half the class’s social standings with a single lecture.
On the screen behind her, the last slide lingers: a branching diagram of names, crests, and dates, lines knitting together like veins.
Fire lines in red. Earth in green. Water in blue so deep it looks black at the edges.
All the other ancient lines tracing back to just after the Primordial Shattering.
Magick isn’t just something you have—it is something you inherit.
Straits didn’t say it like a revelation. She said it like a fact. Like gravity.
I shove my notebook into my bag, the words still knocking around in my skull. Near me, students whisper—not quietly enough to be polite, just enough to feel like knives trying to dig at my past.
“My mom told me we’re tied to one of the founding orders,” a girl says, half brag, half prayer.
Rozsen looks at her like one would look at a bug you’re about to step on. Elliot, on the other hand, looks entertained. “I mean… it explains everything,” she says under her breath. “All the egos around here.”
I stand, slinging my bag over my shoulder—then freeze when Straits’s voice slices through the noise.
“Miss Farris.”
My pulse trips. I turn slowly.
Straits is looking down at her roster, like she’s already bored before I even answer. “First generation,” she says flatly. “Correct?”
Heat pricks my face. “Yes,” I manage.
“It isn’t unheard of,” Straits continues. “Rare. But magick can… appear latent in a bloodline. Usually, it can be tied to some distant relative. The gene hiding dormant until activated.”
I merely nod, uncomfortable with the attention. I can feel the other squads watching. My own squad watching.
“Your parents are unaware of any magick lineage?” she asks, tone mild.
“No one that we know of.” I try to say it casually, but my face feels tight. Even though it’s the truth.
“Interesting.” She taps her pen once. “Nevertheless, do not confuse rarity with randomness.” She looks me over, eyes sharp. “Magick always has traces. Yours may have a story you don’t yet know about.” She turns away from me then, effectively dismissing me without another word.
I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until I’m out in the corridor with the rest of them—air suddenly too cold, light too bright. The hallway outside the Logistics building is a bottleneck of bodies and voices.
A Blue Squad boy walks backward, talking loudly to his friend. “My dad says the Service keeps registries,” he says. “Like—families. Elemental lines. Who’s paired with who. Wanting to keep the most powerful family lines together.”
“Well, that’s… disgusting,” Rozsen mutters, loud enough for them to hear. Her jaw is tight.
The boy laughs like she’s joking.
She isn’t.
Rozsen catches up to me, her voice low. “So that’s what this is,” she mutters. “Not school. Not training. A racetrack.”
“A racetrack?” I echo.
She nods toward the line of students spilling out, clustering immediately into little packs—already sorting each other into categories the way Straits sorted us on the screen.
“We’re all just a bunch of glorified prized racehorses,” she says. “Whittaker is just a breeding ground for power and privilege.”
I follow her gaze to the groups gathered in the hall.
Old blood.
New blood.
Worth something.
Worth nothing.
Elliot bumps my shoulder as she joins us. “Congrats, Celeste. You’re a mystery. People love a mystery.”
I just shrug and turn to follow my squad down the hall—and stop.
Noa is leaning against the stone just outside one of the classroom doors, like he’s been there the whole time.
A few students notice him at the same time I do. The whispers shift. Reorient.
He’s in his gym uniform, sleeves shoved up his forearms, dense lines of muscle on display.
His brown hair is still a little damp at the edges, like he came straight from training.
My stomach tightens the way it always does when I see him.
Gods, he looks good. Like a Greek statue someone brought to life.
A singular, beautiful point in the chaotic hallway—impossible to miss.
And somehow, seeing him right now—outside a classroom where we just learned about magick and inheritance—makes my heart twist.
His eyes find mine immediately. I take one step toward him, then another.
Noa pushes off the wall, his gaze never leaving mine. “Hey,” he says quietly, the corner of his lips tipping up like a secret, giving me something steady to hold on to.
Before I can answer, a Silver Squad girl edges closer to her friend and whispers, not even pretending she doesn’t want us to hear, “That’s him. Straits mentioned his family name—”
Her friend makes a soft sound, almost awed.
Noa’s jaw flexes once. He doesn’t look at them. But I feel the shift in him—like a door clicking shut.