Jade
The moment we enter the tunnels, Logan’s giving me instructions in that clipped, efficient way of his.
“I’ll go in first and handle the immediate questions,” he summarizes what he said when we’re almost there. “You follow in ten minutes. If anyone asks—”
“I stepped out for air and got disoriented in the storm,” I repeat his earlier words. “I know.”
“What you did tonight….” He pauses at the door that leads back into the ballroom, and for just a moment, I see a flash of the man who confessed his darkest secrets to me on the Crown. “Channeling that lightning and standing by me after learning the truth about what I did…”
“Is exactly what you would have done for me.” I hold his gaze, leaving no room for doubt.
He nods once, understanding. “Ten minutes,” he says again. “Not nine, not eleven. Ten.”
“I can count, Logan.”
A ghost of a smile crosses his lips. Then he presses his sigil hand to the door and disappears into the shimmering archway, like he was never there at all.
I start counting. Each second drags, giving me too much time to think about Oliver’s eyes going blank, about Evie’s upcoming grief, and about the lies I’ll have to tell for the rest of my life.
By the time I hit three hundred, my hands are shaking so badly I have to press them against the cold stone wall.
At four hundred, I’m fighting not to throw up.
At five hundred, I’m practicing my confused face in case anyone’s watching when I emerge.
When I finally step through the shimmering door, the first thing I notice is the quiet. The music’s stopped. There’s no laughter, and no chatter. Just a low rumble of worried voices punctuated by the occasional sob.
Each step I take out of the alcove toward the balcony is heavy, like there are weights strapped onto my ankles, and when I reach the rail, I gasp at the scene before me.
Because the space looks like a hurricane hit.
Water pools on the floor where rain made it through windows.
Decorations hang in sodden ruins. Students huddle in groups, their costumes drenched and clinging.
But it’s the center of the room that makes my blood run cold. Because the unity flame—that massive, eternal fire that’s supposed to burn forever—is out. Not just dimmed, but out. Dead.
The other fires flicker weakly, like they’re mourning their fallen center.
Somehow, I swallow down my fear and force myself to walk normally down the stairs, each step feeling like a year.
My dress is a muddied mess, although the excuse Logan crafted for me will explain that.
I used the rainwater to wash the blood from my hands, and it was easy to find the heels I kicked off in the tunnels.
But how will everyone miss the lightning in my veins and the death clinging to my skin?
“Oh my gods, Jade!” Evie appears at my elbow, grabbing my arm. Her fingers dig in hard enough to hurt, but I welcome the pain. It’s real. It’s grounding. “Where have you been? Are you okay? When that storm hit—”
“I’m fine.” The lie comes automatically. “I stepped out for some air and got turned around when the storm started.”
She studies me carefully, and I see the exact moment a different type of fear enters her eyes.
“You weren’t with Oliver?” she asks.
I force my face to stay neutral, and my voice to stay steady. “No. He’s probably with his friends.” The lie tastes like betrayal, and I look around, desperate to change the subject. “What the hell happened here?”
“No idea.” She shakes her head, gazing around with a sad look in her eyes. “One minute everything was normal, and the next this massive storm comes out of nowhere. Lightning hit the castle, the windows blew open, and the Unity Flame just... died.”
My storm. The one I called in anger and grief and used to help murder someone.
“People are saying it’s an omen,” Evie continues, her voice dropping. “That something terrible is coming.”
I want to laugh. Or cry. Or both. Because something terrible already came. It’s standing right next to her, wearing a ruined dress and a fake confused expression.
“Attention!” Constance’s voice cuts through the chaos.
She stands next to where the unity flame should be burning, power radiating from her in visible heatwaves.
“Due to the unprecedented weather event and the... current state of the unity flame, tonight’s festivities are concluded.
All students will return to their dorms immediately. ”
Nobody moves. There are too many questions, and there’s too much fear.
“Now.” Her final, single word carries enough heat to make everyone flinch.
People shuffle toward the exits, and I trip over my fair share of feet as I try spotting Logan in the chaos. Finally, I catch a glimpse of him across the room, directing students, keeping order, and looking appropriately concerned.
Our eyes meet, and I see my own fear reflected there. Then he looks away, back to the business of adapting, surviving, protecting, and keeping everything in control. Always control with him.
I’m almost to the door when fingers close around my elbow. The grip is light, but unmistakably a command.
Constance.
“Jade.” The headmistress’s voice is perfectly pleasant. Too pleasant. The kind of pleasant that makes smart people run, although that would be a poor decision right now, given the suspicion it would draw to myself. “A moment of your time.”
She guides me to a small alcove that’s partially hidden behind a scorched tapestry.
Sweat beads on my forehead, and I don’t know if it’s from her magic or my own terror. Probably both. “What’s going on?” I ask, remembering Logan’s instructions from earlier—act confused and clueless. “The storm… the flame…”
Her eyes bore into mine. “Can you explain how a storm powerful enough to extinguish a flame that has burned for over a thousand years appeared from nowhere on a clear night?”
My blood runs cold.
Because she knows. It should be impossible, but somehow, she knows.
“How would I be able to explain that?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel, which is a minor miracle.
She pauses, sizing me up. “Maybe you don’t now, but eventually, you will,” she finally says, her words carrying a weight that makes my bones ache. “Because all the stars have chosen their champions. Soon, we’ll learn if they chose wisely, or if they doomed us all.”
“I’m sorry, what?” The words burst out before I can stop them. “Stars? Champions? I don’t understand.”
But I do. I really, really do. Because it was all in that book Thad gave me.
When the stars align and darkness rises, four daughters of Selene will choose their champions. Sun, Moon, Star, and Storm—each selecting a mortal vessel to carry their light against the coming darkness. Only when all four unite can the balance be restored.
I’m one of those champions. Chosen by T—no, Tempest. The storm goddess.
Her storm lives inside me now. And you can sure as hell bet I’m going to track her down and find out what exactly she did to me, and why.
Screw the old books. I’m going to go straight to the source.
“Tell me, Jade.” Constance tilts her head and sniffs, as if she can smell my lies. “Do you know what the unity flame represents?”
“Unity between the houses?” My voice comes out smaller than intended.
“Balance.” She stares down her nose at me, her voice calm and sharp at the same time.
“The flame represents balance between order and chaos, tradition and change, the known and the unknown, light and darkness. It’s burned without interruption for over one thousand years.
Now, the Revenants are rising—the living dead that defy the laws of nature.
Some of them may be hiding in plain sight, perhaps even within these walls. ”
“What does that mean?” I no longer have to pretend I’m confused, because now, I thoroughly am confused. “What are Revenants?”
But my question goes far deeper than that—deeper than Constance can know.
Because why did Oliver mention Revenants before Thad killed him?
The events at the Scorched Circles happened so quickly it’s hard to keep track of them all, but Oliver said something in the tunnels about Thad recruiting Revenants, and not wanting Evie to be recruited, and then Logan said Oliver didn’t want Evie to be exposed to Thad’s “radical” ideas…
“It means change is coming,” Constance interrupts my stream of thoughts.
“The kind that reshapes worlds, topples kingdoms, and rewrites the laws of magic. The kind that requires champions willing to burn the old world to create the new, and to destroy those made from a darkness that shouldn’t exist.”
I shake my head, still not understanding.
There’s so much I want to know. But Logan told me to act clueless. To lean into the role of girl who knew nothing about the supernatural world before coming here and is terrible at using magic.
So, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
For now.
“Why did you pull me aside to tell me this?” I ask. “I’m a first-year who barely has any magic. I’m nobody.”
She studies me as if she thinks I have the answer to my own question. Which, fair.
“Return to your dormitory.” She straightens, dismissing me without giving me an answer. “Tell no one of this conversation. And Jade?”
I pause at the edge of the alcove.
“When the time comes—and it will come—remember that the gods chose their champions for a reason. Even if that reason ends in lightning and ash.”
With that, she’s gone in a burst of flames, leaving me standing alone in her fiery wake, wondering what in the fresh hell type of craziness I got sucked into.
These past few hours changed everything in ways I haven’t had time to process yet.
All I know is that tomorrow, I’ll have to wake up and play the confused first-year who has no idea why Oliver Thorne and Professor Thaddeus are missing.
I’ll have to comfort Evie while knowing I watched her brother die.
I’ll have to look Avery in the eye and pretend I don’t know why her emberlink bond is shattered.
But tonight, I crawl into bed, close my eyes, and see the Unity Flame dying. A thousand-year-old tradition murdered by my hand. I see Oliver’s blood mixing with rain. I see the future rolling toward me like the storm I called into my hands—dark, terrible, and inevitable.
If everything I learned tonight is true, and Tempest chose me as her champion, then gods help us all.
Because I’m no savior. I’m the storm. And storms don’t save.
They destroy.