I had no energy. My arms were weak from holding myself up. I could barely wipe the drool from my mouth. And yet.
I spun on him. “Because I didn’t feel like eating a raw onion for dinner,” I snapped, omitting that it was all I’d found that was edible. “But, by all means, if you have a brilliant recipe idea for onion, fennel seed, and turmeric, please share.”
In response, Leland tossed a wrapped protein bar at me. I didn’t even try to catch it and let it fall to my feet. The sweatshirt, the transmitter, the anti-nausea tablet I didn’t take — it was enough. I didn’t want anything else of his.
Leland picked up the protein bar, this time politely holding it out to me.
I looked away. “I don’t want it.”
“Take it.”
“Stopgiving me things.”
“Start making an effort to take care of yourself,” he said, “and I will.”
“I do take care of myself.”
“Do you? Because if that were true, you never would’ve let me in your house.”
I didn’t appreciate that comment. I knew it had been a mistake.Imade a mistake. Dad was home, and I was here.
“Leave me alone, Leland. I don’t need your protein bar.” Iturned to face a bush, my vision blurring as colors swirled worse than before.
He nudged the back of my hand with what I assumed was the corner of the wrapper. “I don’t like the blueberry ones,” he said. “You’ll be doing me a favor. Otherwise, it rots in my pocket realm.”
I took it from him, whether in spite of or because I knew he was lying . . . I didn’t know. It was an inconsequential thing to lie about — not liking blueberry. But I took a spiteful bite, and we went on our way down the dirt path through the forest.
I suspected it was the protein bar — not the distraction of walking across uneven ground — that cured my motion sickness immediately. The sour-sweet taste was still lingering on the back of my tongue, and already I felt more energized, stronger. When the empty silver foil wrapper crinkled in my hands, Leland made it disappear with a Vanishing spell. It was his spell to waste, I thought.
“Do you know how the Blessing works?” he asked, after we’d made some decent headway, now deep into the forest’s breathtaking dark greens. It would’ve been a pleasant hike — scenic leaves, the sound of our shoes skirting roots in tandem over a backtrack of rustling — if I wasn’t in Everden with Leland.
“No,” I admitted, mad at myself for never asking Ash how it worked.
He peeled back a branch so I could continue down the dirt path unobstructed. “Want to?”
“Fine.”
“Eight trees,” he explained, “one for each school of magic.”
Eight trees, yet they call this place the Circle of Seven. A probable dig at Dark Witches, Everden’s outcasts before the torch was passed to Allwitches. Though, my understandingwaslimited to the writings of the Echelon Jaxan D’Oron, who, as overseer of the School of Dark Magic, was naturally sympatheticto his jurisdiction. What I’d gleaned was, light witches don’t like Dark Witches because, back when Dark Witches could still cast Curses, Dark Witches used to be more powerful than them. And in the last three hundred years, though everyone’s power — light and dark alike — had drastically diluted, only Dark Witches had grown in population, their numbers nearly overtaking all seven schools of light magic combined.
The path downhill descended at a steeper grade, causing me to take quick, short strides and shift my weight forward to stop myself from slipping. At a tricky curve requiring some scrambling over a cluster of small boulders blocking the entire width of the dirt path, Leland went first, navigating the obstruction with ease. He landed on the other side, offering his hand to me. I side-stepped down, leaving his hand hanging there, instead scraping my palm on the tree I used for balance.
“Eight trees?” I reminded him, deliberately ignoring his hands hovering to spot me in case I slid.
He waited for me to make it across before answering, “They form a ring around a clearing, the place where all the magic in the ether is channeled. Priestesses collect magic from the trees in its sap form, then turn it over to the Echelons. It’s given to witches at a ceremony called Selection, which all incoming first years will attend on August 1.”
I already knew all this but let him keep talking.
“That’s where the Echelons dole out magic. You drink it. You will it to fuse with your blood, then you can spellcast. The official purpose of the Blessing, far as I can tell, is to make sure you drink the right one.”
“Is there anunofficialpurpose?”
That, he didn’t answer. “For now,” he continued, “you’ll stand alone in the middle of the clearing and wait for a tree to bow. Each one represents a school, and whichever bows will be the school of magic you’re blessed with. If all seven of the light magictrees do, it means you’re an Aspirant.”
I wrinkled my brows in confusion.
“A Seven?” tried Leland.
