I grip the edge of the desk, my heart pounding as the realisation sinks in; it’s not just the garden, whatever is happening…
It’s affecting our power too.
The array of orbs frantically spiralling through the classroom simmer down, and Mr Herringford dismisses us. I don’t know what frightened me more, our powers losing control or the look on Mr Herringford’s face when they did. For a naturally pale man, I did not think he could get any paler.
Turns out I’ve been wrong twice today.
I grab my bag off the back of my chair and sling it over my shoulder, catching Trina’s eyes as I walk out.
“Could this day get any stranger?” She says, her lip ring spinning as she talks to me, exiting the room by my side.
“I know, what the fuck is happening around here!?” I look over to Alex, who is nursing a singed arm. He gives me a deathly stare, and I turn my head quickly, cautious of reigniting his target on my back. Although Ryder did fuck him up pretty good last time, and he hasn’t dared to cross me since or tell anyone about my unsanctioned meetings with a Moon. Still, Alex is and always will be an asshole, so I will keep my distance.
“First fire-breathing bunnies and now this.” Trina forces a laugh, but I can sense an anxiety claiming the tip of her tongue.
The same anxiety that is claiming us all.
As we file through the education wing, the potion class’s door swings open. Panicked voices travel out into the corridor and echo off the arches of the hall, followed by a loud crash of some sort. Trina raises her eyebrows at me, and we both quicken our steps and peer around the door frame.
Cauldrons of bubbling liquid ooze and overflow out of their basins, their pots shaking violently on the tables, leaking their contents onto the surfaces. The cauldrons tense and vibrate like they are going to explode. And the oddities that were once trapped within the glass walls of jars are now running wild amongst the students. Toads spring and hop from each surface, instilling panicked screams around the room, and eyeballs roll over the carpet like they are alive.
The potions students swarm madly around, clutching various ingredients tightly in their trembling hands; my eyes feel dizzy watching them all scramble to calm the boiling beasts. The room soon descends into madness, a shaking pot finally tumbles, throwing up green guts all over the blue carpet. A toad heads towards us, looking for an opening, a chance to escape the insanity unfolding around it, but the green liquid catches up to it and clings to its skin, enveloping the toad in a thick slime. The toad tries to escape from the liquid’s grasp, but its legs are stuck, now one with the potion. Its skin fizzes as the liquid eats away at the toad’s flesh, leaving only the tiny toothpicks of its small bones.
I gulp.
The teacher catches us lurking and slams the door, trapping the hysteria inside with her.
Another loud bang sounds from down the hall, and my head snaps violently in its direction. Like a bird soaring through the wind, a table uproots from the ground and flings across the corridor, crashing and splintering into the far wall. A group of shocked students circulate the destruction that seems to havecome from the Influencing class. I look at Trina, who shrugs her shoulders at me. I’m starting to think this whole school is descending into madness.
“I guess I spoke too soon.” She says as we watch three more objects spiral uncontrollably out of the classroom.
A sea of students runs past us, all frantic, their shoulders barging into us as they run through the corridor. I find myself being pulled with them, dragged with their current. Trina is not next to me anymore; I’m afraid the seas have taken her. The more I resist, the stronger the wave of students takes me. I decide to give in to their motion, to follow their whirlpool even though I don’t know where I will end up.
We file out into the courtyard shoulder to shoulder. A series of gasps and panic strikes the sea of faces, a turmoil twists in my stomach. At first, I thought they were all looking at the greenhouse again, mourning their loss for the second time today. But when I looked a little closer, I realised their heads are all tilted the same way.
They are looking up.
My eyes follow suit and claim the skies, and suddenly, the panic makes sense.
Suddenly, the undying garden dying has a morbid explanation, and I cannot control my heart as fear takes hold of it, squeezing it so tight I fear it may explode.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I am seeing.
The sky is a few shades darker than it was a moment ago, and the clouds hang like grey sheep on the horizon, sparking with electric current and threatening to be struck by lightning. But it is not the storm looming that sparks dread within me.
“Oh. My. Gods.” I hear Nala say as she makes her way through the tumultuous sea towards me. I don’t say anything. There is nothing I could say that would hold enough weight in this moment.
“The sun… It’s dimming.” Her lips tremble with uncertainty, like she does not want to believe that something as terrible as this could be true. But sadly, it is.
The sun stares back at me, and like our power, it is only half the intensity it should be.
Chapter Six
An eerie silence holds the tips of our tongues hostage. The rising and falling of our breaths in the quiet of the archives is now painstakingly evident, like a timer that could go off at any minute; we don’t know which breath could be our last. The very foundation we have built our lives on, that laid every single brick of this castle, is now crumbling down. The Suns are trying to keep calm, many of them refusing to surrender to the bleak truth of losing our sun. But though they may look aloof, they are stoic with anxiety. They walk around in a castle almost made up entirely of windows, refusing to look out of them. The Sun Gods are plastered in portraits watching them from every room, unable to escape their gaze. The Sun is their identity, their religion, the only reason they walk these very halls. I know they are scared. I am too.
Who are we without our power?
River’s words slice through the tension, making me jump.
