The soft autumnmorning outside draws the world downward, brings gazes to the wet pavement, shadows into inky spills, gold and red leaves to the grass. I pass customers writing in journals, sipping chamomile tea, or chatting over cupcakes and cookies. The Acroteria at this late hour is quiet. It was the closest place to the hospital. I wasn’t in the mood to go back to my apartment on the southern side of town anyway.
When I come out of the bathroom, having just changed the bandage on my arm like the doctor said to, and return to our booth—the one by the arch made of books—a steaming blueberry muffin waits for me on a small, slightly cracked ceramic plate. Atticus’s doing. He’s always taking care of us.
Raven watches me approach, a feverish glint in her eye. It bothers me a little that she doesn’t seem at all shaken that she practically set me on fire. She almost looks…excited.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, Dorian,” she says when I slide onto the bench. I think it’s the thousandth time she’s said it.
“Yeah,” I say. “Me too. I’m just a little freaked out.”
“I’m really, really sorry,” she says. “As sorry as I am that the book is destroyed. Ugh!”
She’s been apologizing nonstop since we jumped in a cab to the hospital, all throughout when she sat with me in the emergency room, and especially when the nurse smeared gel on my pink and tender skin and wrapped it in gauze. To be honest, Raven’s constant stream of apologies only reminds me that she set me on fire. By accident. But still. Maybe I’m being harsh. Maybe she’s just freaked out like we all are.
Atticus clears his throat and leans in toward us. “What we just did…It was dark. Potent. Frankly terrifying.” He stops, glancing around the cafe again, maybe fearing he’s been overheard, and whispers, “That was nothing like the stuff we’ve seen on campus. They’re struggling to turn roses to ash, and we’re…summoning lightning? Why can’t anyone else do what we can do?”
“Good question.” Raven’s eyes never break away from my arm, even while my hand is hidden. “It felt…” She trails off and doesn’t finish. I almost think she’s going to say “good.”
“What happened afterward wasn’t your fault, Raven,” I say. “It was—”
She nods, her gaze distant. “Power is what it was.”
She’s right, and we’re messing with things we don’t understand. I worry it could have been worse—much, much worse. But I don’t want to say it.
“Maybe we didn’t do anything wrong. What if the spell worked and we just didn’t know what it was supposed to do?” I ask, but the words ring hollow.
Raven doesn’t buy it. “The instructions were clear. I was just lighting a candle, nothing more.” She shakes her head. “No, something was off. Maybe I mistranslated the grammar or got the dialect wrong.”
I point to the table for emphasis. “There is one other possibility. Maybe, in your hands, the spell reacted differently than it mighthave with any normal person. Listen, what if the spell worked exactly how it was meant to? It was an evocation, right? Words change the material world. That’s what Warden Stone said at the recitation. Maybe in less talented hands, the change is quite small. A tiny flame. Coming from you, though, the words had power.Youhave power, and you summoned something far more potent than a little flame to light a candle. In your hands, the spell is able to call lightning.”
“You think?” Raven meets my eyes, her black ones matching mine, a curious look in hers. It’s like I’ve said something she’s always been waiting to hear, but no one’s ever said it before. It’s true, though; we’re all powerful, aren’t we? Our strength is magnified by learning the spells, or perhaps the spells amplify the strength within us.
“It makes some sense.” Raven looks troubled. “I asked my deskmate, Pippa, what kind of magic she can do. Get this—she can tell time without looking at a clock.”
“That’s it?” Atticus is indignant.
Raven rolls her eyes. “Yep, that’s it. I can tell the time without looking at a clock either. I have Google Home.”
I’m completely irritated by this news. “How on earth did she get in, then? Sibylline students are supposed to be the best magicians in the world! I thought they all hadsomething special.”
“Yeah, that something special is money,” says Atticus archly.
Raven blushes. She’s always a little sensitive about her background.
A resigned laugh escapes me, and Atticus’s eyes flash delightedly at the sound of it. I look away, suddenly feeling hot under the collar.
I wanted to kiss Atticus back in the archive…But I couldn’t.Touching him—touching anyone—is like asking me to grip a hot stove or a bolt of lightning. It’s not that I don’t find Atticus attractive, it’s that my crush on Raven is all-consuming. I’d never really noticed him before in that way. And I did find him very appealing last night. I’d never really thought about whether I am attracted to men or women. It’s not something that worries me, thinking I might like Atticus. Curious. I’d always thought I’d wait as long as I needed for Raven to come around.
But what if—what if I was waiting for the wrong person?
“Could we try any other spell?” Atticus asks, shifting focus back to the matter at hand.
“You’d really want to?” Raven looks nonplussed.
Atticus sighs. “I’m not ready to give up. Are you? If we don’t try, we can’t learn. We came here to learn about magic, didn’t we?”
“I guess, but the book was ruined in the fire,” I say. A part of me is almost relieved when I recall how the book burned, but the other half wishes that we could have had another chance. Maybe, with time, we would have been able to control the lightning itself. “We’re back to square one.”
“Plus,” adds Raven, “my landlord is kicking me out. I have to pack up my things—what’s left of my things, anyway—by tomorrow.”
