Chapter 1: Everly
The first time someone tried to kill me, I tasted it before the lightning hit. Metal and ozone on the tip of my tongue.
I thought it was just a storm like any other, but here at Nyxhaven University, there’s no such thing as a normal occurence. I know that now.
The sky was clear when I walked out of the lecture hall, a balmy September afternoon in Massachusetts, the kind of weather that makes you believe the blue horizon could go forever. Then the clouds rolled in, fat and black as a bruise, descending from nowhere to slash through the sky like an open wound.
I looked left and right, saw the same blue sky stretching over everywhere on campus exceptright above my head,and felt a terrible foreboding. Seconds later, the rain hit me all at once. A solid wall of water threw me to my knees, soaking me in seconds. My brand new charcoal grey blazer stuck to my skin, the yellow sundress I was wearing underneath no protection from the rain. I stumbled to my feet, clutching my bag to my chest in a vain effort to protect my used-but-new-to-me laptop.
That was when I looked around—for help, of course—and saw the other students. Unlike me, they were dry. Even if the clouds cast them in shadows, there was no rain on their heads. Their black blazers, grey leggings, and jewel-toned purple and emerald silk button-ups were all perfectly dry.
The storm was a circle, maybe twenty feet in diameter, and I was standing in the exact center of it. Or, more accurately, it was positioned directly over me.
Someone laughed. A girl with hair bleached to platinum white—who I think I recognized from my study hall—called out, “Scholarship kid doesn’t know a single shield spell!”
Heat flooded my cheeks, only to be instantly cooled by the deluge. Here was another I was lacking after coming from the mundane world outside. I clutched my bag against my chest, making the broken sphere inside clink audibly against my laptop, reminding me of all the ways in which I’d failed that day.
But I’m Everly Grey, eternal optimist, friend to many and bully to none. I made it a point not to give into despair, no matter the odds, and that wasn’t going to change now. So I threw my shoulders back, put my chin up, and strode down the wide-open pathway towards my dorm room. It was just a little rain, after all—nothing a hot shower and change of clothes couldn’t fix.
Except the storm clouds were following me.
Like a dog on a leash. Like a puppet with a very cruel master.
I sped up—the storm sped up too. So I started jogging, shoving my bag beneath my arm to try to keep its contents dry. Only the storm followed me, not just across the quad, but all the way into Bellamy Hall itself.
As I raced up the staircase, I looked above my head to see that a small, angry black cloud was floating along the ceiling. And it was starting to spark and zap with latent electricity. I couldn’t bring that to my room—not only would it destroy all my things, but my roommate, Brittany, would absolutely kill me. That was one thing I was certain of.
So I went the only place I could think of at moment’s notice: all the way up the stairs, and to the roof.
The rooftop of Bellamy Hall, I discovered as I stumbled onto it for the very first time, is a flat structure with a glass dome in the center that lets in light to the courtyard below. As I strode across the black roof tiles, gasping in the downpour and trying to figure out what the hell to do, I was greeted by the sight of a single figure in the distance.
At first I thought it was a smoker. Even magical university students have their vices and addictions, after all. But there was no smoke around the figure, I realized as I blinked away the rain. And he didn’t seem to be up there to do anything besides stare at me.
I knew who he was. Atlas Knox, Tempest Fraternity President. They channel storm magic. I’d been warned about him on my very first day, though I hadn’t through the warning would become so relevant so quickly.
That was when I tasted it: metal and ozone, thick on my tongue.
“No.” I jerked my eyes up to the storm cloud above me, which had grown from a quaint little thing to a behemoth. It still only covered me, but now it was nearly as wide as Bellamy Hall itself, and crackling with fury. “No no no…”
As lightning gathered, making my teeth ache and my hair stand on end, I did the only thing I could think of: I set my bag on the ground, prayed for its electronic contents, and ran straight at Atlas Knox.
Because if I was going to get struck by lightning, the bastard who sent the storm was going to go down with me.
The rooftop was slick with rain beneath my favorite pink tennis shoes, and I nearly fell twice. Sheer spite was the only thing that kept my feet beneath me. That, and Atlas didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. Like he didn’t even care that I was coming for him—or, more likely, didn’t think I mattered much.
I could feel the lightning building above me, rattling in my bones, lifting my hair off my shoulders. The air had turned sharp and electric. It was going to shoot straight through me, and I wasn’t running fast enough to make it.
So I launched myself at him with everything I had.
My shoulder caught him square in the chest, sending us both down. His head cracked against the roof tiles as I landed on him. We rolled across the wet surface in a graceless tangle of limbs, and the lightning struck the spot where I’d been standing half a second earlier—close enough that I felt the heat sear my legs and the light half-blinded me, so close the thunder boomed in my ears like it was splitting my head in two.
The storm broke an instant later, and the clouds scattered like someone had cut their strings.
I ended up on top of him, gasping and dripping, my hands fistered in his wet shirt. “Are you insane?”
Atlas Knox looked up at me with those clear blue eyes, his white-blond hair plastered to his head, his expression utterly bored and contemptuous. “Get off me.”
“You tried to kill me!”
