“Don’t look so surprised, Professor,” Olivia-May sneered, a cruel twist to her smile. “Seems this poor, helpless student isn’t so helpless after all.”
“Why are you doing this?” Isla forced out, straining against the ice. She had to break free. She had to reach Andrew.
Olivia-May’s eyes glittered. “Because I should have finished what I started the day I froze that pool. My plan went to pot, but not this time.”
Isla stared at her, shocked, wounded. “You tried to kill me?”
“Oh, don’t look so heartbroken.” Olivia-May’s tone had turned mocking. “Yes, I failed then, but I won’t today. You see, I’ve been denied my rightful place in this world too many times. Professor Davies gave Jimmy the offer that should have been mine. A seat at the table. Power. Respect. I won’t be made to wait, to beg, to work twice as hard for half the recognition just because I was born a woman. No, I’ll take what’s owed me.”
Her voice hardened, almost fervent. “There are only two kinds of people, Isla. Those who give until they’re hollow, and those who take until they’re full. I refuse to be the former.”
“That isn’t strength, Olivia-May,” Isla said, her voice trembling with fury. “That’s corruption. It won’t bring you happiness. It won’t bring you peace.”
Olivia-May gave a cold laugh. “Peace doesn’t pay. The wagestheypay are worth more than any position I’d ever claw my way to in your world of lectures and libraries. A man fails, and he’s ambitious. A woman fails, and she’s weak. I won’t play that game.”
She leaned closer, her smile like a knife. “They wanted to recruit you. Your intelligence tempted them. But I’m glad you refused. You are too soft. Too much of an idealist. You still believe the world rewards goodness. That’s your weakness, Professor.”
Isla heard Andrew groan in pain, his chains rattling as he tried to move.
“Let Andrew go. You have me now. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Oh, I think not. Do you know how many times I tried to kill you? But he was always there, following you around like a besotted puppy. I think the Ossa Arcana would be pleased to have me rid them of you both.”
Isla pressed her palms against the frozen bars, her breath sharp in the cold. Olivia-May’s words still rang in her ears—bitter, hungry, so certain that power could only be seized. But life, Isla thought, wasn’t about clawing and taking, about silencing others to prove yourself.
True strength lay in patience, in hard work, in growth—the way roots split bedrock not through force alone, but through persistence. Equal rights were vital, yes, but not earned through destruction. She wanted a life where she lifted others, not where she pulled others down so she could stand tall.
Isla dropped to her knees in her prison, and Oliva-May laughed at her supposed weakness.
“I want you to watch your Fated professor die, then you will see that love is weak—only power endures.”
Isla let her laugh as she pressed her palms onto the ancient floor, not wanting her student to see as her palms glowed green. She called and the rubble answered. Dust, particles, and oldmortar from the ancient building rose rapidly in a choking cloud, and she guided all of it to Olivia-May.
Looking up through the ice bars, she saw the fine powder of centuries clinging to her student’s skin, her lashes, her breath.
Olivia-May screamed in fear and anger, but with Isla’s encouragement, the particles thickened too quickly for her to retaliate, fusing into a shroud that wove itself tighter and tighter around Olivia-May. The crumbling mortar and fractured stone knitted together with the dust, layering over her limbs, her chest, her face, until she stood bound like a figure in an ancient tomb—mummified by the very history she had sought to corrupt. This university was a place of learning, of growth. Not a place to take the easy way out. It was as if the building demanded justice.
Isla’s icy prison crumbled away as Olivia-May crashed to the floor, a solid mass unbending, the dust still holding her tightly bound. Isla kept her encased in the dust, but she guided the dust to free its captor’s mouth. Isla didn’t want to kill her, despite the fact that Olivia-May would have ended her own life and Andrew’s so callously. She leaned over the girl, her hand hovering over her mouth as she felt for breath. Her palm glowed, waiting to heal if not. One breath came, then two. She was alive. Edmund could deal with her now.
She spun, rushing to Andrew where he leaned heavily against the wall, his face drawn and ashen, blood still darkening the stone under his leg. Her stomach clenched at the sight. Dropping to her knees, she pressed both palms over the wound. Her hands glowed green, warmth spilling from her chest into her fingertips. She willed the torn flesh to knit, the vessels to seal, the bleeding to still. For a heartbeat, nothing happened—then the glow deepened, and she felt the answering pulse of life beneath her hands.
Andrew gasped, the pain etched in his face softening. Color returned faintly to his cheeks, and she sagged forward, almost weeping with the relief of it. Isla wanted to stroke back a strand of hair that had fallen to his forehead, but her hands were soiled.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I remember a time in the 1300s when you healed me from a similar wound. Your eyes looked just as worried then as they do now. You’re a handy woman to have around.”
Isla laughed; she couldn’t help herself. He tried to pull her onto his lap, but the movement was awkward.
“A little help, darling—I don’t have the muscles to lift you.”
“Andrew,” she laughed again, “your leg has just been healed. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Healed, exactly. Now come, let me hold you for a moment. And I’m not too much of a weakling to hold you once you’re settled.”
“But all the blood...”
Andrew lifted his hand, and the liquid shimmered. The crimson stains quivered, then lifted away from the floor as well as his clothes and skin, drawn into tiny, suspended droplets. With a flick of his fingers, the water separated from the iron-rich red, leaving the blood’s pigment to fall like harmless dust while the purified water dispersed into the air. It was rather a disgusting sight.
Isla inelegantly clambered onto his lap and let him hold her. Neither spoke, just breathing in sync. This was how Harold found them, his long strides echoing down the hall. The vice chancellor’s salt-and-pepper hair was swept back as always, his presence as commanding as ever.
