The one type of question that’s forbidden.
“It could work,” I say, ignoring the risk. “If I can figure out how to harness the resulting vision.”
“You are not figuring outanything.” In the space of a heartbeat, she’s shimmered over to my side of the room, so that we’re standing nose to chin and eye to anger, barely an inch of space left between us. “Getting expelled isn’t going to solve your problems.”
“I’ll only get expelled if they find out,” I tell her, refusing to flinch.
“Which theywillwhen no other question you ask yields a vision,” she hits me with the obvious objection, the reason every Indigo childis warned against asking an open question from the moment they’re old enough to cast the spell.
Because an open question isn’t just awrongquestion—it’s not merely too broad or too vague to pinpoint a path in a meaningful way—it’s a question that encompasses so many possibilities that it serves to antagonize the fates. And while they will, generally, still deign to answer them, they may also decide that every subsequent question would now count as a repeat, and shut you out for weeks, or months, or years. There have even been cases of Indigo Shades losing their ability to cast for good, staying fate-touched forever.
“Come on, Kiri, the risk of that happening is so small.” I hold my ground, stubborn. That is how our magic used to be practiced for centuries before the guild started refining it to a skill. It’s said that in the old days, the most powerful seers didn’t even need to worry about repeat questions, they could just trust that the future would always steer their path away from the cliffs. But since that kind of magic is impossible to sell and even harder to replicate, year by year, question by question, the guild set to streamlining the technique.
They turned a nebulous art into a teachable science.
I’m just no good at wielding my power in the way that they picked.
“Ray, swear to me you won’t do this,” Akari says, clamping her hands around my shoulders. “Swear it right now, or for your own good, I’m telling.”
She’d never tell.
She’d yell at me until one of us dropped dead of exhaustion, but she’d never tell—we’ve known each other too long for that, practically lived in each other’s pockets since the day the Academy assigned us a shared room when we were six. Back then, we didn’t have so many classes in common, nor did we have any idea that I’d prove to be an awful seer while she grew into the most accomplished Orange in our year. We stuck together because my famous name coupled with her useful magic meant that neither of us ever got teased when we were kids. Then as we got older, the bond we’d forged began to transcend the politics of power and the vast mismatch in our gifts. And never, in all those years of breaking into the kitchens after dark, cheating onour homework, and covering for each other’s trysts, has Akari ever threatened to tell. The only reason she’s threatening to do that now is because she knows it’ll knock some sense into me.
Itshouldknock some sense into me.
When I first realized that I was in danger of losing my color, itwouldhave.
But now we’re a month shy of guild selections and I’m staring down the barrel of a problem I can’t fix. An open questioncouldsave my future. If I can control such a difficult feat of magic, the guild would have no choice but to acknowledge my value. And if I can’t, well . . . the worst that’ll happen is I stop having visions altogether—which is exactly what will happen if I fail my trials again.
I can either endanger my magic now or let the Council bind it later.
At least this way, I stand a tiny chance of averting my fate.
I’d be jeopardizing my future on my own terms.
“I’m obviously not going to do it, Kiri.” I squirm out of her grip, and since I don’t yet know if I’d actually have the guts to follow through on this gambit, it doesn’t feel like a lie. Though, in reality, the idea is less a blossoming bud than it is a weed that’s taken root inside my head. Growing, spreading, propagating, sprouting a whole field of wants, and what-ifs, and a hunger to do away with sense. Because the truth is, using my power the way the Academy teaches has never worked for me, and if there’s anyone strong enough to corral the fates without consequence, then it should be the daughter of the two most celebrated Indigos to ever grace the guild.
So maybe I won’t be jeopardizing my future so much as forcing it back into its natural place. Maybe the only way to get the future I want is to stop playing by the rules and take a risk.
CHAPTER 2
RAYA
But it’s not a risk I can take in front of Akari. When the future grants me a vision, I fall into a state of trance. My head snaps back, my eyes blink white, my lips shape a silent recounting of what I see. It’s not a subtle flare of magic; it’s a very obvious tell. And since I’ve never asked an open question before, I’ve no way of knowing if the effects will be as fleeting as a regular vision or if I’d be sucked into a prolonged bout of seeing. Asking it in front of Akari is a non-starter.
Which is a problem given that we’re basically attached at the hip. We share the same dorm, the same schedule, the same friends, and now that I’ve raised the possibility of destroying my future, she’d get suspicious if I were to suddenly break with routine.
So, I bide my time.
I accompany her to the library for our afternoon study session, then down to the dining hall for a bowl of mediocre stew, followed by a game of cards in the common room and a couple of ginger ales. It’s only come the ninth bell that I finally manage to steal away clean. Though instead of heading to the washrooms to scrub off the day, I snake a path towards the seeing tower, the one place in the Academy where no one will bat an eye if they notice me asking the future for help. Where, at this time of night, I’m all but guaranteed to be alone.
Or not, as the case might be.
“How was your bath, Ray?” Akari’s voice greets me the second I push open the door. She cuts a menacing figure, leaned up against the window with her arms crossed and her features draped in shadow,silhouetted like a vengeful ghost among the swirling gray. She must have shimmered here the moment I made my excuses and left her side, beat me to the crime. That’s the other problem with having a friend who knows you inside and out—they can always tell when you’re up to something.
And when they’ll need reinforcements.As I step into the room proper, I realize who else Akari’s drafted in for this task.
“What isshedoing here?” I scowl at her arrogant mistake of an ex. Slender, tall, with deep bronze skin and a cascade of dark curls that falls to her waist, Saleen is the kind of beautiful that turns heads, so I’ve always understood what drew Akari to her—just not what kept them together for three full years when that beauty is very much skin deep. Saleen is self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, and selfish. But by far, the worst thing about her is that she thinks she knows better than everyone else, that she’s somehow morally superior for finding fault with the Council at every turn. I’ve lost count of the number of times I had to pick up the pieces after she decided to start some needless fight about a condemned Shade or some new law she didn’t like, or get into a screaming match about Akari’s ambitions to become a tracker when she graduates.
