The door hasn’t even finished closing before Locke rounds on me, not with anger exactly, but with something sharp and frayed beneath the surface, something dangerously close to fear wearing the mask of authority. His cloak shifts around him as he steps deeper into the room, and the lantern light carves lines into his face I’ve never noticed before.
“Unrestrained magic,” he says, each word clipped and heavy. “In front of your peers. Have you learned nothing?”
The rebuke lands like a blow, not because of its harshness, but because of how familiar it feels, because it echoes the very tone my father used when the world went sideways and I couldn’t hold the magic down. My spine stiffens instinctively, breath catching somewhere high in my chest. For a moment all I can hear is my pulse, thudding fiercely in my ears, drowning out the quiet of the study.
Liam reacts instantly.
“Locke, enough, she didn’t do it on purpose-”
“This isn’t about intent,” Locke snaps, turning toward him before dragging his attention back to me. “Displaying uncontrolled magic in a classroom, in the presence of an entire cohort of students, puts both of you at risk. This is exactly what we were trying to avoid.”
My hands tremble before I can hide them. I curl them into fists in my lap, trying to anchor myself in something solid, something familiar. Nothing feels steady. Nothing feels like it belongs to me, not my breath, not my thoughts, not even the space I occupy in this room.
Liam takes a few steps forward, placing himself halfway between us as though trying to shield me from Locke’s rising frustration. “She didn’t mean for anything to happen," he says quietly, but his voice has an edge, one born of years where the slightest misstep meant pain. “You know she didn’t.”
Locke exhales through his nose, the sound weary rather than dismissive. He presses his palms flat to the surface of his desk, leaning heavily as though even speaking the next part costs him something.
“Intent doesn’t change the consequences,” he says, slower this time, the anger thinning into something that looks more like sorrow. “Harper, whatever is happening inside you is growing stronger. Less stable. And if you cannotcontrol it, others will notice before we are ready for them to know.”
A chill creeps through me, pooling low in my stomach. I stare down at the floor, unable to meet either of their eyes. Control was supposed to be the one thing I could cling to here. The one part of myself I could shape into something acceptable. Something safe.
But lately… it slips.
Without warning.
Without reason.
And the more I try to trap it, the harder it fights to break free.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper, though it sounds pathetic even to my own ears. “I was just...there was too much happening, and the dummy wouldn’t stop, and I-”
“You reacted,” Locke finishes, but not unkindly. He straightens, folding his arms behind his back again, his version of restraint. “And that reaction was powerful enough to draw attention from students who should never be looking in your direction.”
Liam shifts again, posture rigid with worry. “Just tell us what to do,” he murmurs. “We can handle it.”
Locke’s eyes soften at that, but when they return to me, the softness hardens into something heavier, something weighted by truths he has not yet spoken aloud.
“You must understand,” he says, voice quieter now, “this is no small matter. What stirred in that classroom… it was not a simple surge. And it was not an accident.”
A pressure builds behind my temples again, faint at first, then insistent. I clench my jaw, willing it to fade, to be quiet, to let me breathe.
Liam notices instantly. “Harper?” he says, stepping toward me. “Hey-look at me-”
But I can’t.
Not when Locke is staring at me like he’s already piecing together a truth I don’t know how to face.
Not when I can still feel the echo of that vision lurking just at the edge of my awareness.
Locke’s expression tightens, not out of irritation now, but something far more severe. The lantern light catches on the sharp line of his jaw as he turns fully toward me, and when he speaks again, his tone lands with the weight of a truth he wishes he never had to say aloud.
“Your father...your bloodline, is tied to your magic,” Locke says, each word deliberate, controlled, but shaking with the knowledge behind it. “You know that. Slipups like that are exactly how he finds the both of you.”
The room grows unbearably still.
The syllables strike like thrown stones, cracking open the air around us. Something cold moves through me, a sharp pressure behind my ribs, as though my body remembers what my mind has tried so hard to forget. My father’s voice. His threats. The feeling of running from a shadow you know by heart.
Liam reacts instantly, shoulders snapping taut, breath catching in a way that collapses into anger more quickly than fear. His jaw clenches so hard I hear a faint grind, and he steps forward, putting himself directly between Locke and me as though instinct demands it.
