They guessed wrong about me back home, and they’re wrong about Other Elodie too. I have to assume she had the same glim as me, considering we came from the exact same family lines with all the same energies coursing through them.
I’m not bloom but blight: the talents of binding and destruction.
The professors pretend both are of equal value, but I’ve heard the way people talk about children of the top families who reveal a blight glim. I’ve seen kids break down sobbing when they find out they’ve been assigned to the blight practicum during the sorting at age ten.
I doubt any of them ended up with a glim as horrifying as mine.
I don’t have to worry about that in this reality, though, because there’s no way in Helheim I’ll still be here in a year. What’s a little more playing along?
Perez gives us a wry smile. “You’ll all hope you’ve got a refined glim, which does make it a little easier from the start. But even those can pack quite a punch when they first emerge, and some of you will have a raw talent. Either way, you all need to learn as much control as you can before that day.”
Would the horrific evening in the parking lot have gone differently if I’d gotten four more years of training before my glim woke up? Even after three years of working with my unsettling power—of digging up every shred of supernaturalinformation and trying every technique I stumble on, no matter how much a longshot, to suppress it—I’ve never been able to stop the main effect from kicking in automatically when triggered. The best I can do is guide the initial direction.
Chances are someone was always going to die.
Our professor is motioning to a row of metal pinwheels he’s set out on the grass in front of us. “You’ve done a lot of exercises on your own. It takes even more control to work in collaboration with your peers. I’ll be pairing you off, keeping skill levels in mind. Between the two of you, you need to set the blades spinning, light them up by whatever method works best for you, and float them up to that ledge by the roof.” He points to the opposing building.
“Just that?” Salvatore calls out with a teasing lilt from still way too close behind me.
Professor Perez lifts his eyebrows. “If you want a decent grade, you’ll do it without any crashes or setting anything other than the pinwheel on fire.”
In any other class, the teacher might encourage us to try to sabotage each other. The one relief of the practicums is that they’re focused onreducingharm above all else.
I enjoy that relief for the three seconds before Perez tips his head to me. “Miss Devine and Mr. Worth, you can get started over there.”
Fuck a firedrake. I can’t claim a talent for precognition, but I already know this pairing is going to end badly.
Dragging in a breath, I walk to the first trinket in the row without glancing over at Byron. Perez did say he was pairing us up based on skill, and we’re the top two students in our year. Other Elodie must have had to work with him a lot.
At least I can avoid whatever feral mood Salvatore’s gotten himself into. Perez has just directed him and Stella to worktogether—although when I peek over at them, Salvatore is watching me rather than his partner.
I flick my gaze away in time for Byron to plant himself a couple of paces away from me, his expression impassive. I definitely don’t have to worry abouthimmaking any come-ons. He was never liberal with overt flirting even after we were matched.
It’s easier not to think about my Byron if I don’t meet this one’s eyes. I focus on the pinwheel instead, but my mission itches at the back of my skull while the fractured bond stings my palm.
He might be one of the last people to have seen Other Elodie the night she died. But how the heck can I find out if he knows anything without sounding like an amnesiac?
Maybe if I phrase it like a challenge rather than a question…
“Together again,” I say coyly. “This shouldn’t be hard. You have no idea what I got up to after last week’s special practicum.”
Neither do I, of course.
Ideally, Byron would retort that I told him what I was going to do or that he saw me sometime later that night. Instead, he replies in a voice as flat as a crop circle, “You have no idea how little I care. Let’s get on with it.”
Okay, he probably didn’t see or hear anything then. One more possibility checked off my list.
It’s getting awfully short.
Shoving aside the hopelessness of that thought, I shift my attention to the problem at hand. The exercise has three elements: spinning, illumination, and transport. Divided between the two people, it’d probably be easiest for one to handle both effects around the blades and the other to put all their effort into guiding the entire contraption through the air.
Byron doesn’t know it yet, but he’s got a raw bloom glim, plenty of punch. He’ll have an easier time with the larger scale magic, and I’m decently agile with delicate manipulation.
“Why don’t you float the pinwheel, and I’ll spin it with a little fire?” I suggest.
He folds his arms over his toned chest. “Right. So you can do the flashy parts and I’m stuck with the grunt work?”
I can’t stop my eyes from darting over to meet his. “That isn’t how I was thinking about it.”
