When I awoke for the first time at Cygnus, it was still dark out, and a man was standing over me with a knife. It wasn’t actually a knife, I learned later, but in the moment, in the dark, it might as well have been. I took a big breath, ready to scream, but he clasped his cold hand over my mouth and pointed the weapon—not a knife, not sharp enough, something else metal and cold—at my chest. The man kept his hand over my mouth as he pulled me out of bed. I had this odd feeling—something that should have been fear, but wasn’t. At least, not entirely. Sometimes danger is exciting.
When he brought us out to the corridor, the pulsing sconces on the wall washed his face in orange light, and I finally recognized him. Professor Lamour. The flames of the candles danced in his eyes like they lived there, always burning inside. He wore the same red robes I had seen him in as I entered the school just hours earlier. We had locked eyes then, and it seemed like shock overcame him, like he was seeing the ghost of a dead wife or some other long-departed love. He looked at me like I was an impossibility.
- I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to protect you, he said.
I struggled in his grasp. I did not believe him.
- If I take away my hand, will you scream? he asked.
I nodded because I am a terrible liar. I thought about biting off one of his fingers. He kept his hand as my muzzle and walked me like a dog through tight and twisting corridors until we came to the locked gate of the condemned Astrologia wing. He pulled a glowing key out of his pocket and unlocked it. Inside, we spun up the spiral staircase of the observatory. With me still pressed against him and gagged, he unlocked the heavy door and pushed us both inside, letting it slam behind us. The stars sparkled above us in a black sky. The moon was full. Lamour put the not-knife down on a desk and I realized that it was a telescope, and likely not a weapon.
- Do you know why you’re here? he asked.
- At first I thought you wanted to kill me.
- Someone does, but not me. I’m here to protect you from them.
I can’t say I was surprised to hear that someone wanted me dead. I’m the top Rhetoric scholar. Most of the Cygni hate me for that alone. They want to win. They want the blessing. And unless I’m gone, they won’t get it.
But that’s not what Lamour was warning me about.
Someone else—someone we don’t know and can’t find—wants me dead.
He explained it to me as if it were a storybook: Our god is dead, died a century ago, and with him died our magic.
- Or so we thought, he added dramatically.
He says that when Sidarphion fell one hundred years ago, celestial witches at Cygnus started dying. Their bodies littered the ground like leaves. Thirteen of them over the course of a single week. Years went by and all the other majors had continued receiving guidance and blessings from their gods, but Astrologia sank to the capabilities of the mortal human. The discipline was denounced, and the wing was closed when there was no magic left.
- Until me, he said.
He was the first in a new generation of celestial witches. He and four others. They called themselves the Eyes of Andromeda—a secret society dedicated to preserving the last shreds of celestial magic.
- Where are the other members? I asked.
His face hardened.
- Killed.
Upon their deaths, he said he realized that it wasn’t Sidarphion’s disappearance that killed the celestial witches. It was something—or someone—else.
- How did they kill your friends?
- Not all at once, he said.
- Could it have been a series of unfortunate accidents?
- Could a slit throat and a body drained of blood be accidents?
- I suppose not. But why weren’t you killed?
He sighed. Shrugged. Laughed.
- If I knew, I would tell you. I have no idea. I can teach you what I know, but I cannot guarantee your survival. Unless, of course, you’re willing to leave.
- Leave? I can’t leave.
- It’s the only way I can ensure that you are completely safe. Otherwise…
