“Then you have Sagitta. This is one of Apollo’s arrows, like the one Artemis used to kill Orion. Lore suggests that this one in particular was used to kill the serpent Python. Python had tormented Apollo, even in his nightmares, ever since he was a young boy. He spent decades hunting the monster to no avail, until one day, he saw Python tormenting the land of Delphi. From a great distance, he shot the beast with an arrow and killed it. This act established Apollo as the guardian of the Delphic oracle, which granted him the powers of prophecy. The constellation is made up of relatively small, dull stars, but what makes it potent is its position. It lies inside the Summer Triangle, which is an asterism made of the stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair. It marks the changing of the seasons, and Sagitta harnesses some of the radiant power from three of the most powerful stars this world will ever see.”
He finishes drawing his runic constellations and stands, putting the wand-like needle back in his drawer. After sucking his finger dry, he picks up the paper and says, “Please stand back, Claudia,” while he rounds the desk.
She steps back a few feet and braces herself.
“Orion, Sagitta,” Lamour says, and the paper erupts in those same bright blue flames that Claudia saw when she cast her application to Cygnus into the fire. An aura of starlight glows around Lamour, brighter and brighter until Claudia is forced to close her eyes. Cold radiates across the room, sending violent shivers down her spine. Once the spell cannibalizes the paper, Lamour reaches out as starlight collects in his hand, materializing into a giant, glistening sword. It pulses with blue light. A tinny sound fills the room and resonates through the glass ceiling.
Every part of this reminds her of Dorian, but this magic is the light that opposes his darkness. Lamour wields the sword with a knight’s expertise and a dancer’s grace. It cuts through the wind and leaves a gash of light behind, as if it’s wounding the night itself. This lasts for only a few seconds before the light begins to dim and the sword becomes stiff until it hangs unmoving in the air, and with one final flash, the magic leaves the room.
Weakly, Professor Lamour stumbles back to the desk and crumples into the seat, holding his head like he’s trying to keep it from exploding.
“Professor?” Claudia asks, approaching slowly.
“I’m fine,” he says through labored breaths. “It’s been a while. It always hurts to start again.” After a minute of rest, the professor lets out a long exhale as he pushes himself up to a standing position. Leaning forward on his arms, he looks up at Claudia and says, “Like I said, only use it if it’s your only chance at saving your life. Understand?”
Her heart softens knowing how much it’s hurting Lamour to be here, physically and mentally, and yet he’s doing it anyway. He may begrudge Claudia for forcing him to do so, but at least he’s genuinely helping.
“I understand,” she says.
“Good. Now,” he says, pushing away from the desk, “you’re going to require a basal understanding of every constellation—the entirety of their lore and any possible connotation that could impact the result of using them in a spell. If you can’t cast with acute precision, you will not get the outcome you desire. You could get gravely injured or endure irrevocable psychic damage if you’re not careful.”
“Can it kill me?”
“I’ve never seen it happen, though I suppose it’s possible. Generally speaking, though, our power is not strong enough to disrupt the cosmic order of life and death. But there are many things much worse than death, Claudia. There is war and punishment andmadness and fear. There are dark forces in this world that would make you beg for death. Do not tempt them with bad magic.”
Slowly, she looks around the room, doing the mental math to calculate how many books are in here. The realization of all the work ahead sinks in.
There’s a book on every planet, every constellation. No, wait, there’s so much more. She turns again and realizes there’s a book on every. Single. Star.
Lamour pulls ten massive books from the shelves and brings them back to the desk. He puts a blank sheet of parchment on the desk and reopens his wound with his needle. With a painter’s precision, he dots his blood over the chart in the shape of two unfamiliar constellations.
“Chamaeleon, Norma,” he whispers, and a bright wash of blue light spills over the covers of each book. When it’s done, the spell goes up in blue flames and the smoke thins in the air until it’s gone. Lamour sucks his bloody finger dry and gestures to the books. “Now anyone who is not a celestial witch will not be able to see their true contents. To everyone else, it will appear as though you’re addicted to Plato.”
She thumbs through the book on the top of the stacks. How is she going to read all this on top of everything she’s reading for class? She’s still a whole semester behind. Now she’ll have to double—no,quadruple—her reading in order to accomplish everything.
Anxiety buzzes in her bones. What if she can’t do it? What if she fails everyone and everything?
Claudia looks out the window. The seam where the sky meets the earth begins to yellow. Dawn is coming.
“It’s time to go,” Lamour says, heading toward the door. “I’ll see you again in one week. Have all those books finished by then.”
She laughs, assuming he’s joking, but his face is stern and serious. She blinks. “All this in one week? Professor, I have a massive stack of books on rhetoric from both you and Olivier. I have tocatch up on an entire semester’s worth of reading. I’m not going to be able to—”
“You want to be a celestial witch? Then you learn celestial magic, and you will do it on my timeline. If it’s too much for you, just say the word and we’ll stop.”
“This is an impossible ask. You’re not being fair.”
“You want to talk about fair? You threatened me into teaching you.” His face is somewhere between a scowl and a smirk. “Now you know how I feel.”
TIME
Every minute matters.
Ivan Roe on the creation of the first Roe timepiece and its concentric minute hand
As the weeks pass, things get better and things get worse. The school is deeply exhausting; is relentlessly fun; is terrible and wonderful. Everyone is miserable; is exultant; is drowning.
Claudia has tried three times to enter the Realm of Nightmares on her own. The first time, the Doorway wouldn’t appear no matter how hard she imagined it. She tried again days later, and when the Doorway finally appeared, it wouldn’t let her through. It burned her when she got too close. Once more she tried and got the farthest she ever had, but when she stepped through, she heard her father’s voice. She smelled his blood, felt the heat of it sliding down her skin. She couldn’tbring herself to face that nightmare again, and she woke up screaming.
