“I don’t care that you lost the fight—”
“Idon’twant to talk, Ava.” He seemed bitter. He put his arm around Oberi’s shoulders, and the unicorn nickered.
I bit my lip. “Okay.”
I stepped away. He obviously wanted space to heal his bruised ego. Anything I could say would only hurt his feelings right now.
“We’ll be practicing today,” Professor Summers announced as she entered the circle with her red river hog Familiar. “Feel free to take some time to work on anything you’ve been struggling with.”
I rolled my eyes. All weeverdid in this class was practice, with very little direction. It was like all Professor Summers knew how to do was teach the basics of elemental magic.
Charlie and I worked on our magic on opposite sides of the area. He moved around Earth mounds and Air columns, while I conjured Fire and Water balls. The other Elementai around us conjured other kinds of weather magic, while their Familiars watched.
Ezekiel was across from us, sitting in the grass with a bowl of water in front of him. Ezhatedthis class. I had tried to help him, but all my advice had gone over his head. It was like no matter how much instruction we gave him, it didn’t help him to master Toaqua magic.
“Dammit!” Ez cried, clearly frustrated. He tried to make water rise out of the bowl, but it just wouldn’t budge. He smacked the bowl, and the water spilled over onto the dirt.
I immediately skirted to his side, wanting to fix the problem. “How can I help?”
“It won’t move,” he snapped. “There must be something wrong with it.”
I moved my hand, and the water that he’d tipped over rose from the ground. I flowed the water from one of my palms to the other as I directed it. My brother’s expression only got more burning as I returned the water to the bowl. “It’s fine, Ez. Maybe it’s because you’re not feeling well,” I hinted.
Ez’s face was flushed, and he’d been coughing all day. He also hadn’t touched breakfast, which was so unlike him.
“I just have the flu. It’s no big deal,” he grumbled.
I frowned. “Ez, you just had a bad cold not two weeks ago. Are you not over it?”
“Leave me alone, okay! I just suck at magic, and I don’t have a Familiar to help me.” He crossed his arms. “I’m probably not even going togetone until I get out of here.”
Guilt ballooned in my gut, but I pushed it aside, because it wasn’t going to help him learn magic. “Water magic is flowing. It won’t work if you resist it. Try again.”
Ez huffed. He hovered his hand over the bowl, but his magic only created ripples in the liquid.
I felt a shiver cross over my skin as Charlie knelt beside me. “Still having trouble?”
“I don’t know what to do,” Ez moaned. He sounded near tears. “The water just won’t listen to me.”
“It can’t be too hard,” Charlie said with a shrug. “Try movingwiththe water instead of telling it what to do, like I do with Air.”
Charlie maneuvered his hand in a complicated fashion, to demonstrate. My jaw dropped open as I saw the water in the basin form into a tiny ball and rise into the air. I felt a small bit of energy drain out from my core— like I’d cast the spell myself.
“Holy hell, Charlie,” I gasped. “You’re directing Water!”
“What?” Charlie asked. The Water ball immediately dropped and splashed back into the basin. “No, that’s impossible!”
“Do it again,” Ezekiel said, like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Charlie hovered his hand over the bowl, but I grabbed his wrist.
“Stop,” I told him. “We’re not supposed to draw attention to ourselves, remember?”
Charlie hesitated, and I looked around. No one else had noticed what Charlie just did. Ez and I moved in closer around him, to block him out from the rest of the class and Professor Summers.
“Now try,” I whispered. Charlie repeated the action. The water formed into a ball again at his command. He reached out to touch it with quivering fingers as Oberi stood nearby, bobbing her head like she approved. Both Ez and I gaped in awe.
As Charlie replaced the water back into the bowl, he said, “I have an idea. I wonder if—”
He snapped his fingers, and again, I felt a small bit of energy retreat from my body and flood into him. A little flame, no bigger than my pinkie, hovered above Charlie’s hand.
