Everyone at Blaze Academy has apparently received the same memo: act like nothing happened. Don’t mention the missing professor. Don’t mention the missing third-year. Pretend the Council investigators are just particularly intense houseguests.
It’s working, mostly. We go to class. We eat in the dining hall. And if anyone notices the empty chair at the third-year table where Oliver used to sit, or Avery walking around like the living dead, or the tension that hums beneath every conversation, no one says anything about it.
Helen’s recording orbs drift through hallways and hover in corners. Tobias Cane conducts his memory sessions in a classroom that’s normally empty. Michael Aldridge has been spotted at the volcano’s base three times now, muttering about how the volume of overlapping magical signatures in the Scorched Circles makes his recreations a noisy mess.
The biggest change, however, is Evie.
She leaves for the library before I wake up and doesn’t return until I’ve left for my training sessions with Logan. The few times our paths do cross, she barely looks at me.
To make everything worse, the only person who might be able to help me make sense of this is a goddess who hasn’t spoken to me since she shoved lightning into my veins and dropped me off in a clearing to fight a six-headed monster.
Which is why, like every morning for the past week, I’m in the garden behind the Trinity Chamber at 6:00 AM.
Trees grow in spiral patterns around a stone circle, their branches intertwining overhead to create a natural canopy. Flowers line the pathways, their petals glistening with morning dew. Torches stand at the cardinal points, ready for ceremonies under the moonlight.
I settle onto my usual bench, the cold stone seeping through my training pants, and pull out the book I’ve been studying all week.
Divine Interference in Mortal Magic.
It’s the book Thaddeus gave to me weeks ago, back when I thought he was a helpful professor who wanted to see me succeed.
Now, this book is the only source of information I have about what T did to me. So, I flip to the section I’ve been studying most closely—the one Thad annotated in the margins.
It’s the myth of Selene and Ambrogio.
Before her eternal slumber with Endymion, the moon goddess Selene took a mortal lover named Ambrogio. Their passion was legendary, and marriage was promised.
But the gods, in their capriciousness, had other plans.
Apollo, jealous of Selene’s affection for the mortal, cursed Ambrogio to burn in sunlight forevermore. His twin sister Artemis, seeking to aid Ambrogio, granted him extraordinary speed and strength in exchange for his soul. And in a final crueltwist, Hades offered Ambrogio immortality with the caveat that Ambrogio would need to drink the blood of others to survive.
Thus, the first vampire was born. Not from choice, but from divine punishment. Not from darkness, but from love twisted beyond recognition.
Thad underlined those last two sentences three times. In the margin, he wrote:Gods don’t gift—they curse.
The words make my chest clench. Because he was giving me a warning.
I flip past illustrations of Selene in her celestial glory, and past descriptions of her four most powerful daughters—Luna, Sunneva, Celeste, and Tempest. Each goddess inherited a piece of their mother’s power. Each was destined to choose a mortal champion to carry their light against the coming darkness.
Only when all four unite can the balance be restored.
The rest of the page is torn out. Of course it is. Why would anything in my life be straightforward?
But it’s another of Thad’s margin notes that haunts me most.
When gods choose champions, they choose instruments. Not partners. Not equals. WEAPONS.
I trace my finger over the final word, feeling the indentation where his pen pressed too hard.
Weapons.
Is that what I am? Did T choose me not because I’m special or worthy, but because she needed someone disposable to aim at her enemies?
I close the book and look up at the sky. It’s gray this morning, heavy with clouds that promise rain.
“Come on, T,” I say, even though I doubt she can hear me. “Tell me what you want from me. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
As always, there’s just the whisper of wind and the distant sound of the ocean against the cliffs.
