“Drink this.” She presses a cup into my hands, and steam rises from it, carrying the scent of chamomile and an herb I can’t quite place. Valerian, maybe.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Calming draught, with valerian root and star thistle.” She sits on the edge of the bed, watching me with sharp eyes. “Your magic is tied to your emotions. When you panic?—”
“The fire goes haywire.” I take a sip of the tea, barely able to taste it. “Control the emotion, control the flame. Chapter three of Basic Pyropsychology.”
As I speak, she creates a ball of fire in her hand and holds it to the bottom of my mug, heating the ceramic and making the liquid glow orange.
“That should help stabilize your magic.” She stands, and the infirmary grows quiet except for the soft clink of bottles as Nana moves around, putting supplies away.
They’re normal sounds. Safe sounds.
The kind of sounds that remind me this place has rhythms and routines that continue, even when my world is falling apart.
JADE
Evie’s bedis perfectly made.
She hasn’t been back since Nana took her away at breakfast. I assume Nana took her to the infirmary to calm down after almost exploding the chandeliers, which is totally relatable. I’ve nearly done the same thing approximately seven thousand times since arriving at this school, except my version involves silver sparks and the smell of ozone instead of flames.
I check the time on the wall clock again. 9:47 PM. Thirteen more minutes until I meet Logan in the passages for training. Thirteen more minutes of sitting here, alone with my thoughts, which is honestly the worst possible place to be right now.
The memory of Oliver’s eyes going blank keeps playing on repeat in my mind. My stomach swirls at the reminder of the dread I felt every time I stood at the base of the Scorched Circles and saw his body hit the volcanic rock. My ears ring as the weight of his final words—you killed Miles—aimed at Logan echo through my thoughts.
Then there’s the part where I channeled a lightning bolt through my body and electrocuted our professor until he turned into a lump of ash. And let’s not forget the part when Logandragged me backward through time, loop after loop, when I was seconds away from death.
Fun times. Really great first semester I’m having over here.
When the clock hits ten, I slip out of my room and navigate the familiar path to the janitor closet at the back of Phoenix Hall. The stone wall shimmers as I press my palm to it—my right one, with the Kindling sigil inked on it—and I step through into the darkness of the passages.
Logan’s leaning against the opposite wall, his arms crossed, like a statue carved out of shadows and bad decisions.
“Hi,” I say, the word echoing off the stone walls.
His gaze tracks over me, quick and thorough, like he’s running an inventory of every part of my body. “We’re not going to the Fury Loop tonight.”
I blink. “We’re not?”
“No.” He pushes off the wall and moves to me, slow and deliberate. “I’m bringing you somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else,” I repeat, because apparently I’ve lost the ability to form original sentences. “That’s very specific and not at all mysterious. Thanks for clarifying.”
The corner of his mouth twitches into what might almost be a smile.
“Do you trust me?”
“You know I do.” The words come out before I can stop them, honest in a way that makes my chest ache.
His jaw unclenches. The careful blankness he wears like armor cracks at the edges, and his eyes soften in the way they only do when we’re alone and he lets himself stop performing.
He holds out his hand, and I take it without hesitation, our fingers intertwining like they were made to fit together.
A spark jumps between our palms at the contact.
Logan takes a sharp breath inward and pulls me back the way I came. “We’re going to fire travel, so we need to be out of the passages,” he explains.
We step back through the shimmering wall into the janitor closet, and I’m about to ask where we’re going when his arm wraps around my waist and orange flames engulf us both.
