“Thank you.” He nods, gives me a small, relieved smile, and turns his attention back to Constance. “She’s telling the truth. She had no knowledge of Jade’s lightning abilities.”
Constance’s posture relaxes a fraction.
My mind’s already spinning, sorting through everything I’ve ever read about magical abilities. It immediately stops on the old texts. Thereallyold texts. The ones Father keeps locked in his private study.
I read those texts anyway.
Divine intervention. Gods and goddesses choosing mortal champions. Gifting them with powers beyond magical inheritance.
There are two deities in the known pantheon associated with lightning.
First: Zeus, the king of the gods, who hasn’t interfered with the mortal realm in centuries.
Second: Tempest, the Storm Goddess. All sources state that she’s wild and unpredictable.
“My pilot’s name is T,” Jade said once. “She’s kind of weird. Not really the pilot type.”
T.
Tempest.
“Where’s Jade now?” My focus goes from Constance, to Tobias, and back again.
Constance’s eyes narrow. “That’s what we’re trying to determine. In the meantime, all students are confined to their dormitories until further notice. Council members are patrolling the perimeter. We’re doing everything we can to locate Jade before she causes any more damage.”
Damage.
The word barely computes.
How could Jade Harrington causedamage?
“Tobias,” Constance says, cutting through my racing thoughts. “Wait outside. I need to speak with Evangeline privately.”
Tobias hesitates, but Constance glares at him, stopping him from saying anything more. He gives me one last apologetic look before stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
The silence that follows is heavy.
“Before you hear it from anyone else, there’s something else you need to know,” Constance says, quieter now.
A ball of anxiety forms in my throat. “What?”
“The hellhound attack last night resulted in casualties.” She pauses. “Several students were killed.”
The words hang there—meaningless sounds that won’t arrange themselves into anything I can use.
“Who?”
“Elizabeth Bradley.” Another pause. “Deidre Mitchell.”
Elizabeth. The quiet girl with the too-big sweaters who sat in the back of every class. Deidre, who organized study groups and led nearly every club on Blaze’s campus.
She keeps going. Gabriel Dumont. Caleb Chen. Francis Willingham. Names from my year, faces I sat beside in lectures. Deacon Park and Leo Martinez—third-years. Then more. Name after name after name, until the words blur into a single horrible sound and my brain stops matching them to faces.
Constance’s tone softens. “Sam Reeves.”
I blink a few times, unable to see straight.
Sam studied with me for our Pyropsychology exam last week. He rambled about mythological creatures when he was nervous, made terrible jokes, and once spent an entire afternoon organizing notes with me in the library because he said it was “oddly soothing.” He was part of the group I fought with in the Hydra Trial, and he thought he was far better with a sword than he actually was.
