Page 5 of The Witch They Fear

As I pass, the plants closest to the fence lean.

Not toward me.

Away.

A slow, synchronized tilt—stalks angling back, leaves curling inward, like a crowd slowly flinching from a sound only they can hear. The rosemary nearest the fence shudders and goes still. A cluster of something purple—lavender, maybe—withdraws until the stems are bent almost flat against the soil.

I stop walking. Stare at the garden. The garden stares back, cowering.

Even the plants know what I am.

Damn.

The dampeners are supposed to suppress this. Whatever I'm putting out—whatever frequency or pressure my magic is bleeding through the chemical fog—it shouldn't be strong enough for anything to notice. At least not yet.

But the lavender is still pressed flat and the rosemary is still trembling and across the courtyard, a mockingbird on the stone wall takes off in a burst of panicked wings. Then another. Then three more. By the time I look back at the garden, everything with roots or wings within ten feet of me has decided I'm not worth the risk.

And this is me dampened. This is me medicated, muffled, running on twelve years of chemical suppression.

Tomorrow the dampeners clear fully. Tomorrow I feel this at full volume.

Corvin clears his throat. I start walking again.

The whispers have gotten louder. Or maybe the courtyard has just gotten quieter—it's hard to tell when both things are happening at once. A boy in a pressed uniform stares openly, not even pretending to look somewhere else. Tall, sharp-jawed, the kind of bone structure that says old bloodline. His lip curls—not quite a sneer but close enough.

I stop walking. Turn my head. Meet his eyes.

He expects me to flinch. I can see it in the way his chin lifts, the lazy entitlement of someone who's never had a person like me look back. So I don't flinch. I hold his gaze and I let him see exactly how unimpressed I am—a flat, steady stare that says I've been looked at by scarier things than you, and they were the ones who blinked.

He looks away first. A small, jerky motion, like something involuntary. His jaw tightens and he turns to the girl beside him—sharp fae features, silver-blonde hair—and says something low and clipped. She doesn't look away from me. Her expression isn't fear. It's colder. Evaluation. Like she's running numbers on a problem she hasn't decided how to solve yet.

I think about Marion's voice. When someone pushes you, decide if the fight is worth the cost before you swing.

Nobody's pushing me yet. They're just watching. Measuring. Running the same calculation Zeva ran at the facility—how fast can I move if the thing inside her slips its leash?

Faster than you'd like. I don't say it. But I think it loud enough that it warms me and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.

I pull my duffel strap tighter and keep walking.

The courtyard narrows into a path that curves toward a building larger and older than the rest. Stone facade, tall windows, heavy doors flanked by columns carved with symbols that look like the ones on the clock tower. The administrative heart of the campus. I can feel the wards thickening as we approach, denser here, more deliberate. Whoever runs this place works behind those doors.

We climb the front steps. Corvin stops at the top and turns to face me, his expression professionally blank.

"The headmistress is expecting you. Through the main hall, second floor, end of the corridor." He pauses. Seems to consider whether to say more. "Good luck, Miss Dellaby."

Zeva says nothing. Her hand hasn't left the vicinity of her weapon since we got out of the car.

I look at the doors. Heavy, old, carved from dark wood that smells faintly of cedar and whatever enchantments have been soaking into the grain for centuries. Behind them: the headmistress, my training supervisor, the diplomat assigned to my case, and the beginning of a year-long audition for the right to exist outside a locked room.

Twelve months.

Tomorrow the wean completes. Tomorrow the fog lifts and I meet the full, undiluted version of whatever I am.

The last time that happened, I killed eleven people. Including my entire family. I was thirteen. I couldn't stop it.

I can still hear the sound the hallway made.

I shift my duffel on my shoulder. Set my jaw. Reach for the door.