Page 52 of Veiled

“Just banged them up working out earlier. Not a big deal.”

His jaw tenses, and I know there’s something he isn’t saying, but I can’t think of anything that would’ve set him off. If Lucas had pulled something, he would have told me as soon as I sat down, so it must not be important. Right?

I make him a little ice pack in my napkin before devouring my burger—and all of my potatoes, right on time for us to leave for Spell Casting.

The Spell Casting building was the first building we walked by when Matt and I arrived at Scion with the Corrections Transportation Officers. The blandness of the exterior makes it practically invisible…and that’s saying something since it’s directly across from the front door of my barracks building.

Maybe that’s why when I step inside, I’m rendered speechless. I don’t know what I thought the inside of a Spell Casting building would look like, but this was not it.

The only walls in the entire space are the four exterior walls. The open layout is accentuated by the vaulted ceilings adorned with iron crossbeams and magically flickering candelabras that never burn out.

The walls, which I think used to be white, are now a light grey from the thin coating of soot that coats them from experiments gone wrong. The floors are made from stone, a necessity when you are teaching students to make potions and weapons with volatile ingredients.

To the left side of the open room is a traditional classroom, complete with a green chalkboard and desks where the tables can collapse to the side.

And to the right is possibly the most impressive laboratory ever made. The windows all have plants growing in front of them—some hanging and some in window planters.

The long, heavy wooden tables in the center of the room are cluttered but organized in a way that only the people who created the chaos could navigate. There are beakers, brass tubes, mortars and pestles, scales of various sizes, bowls of crushed ingredients, and vials filled with liquids whose beautiful colors can only be the product of magic.

The far wall shelves are packed with ingredients that have already been harvested or created, some familiar, others beautifully exotic. Powdered petals and mushrooms, dried bat wings, crushed dragon scale, and even one with rat brains, according to the label. Some jars bubble and steam while others sit like sludge, labeled with symbols I don’t recognize.

At the center of it all, a large, open spell book, its pages filled with spells and diagrams that shift subtly when you’re not looking directly at them.

Every surface is a testament to the art of Spell Casting: precision, patience, and the delicate balance between creation and destruction. Magic pulses from every inch of the room, thrumming against us like the room has a heartbeat of its own.

I’m drawn from my reverence when a short, older, thin man with a blackened leather apron appears from the bookshelf in the classroom to our left.

…Maybe I shouldn’t become a Ghost Walker if I missed an entire man…

He starts toward the front of the class but pauses, periodically picking up a flask or vial, inspecting each before putting it back on its respective table.

I thought this room had used up every ounce of surprise possible, but I was not prepared for what he does when he makes it to the front of the lab.

He smiles the most endearing, grandfatherly smile. If I had ever met my grandparents, I would like to think their smiles would have looked like his.

“Hello, recruits.”

As a class, we parroted, “Hello, Sir.”

“None of that. Not in here. Here, I am but another tool in your belt, a resource of knowledge for you to use, and your guide to creating a path to beat the unbeatable. You heard me right, because everything is unbeatable, until someone is bold enough to challenge it with all they have.

“In this room, you will focus on the unbeatable obstacles our military faces, and then you will find a path through for them. We lost millions of people to common sicknesses until a spellcaster made a cure to save her husband and saved the world in the process.

“We lost battle after battle with insufficient weapons until a Spellcaster’s only brother was the one who would be wielding those weapons. He worked day and night until he created the Mercurial Blade that changed war forever.

“You will all face challenges at some point in your lives that you would give everything for. My job is to give you the gasoline, so you know how to light the challenge on fire and use the flames to brew your solution.”

The class is speechless in a way that feels entirely different than the other tracks here.

What Professor Martinez offered the class was hope, pride, and a sense that we could be unstoppable. Maybe we won’t be the greatest dragon rider to live, or the healer that saves the king. But we can create change in a world that pushes us to lose our individuality.

When the class begins, we’re each given textbooks with ingredients and potions that we’ll be practicing with over the next few weeks. We then spread out to brew a simple tincture that relieves muscle aches instantly.

An hour later, I have the most beautiful jar of…nothing.

Apparently, no matter how inspiring a speech is, you still have to be able to follow the damn recipe to successfully brew a tincture—something I have perfected not being good at over the years.

Sasha’s vial, on the other hand, is filled with a beautiful lavender liquid that shimmers in the sunlight when we leave class.