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Ramona, finally, steps in. “Come on, Akemi. Let’s forget about the pressure of being the center of every conversation and have a little fun tonight. That’s why Leaf brought us here, right?”

Ramona’s skirt inches up her thigh as she steps forward, revealing the slightest glimmer of a silver blade. So that’s where she keeps it! She steps on my toe with the point of that death contraption. I swallow down my yelp. “Oh, right.”

Akemi finishes the rest of her drink. “I’m going to need another one of these, then.”

A young, strawberry blonde girl leaps to Akemi’s side. Freckles dust the tops of her round cheeks. She snatches the cup out of Akemi’s hand, doing a little happy dance with her knee-high white boots. “I’ll get it!”

Akemi practically jumps.

“Oh! Sorry ma’am, I didn’t mean to scare you. Oh dear, you look flustered. Silly me, I’ll just get your second cup, then.” She bows—actually bows—then scurries away to the table set up with an ice fountain (thanks to Gryphon) full of spiked punch.

Akemi’s eyes widen and she scans the circle for help. I smile as best I can through gritted teeth.

The blonde woman returns, her curly hair frizzing out from her braid as she holds another drink out to Akemi. Stitched into her yellow cardigan are seashells and crabs and all sorts of unidentifiable sea creatures. “Here you are. If you need anything else, I’ll just be”—she takes a step back, curtsies, then stands at attention—“right here.”

“I, um, that’ll be enough, erm…”

For a Prentice Teller, Akemi is really struggling to find the right words.

“Esther, ma’am. First-year at the Watch and a huge fan of yours,” Esther says, clutching Akemi’s previously empty cup with so much reverence, it looks like she’s ready to build a shrine around it.

I step forward, saving my dear friend from any further embarrassment. I’m not so easily turned off by the limelight. A life of turning heads can do that to a male. “Run along now, Esther. This party isn’t supposed to be for first-years.”

She looks around at the many new cadets to the Watch drinking, dancing, and otherwise mingling, but doesn’t say a word. “I understand. I’ll leave.” Her excitement dims a fraction as she bends once more at Akemi before skipping into the woods, white knee-high boots flashing through the night like lightning.

“Well, that was interesting,” Ramona says, and we all agree that some of the new cadets are going to have quite the awakening when classes start. Especially Battlefield.

Eventually, Gryphon joins the group, pulling Selene behind him and begging for someone to judge the “sculptures” they had “made with their myst” and that only a “true creative” would be able to “appreciate the art” before pulling Akemi away as the final adjudicator on what sculpture was superior.

Just Ramona and I remain.

“So.” I take a step closer and sling an arm around her narrow shoulders. She surprisingly doesn’t pull away or try to fling my arm off, so I take it as a win. “What do you think of the party?”

She takes in the glowing orb lights levitating in spirals, ever-burning fires, and the giant myrage illusion spell webbed around us like a dome. “It’s alright.”

Two words of near praise from her and a swath of fireflies release in my stomach, fluttering incessantly like they are trapped in a jar with a loose lid. One wrong movement and the gap will widen.

I twist the cap tightly on those emotions before any of those fireflies accidentally escape.

15

Infallibly Loyal

There are many perks to being a second-stone student at the Watch, one being that we all get our own individual rooms seeing as there is a significant drop in class size. The largest size class at the Watch has always been first-years, before cadets find how much siphoning Source magic may or may not impact your body. A lot of Watchers strive for one channeling stone in their wrist cuffs, rings, or chokers. Having barely scraped a full year of magic training, many stop there and join the active duty as WatchGuards.

But one stone isn’t enough for me. I knew it the moment I stepped into this giant castle and had my first taste of magic in Professor Novak’s room.

Now, as the early morning bell rings throughout the halls, I know that feeling to be true. That I made the right choice in continuing my studies at the Watch.

Despite how tempting it is to relax in Atlys’s arms forever in the caverns of Terraguard, I’m built for something more, I can feel it in my bones—ouch!

“Watch where you are going, star trash.”

My shoulder thrums at the impact. Sabra snarls from underneath strands of reddish black hair.

My heart skips a measure.

Ragnar’s hair.