Page 27
“Good. I’m Sebastian, by the way. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”
She didn’t want to give him her name. Otherwise, he might realize who she was: the strange girl who was half Wielder, half Caster.
“Morgan!” a Caster in the distance yelled. “Get over here.”
“Yes, on my way,” Sebastian responded as he and his stumbling friend walked to their group of Casters.
Mira watched their laughing faces and couldn’t help but feel that something terrible was going to happen. She closed her eyes and told herself, like she had so many times, that it was just her trauma talking.
Everything is fine.
But the pain under her scar flared as if in protest. It was a subtle burn that kept increasing with each moment.
“I’m going to get another drink,” Mira blurted out, and walked over to the table with various options.
Her hand trembled when she pulled a bottle of wine out of the bunch and filled her mug.
Get it together.
She took a sip from her cup as if to force herself to behave like a normal human. A gust of wind blew through her hair, and she swore she heard her name in the whispers of the leaves.
She held her breath.
“Mira?” the voice behind her said, and she jumped.
“Sorry,” Rylan said with a sheepish grin. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Mira laughed, trying to play it off. Trying not to sound like she had a pit in her stomach and felt like she was close to tears for no reason at all.
“Were you able to extract the ingredients from the potions I gave you?” Rylan asked.
“Yes, sure was.”
“And? How did whatever project you needed them for work out?”
“Um…”
“That well, huh?”
“Let’s just say I destroyed some Ivercrest property in the process.”
He made a face like he was impressed. “Well, what do we say in Research? Failure is progress.”
“That should be my life’s motto, then.”
Rylan let out a high-pitched cackle, which made her smile.
“Well, if you ever want to fail together, I would love a second set of eyes on this potion I’m working on.”
Students in the White Magic Institute’s Research division were constantly inventing new things. Over the years, Ivercrest had produced some of the brightest minds in the world.
“You’re asking a Caster who is stuck in Dark Magic for help?”
He shrugged innocently. “So what? Those are just labels.”
The rest of the world didn’t think so. The separation of the specialties was a fundamental rule of magic—another reason why she enjoyed living in Yharvan. It didn’t matter if you were Wielder or Caster when magic simply didn’t exist.
“Where would we meet?” she asked with trepidation.
