Page 154

Like her, Rebecca was a trained Oraculi, just not for this element.

What did she want to teach me? Complete control? Not even Gloria had managed that. And she was the Head of the Councils, having personally trained more than twenty Novices. Two of them were now also high-ranking Council members.

Nevertheless, I concentrated on the transparent ball that sat enthroned in its bronze holder in the middle of Harlow's tidy desk.

And indeed... Gradually, a trail of ice crystals began to form around the glass, spreading across the table.

The same force I had used to kill Silvar.

“Just the ball!”

I tried, pouring all my concentration into this pointless exercise, but the ice refused to disappear from the table, and the crystal ball was only partially covered in ice.

“If he managed it without a control stone, you should be able to do it too,” she hissed impatiently.

That was the moment my concentration wavered and the entire desk became covered in ice. Small, sharp crystals through which the faint daylight that penetrated the windows of the west tower refracted. The shards of my destructive element.

“What are you doing? You almost had it!”

“I want information about my father,” I gritted out, hearing the ice crack dangerously.

Rebecca looked at the desk, then back at me, before her eyes narrowed to slits.

“Don't be so stubborn!”

She paced around her desk in her brown pencil skirt, brown leather block heels, and a rust-brown blouse.

“Your father was a criminal.”

Finally, she looked at me with a gaze I could hardly interpret. It reminded me of the expression that had always been written on Grace's face whenever she had been afraid of ghosts under her bed. Back then, we had only been seven years old.

“There's nothing you need to know about him.” Rebecca looked back at her desk and touched the crystal ball. “Focus on your element and show how useful you can be.”

I sighed and watched as she broke the crystal ball out of its frozen holder and placed it on the windowsill.

Did she really want me to ruin the university building? Those were glass panes. Something I hadn't had good experiences with so far.

“Go on!”

I flinched.

“I don't have all day. That rotten Copeland diploma mill won't clean itself up!”

I stared at her with a fixed gaze and earned a disapproving look from her.

“I liked you better when you were obedient and uncomplicated.”

I had never been uncomplicated. If she had ever thought that, it was her problem.

And to be honest, I liked myself better the way I was now.

Deep down, I wondered how I could ever have been such a disappointment to myself.

That old, fragile me wouldn't have survived all this any longer.

I probably would have taken my own life sooner or later. A thought that had haunted me for a long time. Until the day I had last held a pair of scissors in my hand and sworn to myself that I would never hurt myself again. That I would only turn my destructive side against those who deserved it.

A slight smirk twitched across my lips, which Rebecca didn't notice as she was staring obsessively at the crystal ball.