Spiraling Down
My world spirals down into an ever-worsening ordeal of endless work, extreme sleep deprivation and relentless abuse.
Fallon freezes my ink every Metallurgie class, so I take to carrying a few sharpened pencils. I forget them one day, and Curran Dell quietly slides a pencil to me with a surreptitious look of sympathy, his dislike of Fallon Bane covert but palpable.
No longer able to prevent me from taking notes, Fallon soon decides to move on from freezing inkwells. Instead, she freezes my chair to the floor so I have to struggle to get out of my desk, freezes the back of my cloak to the chair and frequently snuffs out the flames I kindle for my laboratory experiments. She keeps the abuse subtle enough that our professor doesn’t notice, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
And she grins all the while, like it’s one big, fun game.
* * *
The workload for an ordinary apothecary apprentice is staggering in and of itself, with countless hours of rote memorization and preparation of medicines. I have the added burden of laboring in the hostile kitchen, enduring Yvan Guriel’s green-eyed glare, as well as the extra tasks piled on daily by Fallon’s cousin.
“I’m staying away from Lukas,” I blearily tell Gesine one afternoon as she watches me scrub down charcoal-encrusted vials.
She looks up from her papers, unimpressed, and narrows her eyes at me. “Well, we’ll just have to keep you busy, to make absolutely sure of that.”
* * *
On top of everything else, my Icaral roommates continue to be a trial to live with.
Every night Ariel hovers protectively about her chicken. If I even get near the animal, she screams something unintelligible about cages and setting me on fire. Under her bed, she keeps a stash of foul-smelling black berries. They’re foreign to me, and I make a mental note to find out what they are once I have the time. Ariel chews them for hours on end, staring at the ceiling apathetically. At other times, she seems to lose herself in studying thick animal husbandry texts, most of them detailing how to care for birds.
Wynter remains an unsettling ghost, often perched on the windowsill, hiding in her wings. She never says a word in my presence, and I’m beginning to wonder if she’ll ever speak to me at all.
The two of them don’t seem to get cold and never bother to make a fire. Even being as frozen as I am, I avoid going over to the filthy fireplace, since it’s on their side of the room and I don’t want to provoke Ariel’s wrath. But as fall settles in, the room grows colder and colder, and I’m running out of layers of winter clothes to wear under my quilt.
Almost every night the Selkie from Valgard haunts my dreams, and I wake up in a cold sweat, feeling lost and alone and scared. At such times the only thing that can calm down my racing heart is the warmth of my quilt and the memory of being wrapped safe in my mother’s arms.
And the wand. The white wand.
I’ve hidden it in my pillowcase, and I’m strangely compelled by it. It’s become like a talisman, my hands drawn to it through the fabric. Initially a blank page, the wand is gradually revealing its source wood to me more and more. Every night now, I surrender and let the wood of the wand send snow-white branches into the back of my mind. They unfold within, smoothing out my worry and fear, lulling me as white birds nestle deep in the wand’s secret hollows.
And sometimes I fancifully muse—what if this truly is the White Wand of legend?
* * *
A letter from Aunt Vyvian comes.
To my niece,
I received your correspondence, and it has become clear to me that you are in a situation that is quite horrifying.
I have arranged to have you moved to lovely housing in Bathe Hall. You’ll have a private room waiting for you there, and will only need to share the spacious common area with a quiet Gardnerian scholar and one Elfin girl (to fulfill the University’s ridiculous integration rules).
Both the room and the common area boast a beautiful view of Verpax’s Central Gardens. You’ll have your own lady’s maid, as well as a private dining area with the menu of your choice. It’s warm and comfortable in Bathe Hall—nothing like the North Tower with winter fast approaching, I would imagine.
After you move, I will promptly take over your University tithe, which will relieve you of any need to work in the kitchens.
All you need to do is fast to Lukas Grey.
Once you are safely fasted to Lukas, you can put this unfortunate and frightening chapter behind you as a harsh but necessary lesson in the realities of the world we Gardnerians are faced with.
Please do not write again until that felicitous occurrence has taken place. Once it does, the Lodging Mistress has instructions to move you to your new lodging immediately.
Your attentive aunt,
Vyvian
I crumple the letter in my fist and toss it out the North Tower’s hallway window.
Stubbornly set on the harder path, I shoulder on.
* * *
One evening I spot Lukas with Fallon Bane outside the main dining hall, her military guard hanging back a bit. I feel a stab of jealousy so strong, I almost drop the basket of warfrin root I’m lugging.
You’ve no reason to be jealous, I chastise myself. You’ve no claim on him.
Quickly spotting me, Fallon gives me a once-over as she takes in my mussed appearance—my flyaway, sweat-soaked hair and hands stained warfrin green right up to the wrists. She shoots me a gloating, triumphant look and makes a point of putting her hand on Lukas’s shoulder.
Maybe he’s decided to view her magical affinities as exciting after all, I bitterly consider. It’s been over two weeks since I last saw him and vowed to stay away, intimidated by his aggression and his fiery magic, as well as Fallon’s territorial claim on him.
Lukas turns and catches my eye.
My stomach clenches into a tight knot as I remember the warm, seductive feel of his kiss, the overwhelming power of his magic. I force my gaze from his before he can detect any of the hurt in my expression and hurry away.
A few nights later I find a bundle of violin music waiting for me on the stone bench in the North Tower’s hallway. It’s by a composer Lukas knows I admire, written out in the composer’s own hand and signed with a flourish. I feel a sharp pang of regret as I hold Lukas’s gift in my medicine-encrusted hands.
We fit together, Lukas and I. Fire to fire. Branches twining tight.
I think back to Aunt Vyvian’s letter and how much my situation would improve if I gave in and fasted to Lukas.
But that black fire of his. It’s too much.
I shake my head as I flip through the music ruefully.
It’s no use. Rafe is right about Lukas Grey. Affinity match or no, he’s too powerful, too unpredictable. And too worldly for me.
He belongs with Fallon Bane.