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“Here, let me.” Shelby works her magic over the bone, turning it in the flicker of the kor as she focuses intensely on the ingredients. Its edges crumble a second before the whole thing collapses into dust. “See?” She eases it off the table into a funnel attached to a jar.
“You make it look so—”
“Agnes,” Grandmom says from the doorway, and I smooth the edges of my hair.
“Headmistress,” Dexler says with an inflection that suggests she’s just as surprised to see her as the rest of us. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a visitor.”
Chairs scrape the floor as we all stand. “Good afternoon, Headmistress Marionne.”
Hearing my name in a chorus pokes me with an unfamiliar sensation. They’re not talking to me. But still, it’s weird.
“To what do I owe this treat?”
Grandmom enters, and there isn’t a single eye in the room that would dare look away. Awe swivels every neck, flattens every back against its chair. Grandmom’s gaze finds mine, then quickly shifts to Rose. She whispers something to Dexler, who glances at Rose as well. Her posture sinks with disappointment.
“Ro—” I start, but she shoulders her bag.
“Good luck to you, Quell, I mean, not that you need it.”
Grandmom guides her through the door with a dainty hand cupped on her shoulder. As it swings closed, Rose glances back at me, her face pinched with sorrow, reminiscent of a lonely Trader in a bar. I look away, but her despair lingers like a bad perfume. I turn back to my materials, but time and motion seem out of balance. Rose’s exit replays in my mind over and over except it’s my head on her body.
“Well.” Dexler’s voice snatches me from my spiraling gloom. “Staring isn’t going to get those ingredients decomposed.” She claps. “Back to it! Once you turn it in, you’re dismissed. Remember, practice independently, seek out your mentors. You have much to master.”
Session buzzes with whispers about Rose being kicked out.
“What’ll happen to her?” I whisper to Shelby.
“She couldn’t cut it in the House she’s zoned to, so unless her family relocates to a different territory, she’s done,” Shelby says with equal measure of disinterest and surprise. “Shunned, barred from growing her magic.”
“What’ll happen to it?”
“It’ll become stunted and eventually unreachable.”
My chest aches for her.
“You want to try the beetle? It should be a little easier since it’s still alive. I can do the others.”
“Sure.” I don’t mean it to come out so dreary, but it does.
“Hey,” Shelby says, sensing my sullen shift. “It happens. It gets easier.”
I don’t know if that’s true. But I need to focus on this lesson, do it well.
“I’m serious. I’m a Duncan, Quell. No one in my family’s been inducted for decades. But I wanted to, and Headmistress knew my grandmother personally. So she gave me a shot. Four other girls started the week I did. We got close, fast, made a pact to stick together, determined to survive. My Cotillion is in just over a month. I’m almost out of here, and guess what . . .” She picks up her ingredients. “I’m the only one of my friends left.”
“That must have sucked.”
“Sort of. You begin to understand, you’re different. And you can either own that and step into it or be tortured by everyone else’s failure for the rest of your life. Rose is gone because she didn’t deserve to be here. You do.” She walks away and my resolve fractures.
But I don’t.
Head down, I carve out a work space for myself away from Shelby and everyone. My hands shake as Rose’s departing stare and Shelby’s words tangle together into a nightmare.
Focus.
Rose was here one day and gone the next.
I blow out a breath and bite down with new determination. A texture of warmth hums to life beneath my skin. I clench my every muscle, holding it there tight like I read in Abby’s notes. The beetle writhes on his back, moving slower. I grow hotter, my proper magic revving up as what feels like bits of sand spread from my head to my toes. Each place they settle tingles with heat. A quiver of cold tugs at me, but the magic burning through me sends it back to the pitless depths from which it came. I hold on to the feeling, and magic sears through me like a furnace, raging and in control, hotter than I’ve ever felt it.
