Page 23 of A Heart of Bluestone

Landon is brewer at heart. A basic print, common, and one he inherited from his father. Shame, because his mother’s print is on the more advantageous side. Prediction.

But Dray’s print—that might be the cause of his effortless arrogance, embedded into his soul—is rarest.

Dray is arrogantly good at most things, but the print he inherited from his father is a rarity.

We call itmakut.

It means ‘without tool’.

It is to hex without hexbags, curse without chants, conjure without ritual. A scarce talent, one I have been victim to many times, when he’s conjured a tin of cold beans above my head and had them spill all over me, or he’s enchanted rugs to pull out from under my feet in the corridors, or had my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth for two days straight.

I only personally know one other who can do makut—Harold Sinclair himself. But I hear that the headmaster of the academy hidden deep in the thick rainforests South Americas can do it.

Butthis.

This is one of the reasons the elites take the bloodlines so seriously. Preserve the purity of ancient blood, preserve the sanctity of rare power.

Join two rare prints together in a marriage, the better the chances of strong and powerful offspring to carry on the magic.

Yanked out of my thoughts, I watch a piece of pink-tinted paper appear on my notebook.

Slowly, it transpires from thin air.

I watch as inked cursive starts to unribbon over the parchment.

‘A deadblood walks into an orphanage…’

My face twists with a scowl.

I know the answer is unkind before the words rearrange and scatter, some disappear, and I’m left staring down at it.

‘…where she belongs.’

My head jerks up and I glare at Dray.

He’s writing in his notebook, and I don’t see any sign of pinkish paper near him.

My slitted stare does a turn around the class.

And then I find him.

He’s looking at me already, leaning back in his seat, his arm draped over the back of Serena’s, and a devilish grin smeared over his lips.

It’s a grin Father would smack off his face if he knew what Oliver had sent me.

I would tell on him. If I had the evidence.

But the paper is gone when I glance back down at my notebook. All that’s left in its place is pink dust, and I can only guess he bought a few enchanted items to taunt me with before school started.

I flip off my brother and add a nasty sneer.

Beside him, Serena’s laugh is faint and practiced. It doesn’t reach her eyes. She turns her back on me.

I loosen a breath and put pencil to paper.

If the beginning minutes of the first class is anything to go by, this year will be a rough one. And that was my brother. Gods know what it’ll be like when Dray finally has the bother to turn on me.

But he is quietly working beside me, not so much as throwing a glance my way.

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