Page 103 of A Heart of Bluestone

I attach a magazine with folded pages and red ink to circle all the things I picked out for myself. A new backpack, shoes, more thermal tights, and—why not—a new shirt, the French kind with a high ruched collar.

Before I know it, my flesh is back to normal, a pallor that’s forever ghostly. Come Monday, I’m back in class—and my evening detentions.

It’s been a shitty week.

Today, I have no bag. All the others I have in my trunk and luggage tucked under the bed, they aren’t for school. I’m notcarrying around a rucksack or a duffel bag, I would die from the shame.

So, after Star Theory is dismissed, I gather my textbooks, thin tomes, and a notebook that has some pencils stuffed between the pages, into my arms and push from my rickety chair.

At the head of the dispersing class, Eric wipes chalk off the board with an old, frayed duster. It isn’t doing much good. That chalkboard needs a proper wash.

The rest of the class thins out, a lazy and tired and bored-out-of-their-damn-minds throng of students slumping out through the door to tackle those wooden stairs that zigzag seemingly forever all the way down to the ground floors of the academy. A triple lesson on the myths of astrology in the krum world, and there’s not a happy face in sight.

I feel the weight of the semester, too.

December is just six weeks from now, and it feels like the end of a prison sentence is slumping closer—but that it’s never quite within reach.

I count the days.

The days until the first morning of December sees us all back on the gondolas, stepping through the veils, and going home for the Solstice Season.

I won’t be resentenced to this prison until after the New Year.

I need that break to come now.

The fatigue weighs me down, pulls on my deflated shoulders and drags my boots over the old floorboards of the tower classroom.

I don’t file out onto the stairs with the rest of the students.

Courtney pauses near the doorway. She tugs the strap of her satchel over her shoulder and looks back at me, a silent question in her frown.

I just wave a weary hand at her.

Go on without me.

I’ll catch up with you later.

It’s all feeling so tiring.

Even the practice of my old friendship with Courtney, a witch I have nothing in common with, who—to spend so much time around—is draining me, as I am sure I am draining her.

It’s this far into the year I start to pay more attention to Serena. Just when she’s doing small things, like fastening the clasp of a necklace, gliding on her soft gloves, slipping her feet into stilettos, all the signs that she is leaving the dorm for hours into the night, whether to hang with my brother, let him shower her with pretty flowers and jewels and dates as they pursue their courtship, or that she’s off to a party tucked somewhere in the academy.

It’s envy that fills me.

If I had magic, would I be going with her to the parties? Would I be borrowing her shoes? Would she be telling me to wear the red dress, not the black one because that shade washes me out?

I’m rooted in misery as the door to the classroom shuts, all the students gone, all but me.

I drag myself to the teacher’s desk. Only, Master Milton isn’t around this lesson. He was here to start with, but when Piper snatched Zara (a made one with the attitude of an aristos) by the hair, and yanked her clean out of her seat, he had to hoist the two of them out of the class.

He hasn’t returned.

So, now, it’s just Eric—and me.

Leaning all my books into one arm, I grip the graded assignment in my other hand, so tight that the thick parchment crinkles. The rustling sound doesn’t surprise him.

His shoulders soften, as though he sighs. He sets down the chalk eraser, then dusts off his hands.

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