Page 11 of The Iron Flower

MAGE COUNCIL

RULING

#160

The Iron Test must be applied to anyone applying for Guild admittance in the Blessed Magedom of Gardneria.

CHAPTER THREE

IRONFLOWERS

“Elloren. You’re not planning on going to the Yule Dance, are you?”

Lead Apprentice Gesine Bane calls the words out lightly from the head of the apothecary lab, but I can hear the underlying threat in them.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” I reply evasively from the laboratory’s rear, my tone softly lamenting. I know that anything I say to Gesine is likely to be repeated back to her cousin, Fallon Bane, who would be furious at the thought of me going anywhere with Lukas.

“Mmm,” she says, looking up from the pile of lab papers she’s correcting. Her lips pout in mock sympathy. “It seems that Lukas Grey has quite lost interest in you. Pity.” Her eyes glint malevolently. “I heard he hasn’t visited you once.”

“Yes,” I tell her, dark amusement flickering inside me. “I’ve felt his absence acutely.”

The thought of Gesine Bane watching me arrive at the Yule Dance with Lukas Grey shatters any lingering hesitancy I might have had about attending. But my small spark of triumph is quickly extinguished as I take in the enormous Gardnerian flag hanging behind Gesine’s desk.

More flags are pinned on my Gardnerian classmates’ tunics and bags, and everyone in our class wears a white Vogel armband. Like Tierney, I wish I could rip my own hideous armband off, throw pyyrchloric acid on it, strike a flint and watch it burst into a churning ball of blue fire.

As if the Vogel armbands aren’t bad enough, Yule Dance postings decorated with Ironflowers cover every available wall of the University. The event coincides with our sacred Ironflower Festival, and it’s being openly touted as an opportunity to revel in patriotic fervor and the overwhelming power advantage we now have in the Realm.

The whole thing fills me with disgust.

Rattled, I focus back in on our lab—the distillation of Ironflower essence. It’s an ingredient with a huge range of applications, but Tierney and I absolutely despise working with Ironflowers. They’re exacting and complicated to handle, and almost impossible to distill without wand-power.

Which means that Tierney and I will be wrestling with this lab for hours longer than the rest of our smug classmates.

As I scan the classroom, I realize that our classmates’ receiving flasks are already filled with dark azure liquid, and Gesine has begun swanning around the room to check on everyone’s progress. She points her wand at each table’s final product in turn, the distillations briefly turning a plum color if the experiment was done correctly.

“We need to hurry,” Tierney says anxiously, glancing at the pale blue liquid in our flask. “She’ll be back here in a moment.”

Her frustration matches my own. If we don’t have something better to show Fallon’s vile cousin, she’ll have an excuse to assign remedial work, which will set us back further and make it even more difficult to pass this class.

A class I need.

“They’re feeding magic into the distillation to spark the reaction,” Tierney says in a coarse whisper.

“I know,” I say, mirroring her discontent. “Fire and water magic...”

“Wait.” Tierney’s eyes grow wide, as if with a sudden idea. Her gaze drops to my Snow Oak pendant. She glances warily over at Gesine, who’s now just a few tables away. “Put your hand on the receiving flask,” she whispers, “and hold on to that pendant of yours. If it coaxes magic into your lines like you told me, then maybe I can draw on your affinities with my water power.”

I hesitate. It’s an audacious idea, but risks revealing her abilities. “Are you sure, Tierney?”

She frowns, as if annoyed that I’m doubting her. “I can control my power.”

Cautiously relenting, I reach one hand toward the flask and grasp hold of my pendant with the other, surreptitiously checking to make sure Gesine isn’t watching us.

Tierney places her slender hands over mine. “Now, concentrate on your affinity lines.”

I pull in a deep breath and tighten my fist around the Snow Oak pendant as the cool sensation of Tierney’s rushing water flows through my hand. My earth lines shudder to life in response to her water power, and my fire lines spark. Tierney’s water flows through my wand hand with increased force and there’s a sudden, hard pull on my lines, my internal branches lacing together and streaming towards the flask, my fire trailing closely behind in a powerful swoop.

Blue fire bursts into existence in the center of the flask, the water coming to a rapid boil, steam gushing from the distillation. We both wrench our hands away from the now scalding glass, and I notice that the liquid is no longer a pale blue.

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