Page 98 of Embers of Midnight
“See?” Ash announces to no one. “Gifted. Emotionally allergic to compliments. Tragic.”
“Shut up,” I tell him, smiling into my water because I’m weak and it feels good.
Rumor grazes the table like a fly that can’t take a hint. I file the noise under later. Midterms first. Sunday later. I can hold two truths without dropping both.
Taya nudges a strawberry into my bowl and points at it like an order. “Rell wrote clean next to your plate in the log,” she says. “I saw it.” Laz waves his phone with a photo of the line like a gremlin archivist and Vex hops down to try and steal the evidence. Ronan swaps the strawberry for half his bread without comment. Ash attempts to feed me an olive with ceremony until Darian lifts one eyebrow and the ceremony dies.
Two first-years pretend not to stare and fail. I take another bite and let them have their show. Caelum’s foot knocks mine once under the table, a quiet nudge that lands like you are here, not a headline. Ronan says fuel before the next block, which is his wayof telling me he needs me alive for dinner. Ash promises cake if I keep being boring in the best way. I breathe, count, and finish my plate. Ready over lucky.
Thursday puts me in Alchemy with Hyssop and a room full of glass that wants steady hands. Today’s task is simple on paper: build a stabilizer plate, seat it, seal it. Taya sets the draught; I ink the runes. Laz hovers just outside the spill line with his camera holstered and his mouth shut, which is his version of church.
Halfway through, the sealer bottle in our caddy smells wrong. Too sharp. The viscosity is off by a hair you only feel if you’ve ruined three plates before. The label reads Batch 41B. The cap ring is scuffed like somebody worked it twice.
“Check the lot,” I tell Taya. She tilts the bottle, squints. “Shelf says 41A.” Her tone goes flat.
I run the tiny conductivity strip across the rim. It spikes. Not lethal. Sabotage-light. The kind that wastes your grade and gives you a lecture about paying attention. I don’t touch the plate. I raise my hand.
Hyssop materializes, takes one breath over the bottle, and his mouth goes thinner. He doesn’t look at me; he looks past me. Cassandra’s bench is neat enough to be a crime scene. Her wrist glints cold where a ring shouldn’t be in lab. Two empty caps sit on her blotter, both clean, both the wrong color for 41A.
“Ms. Voss,” Hyssop says, level. “Bring me your sealer.”
She does it with that perfect posture that makes first-years think she’s honest. He sets our bottle next to hers, wipes both rims with fresh strips. Hers reads clean. Ours reads hot. He turns one cap in his palm, then holds up the bottle to the light. The neck thread has a tiny burr I would’ve missed. He wouldn’t.
“Cap swap,” he says. Not loud. Final. “Minus three sigils. Unsafe manipulation of materials. You’re on observation only for the rest of the block. Step back from the bench.”
Cassandra opens her mouth and closes it again. The shadows flanking her pretend to be air. Hyssop writes the deduction on his slate, signs, and hands a copy across without drama. Taya exhales. Laz’s camera clicks once, then goes away because we are not turning this into a show.
Hyssop replaces both caps himself and sets a fresh 41B on our tray. “Proceed,” he tells us. I anchor my left hand, send a thin line of heat into the lattice, and seat the plate. No wave. No scorch. Boring, perfect. I can live here.
Out in the hall, my hands remember how to tremble. I let them for five steps, then put the breath where it goes. Two short. One long. The shakes decide they aren’t invited.
Caelum finds us on the way to the stairs, taps a ward tab onto my notebook spine. “For hall noise,” he says, and doesn’t add the other thing, the thing his eyes say anyway: proud.
“Bless you,” I answer. He hums once—low, even—and the corridor shrinks back to human size.
Friday is the arena.
The floor smells like resin and old effort. Ronan stands at the front of the cohort with a staff in his hands and that even gaze that makes people behave. Gossip hums in the bleachers; I don’t feed it.
“Quick brief,” he says. “Technique, control, adaptation. If you need a show, go to Theater Arts.” A few people smile because he stole Rell’s line on purpose. “Stations. Rotate on the bell.”
He doesn’t say halt or codes or any of the words that make me feel like a lab rat. He doesn’t have to. We know the work.
Station one: footwork and balance. I keep my shoulders down, elbows where they belong, weight over feet. Maela lands across from me once; we trade clean contacts and break when the drill wants us to. No extra. No petty. She looks relieved I didn’t set her on fire for fun. Growth.
Station two: weapons. The school blade is balanced for median hands, not mine. I adjust. The point does what points do if you don’t boss them. The form drill is ten strokes, then reverse, then breathe. I do not embellish. It is so boring I could weep.
Station three: heat control. Floor sensor reads green to amber. I sit in green. I keep it there. The meter wants the flares. I do not give it flares. Basic. Embarrassingly adult. I like it.
Someone threads a thin frost line over station three. It hits Caelum’s ward and dies on the floor.
Ronan doesn’t let it slide. He turns, tracks the source, and pins Cassandra in the bleachers—the ring on her finger still fog-cold.
“Voss,” he says, voice flat. “Out.”
She blinks like she misheard. He doesn’t repeat himself. “You’re done here today. Try that once more—anywhere, on anyone—and I will see you removed from this Academy.”
Silence drops hard. Two assistants move; she stands, cheeks high with heat, and walks. The door closes.
