The moment the doors burst open beneath Quentin’s confident shove, the atmosphere inside the training hall collapsed into a buzzing mess of whispers so thick you could practically taste the tension.
Elvina stepped through first, her shoes sinking into the sand slightly as she scanned the room, her brows knit together in that exact way someone looks when they’ve walked into a party they weren’t invited to.
Quentin followed a beat later, but whereas Elvina walked with annoyed purpose, he hesitated, eyes darting across the dozens of Velvets suddenly frozen mid-practice, mid-conversation, mid-snooty-gesture.
"Just what," Quentin said slowly, confusion tilting his voice, "is going on here?"
He didn’t ask it like a man genuinely curious; he asked it like someone who had long suspected that the universe was plotting against him and had finally caught the cosmos mid-act.
Before anyone could offer a polite lie or a more tactful answer, one of the Velvets blurted out, far too loudly, "That boy just tested as a Concarnic mage!"
In that very instant, Quentin’s face drained of color so fast I half expected him to swoon, slap a hand to his forehead, and collapse like some overwrought aristocratic maiden suffering from too much sunlight. Elvina’s eyes flew open with such velocity she looked like she was trying to inhale the entire hall through her pupils.
"That’s—no," she sputtered, hands flying up in the air as though she could physically swat the idea away, "that’s impossible. That has to be a fluke. A mistake. A miscalibration. A faulty cube!" She threw her hands toward the attendant who’d taken back the nullglass like she meant to challenge him to a duel. "Test him again. Test him properly. Test him with a cube that isn’t broken by incompetence!"
"Elvina please," Quentin stammered.
"—because there is simply no way he—" Her finger jabbed in my direction now. "—is a Concarnic mage! I refuse to accept this!"
I flashed her a grin, "Aww," I purred, cocking my head, "are you jealous? It’s okay. Not everyone can be... whatever I am. Mysterious. Ethereal. A magical anomaly wrapped in legs and charm."
Her jaw clenched so hard I swear I heard her teeth grind like millstones.
It was beautiful.
Before she could recover enough to retaliate—verbally or physically—a sharp step sliced between us. Iskanda moved with the grace of someone who’d perfected the art of interrupting drama right before it peaked.
"Enough," she said to Elvina before turning to Quentin, "what are you doing here?"
Quentin straightened with practiced dignity that didn’t quite land, given he looked like the ghost of someone who’d been punched by fate. "I," he began, voice wobbling a little, "have the right to train my champion as well." He lifted his chin just enough to look official.
Iskanda rolled her eyes so hard I swear the air shifted from the momentum. "Wonderful." She paused for a moment. "By all means. Train your little—" she circled a hand at him dismissively, "—project," she said before pushing past them. With a dismissive wave of her hand, she pivoted sharply and motioned for me to follow. "Come along now, let us take our leave."
I didn’t need to be told twice. I sauntered after her, making sure to give Elvina the most obnoxious smirk I could muster. She flushed red with pure, undiluted fury—and Saint’s above, it was delicious.
Quentin began barking crisp orders for the Velvets to clear the hall as the door slid shut behind us with an echoing thud that sounded suspiciously like the tower sighing in exhausted relief.
As Iskanda and I stepped back into the dim corridor, the tension unspooled slightly. The halls were darker than before, lit only by the occasional lantern casting long shadows over tapestries depicting battles, beasts, and other mood-setting nonsense.
I snickered under my breath—a soft, delighted sound I couldn’t restrain. Being declared a magical anomaly, a legendary rarity, a walking loophole...well, it did things for one’s confidence.
Iskanda glanced back sharply, her expression cooled like a blade left in winter frost. "Don’t take things so lightly when it comes to him."
The mirth dropped out of me so fast it almost hurt. I straightened, clearing my throat. "Right. Sorry."
Iskanda continued as we walked, explaining in slow, concise sentences how Quentin was considered a prodigy in the field of Excarnic magic, praised by a number of academic circles for his grasp of elemental projection—particularly in the field of cryomancy—and how it had earned him quiet praise, the kind that moved behind closed doors and left rumors drifting like cold breath along winter glass.
No flashy titles, no sculptures in his honor, but plenty of scholars who muttered his name with that wary respect reserved for people who could freeze a room without lifting their hands.
"Sounds like someone desperately needs a hobby," I muttered.
Iskanda snorted. "Freezing things is his hobby."
"Is it?" I raised a brow. "I would’ve pegged it as more of a coping mechanism. Some people cry, some people journal, some people—apparently—turn their emotional repression into localized winter."
"That’s rich coming from you," she countered, side-eyeing me like she was choosing which vein to poke next. "You cope by picking fights and flirting with anything that has a pulse."
"That’s called versatility."
"That’s called being a menace."
I shrugged. "Semantics."
We continued down the dim corridor in silence then, lantern-light brushing softly across the walls in slow, shimmering waves.
The deeper we went, the quieter the halls became, until the only sounds left were the soft, rhythmic tap of our footsteps and the distant hum of machinery buried in the walls. Eventually the hallway widened, the ceiling arched upward, and we emerged onto the familiar balcony of the second floor.
I blinked. "Here again? Saints, what are we doing this time?"
Iskanda didn’t answer my question, at least not verbally. Instead she strode forward until she reached the railing, her arms crossing over her chest as she stared out at the industrial sprawl below. I moved up beside her, leaning my elbows against the cool metal and letting my gaze fall with hers.
For a moment I let myself breathe, slow and steady, trying to ground the whiplash of everything that had happened.
Eventually, Iskanda exhaled—the sound drifting off into the void beneath us like an old memory trying to pry itself free. When her gaze finally slid to me, it wasn’t sharp, cold, or full of the irritation she usually laced her words with.
Instead, it was calm. Patient. Heavy in a way that made my stomach drop a little. "I still deserve an explanation, you know," she said, her voice steady but unmistakably expectant.
My heart stuttered at the reminder. Right—the promise I’d made in the library. The one I’d mentally tossed into the same dusty corner where I kept my overdue responsibilities, my crippling anxieties, and that one time I accidentally flirted with a statue thinking it was a real person.
"Oh. R-right," I managed, clearing my throat and straightening a little like that somehow made me more prepared.
I pulled in a breath and, in the simplest, shortest way I could manage, unraveled the thread of it all—my battle with Malrick back in the prison, the running feud that had ended with his collapse in that dim warehouse, and the quiet shift of power that followed.
Iskanda raised her brow. "Wait, you said you’d stolen his power?" She echoed.
I sighed—deep, resigned, the kind that sagged the shoulders without permission. "Yeah... about that." The words came out heavier than I meant. "I, uh... I have this ability. When I get... intimate with someone, I can steal part of their power." The sentence felt absurd the moment it left my mouth. "It’s—look, it’s not something I talk about much. Or at all. But it’s something I can do."
There was a long pause.
Then another.
Then she barked out a laugh—sharp enough to fracture the silence, ricocheting off the metal railing and drifting out into the open air beyond the balcony.
"Of course you can," she said, like this was somehow the most predictable revelation imaginable. "Naturally. Why wouldn’t you? Saints, you really are a creature of chaos." Her eyes narrowed with mischievous focus. "So what did you steal from me, then?"
I gestured vaguely at my face. "Your sight. I can see trajectories clearer. Distances sharper. Everything feels... aligned."
Iskanda’s expression softened a fraction. "Gods, no wonder you excelled at archery," she said with an approving hum. "Saints above... you’re just full of surprises aren’t you?"
Heat crawled up my neck, and I knew I must’ve been blushing like a fool because she laughed again, softer this time. She regarded me for a moment longer before tilting her head. "Where the hell did you even obtain a power like that?"
I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the faint tremor in my fingers. "I don’t really know," I admitted. "I’ve had it since birth. It’s just... been part of me for as long as I can remember."
"Well," she said with another long, tempered exhale, "I suppose that’s not very important right now." Her tone held no judgment—only acceptance. "You told me, which is more than enough."
Something in my chest twisted at that—warm, tight, almost painful—but I didn’t know how to respond, so I looked away, pretending to study a patch of rust on the railing as though it were an ancient mural.
Iskanda stepped away from me then, her feet slapping softly against the grating as she stalked back toward the machinery embedded in the far wall. The pipes rattled faintly, like metallic snakes coiled beneath the surface, and then she placed her hand on an iron lever half-hidden between two rusty pipes.
"What’re you doing?" I asked, straightening as curiosity prickled up my spine.
She didn’t answer.
With a sharp, practiced pull, the lever snapped downward, sending a jolt through the wall that vibrated beneath our feet. A heavy mechanical groan echoed through the balcony, followed by the clatter of gears turning somewhere deep in the metal. Then, with the theatrical grace of a stage curtain, a ladder unfolded from above with a swift, metallic rush, slamming into the floor with ringing finality.
Dust drifted off the rungs like powdered gold.
Iskanda quickly hooked a foot into the first rung, her body moving with that fluid, easy confidence she always carried, and began to climb. Halfway up she paused, glancing down at me with a smug tilt of her head, eyes gleaming.
"Come on," she said, "I have something to show you."