“I had the same idea.”
“Jinx, then.”
I rinse my hair out and start on conditioner, proud that I know the next step without having to think about it.
There’s another step I need to take tonight too.
“Hey, Alice?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. About the Quarry. On some level, I knew you’d go if I wanted to go and I guess I just decided that was okay. I know the dean called your parents, and I can’t imagine what they said. I’m just… sorry for my part in it and sorry that I yelled at you and”—tears well up in my eyes, and my hands are too sudsy to wipe them, damnit—“said those things. That was unfair and wrong.”
Alice sighs. “I’m sorry too. It was my decision to go to the Quarry, not yours. I shouldn’t have jumped on you about your classes and about being here. I was just angry and worried.” A pause. “Which is what I am right now, by the way. Worried on the way to terrified.”
I dunk my head under the faucet. Pull water through my clumpy curls with shaking fingers. Section again, apply shampoo.
“You gonna tell me what happened tonight?”
I knew she’d ask, but the question still rocks me. I have to press both hands against the shower tile to stop the tremors. I’m clean, in the physical sense. But I still feel dirty.
“Bree?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images I’d tried to bury flash by too quickly: the sharp rise of Nick’s chest when William pushed aether into his body; Sel, in a dark, bitter rage, ripping the arms and legs off the dead uchel and throwing them into the woods; the way the hounds’ bodies just… dissolved after a while. The memories threaten to suffocate me, just like the ones from the night my mother died.
“I can’t.”
Another pause. The shampoo runs into my eyes. Stings.
“Trust me. Please?” I ask, so quietly I’m not sure she can hear it over the water. It gets harder to breathe. The hot tears of After-Bree burn behind my eyes.
“Fine.” She doesn’t sound angry, but she leaves without saying goodbye or good night.
The door clicks shut, and that something inside me breaks again. A rush of air leaves my lungs, like I’ve been holding my breath for hours and hours.
Then, my skin bursts into flames.
I slap my hands against the walls, the tile floor, but nothing stops the bloom of red climbing my fingers to my elbows. Bloodred fire ignites at the tips of my fingers and races to my elbows in a loud whoosh. Even under the water, the blaze grows brighter and wraps around my elbows like glowing vines.
The fire scalds my skin without burning, flickers over my nose like wild butterflies.
Spots in my vision bleed from tiny black dots into swirling obsidian pools. I fall to my knees, hand splayed across the tiles, heart pounding against my rib cage.
Mage flame.
That’s what this is.
It’s not silver-blue like Sel’s or the Legendborns’, or green like the hounds’, but it’s still mage flame.
Knowing what it is doesn’t explain why it’s here.
Why it’s the sickening, raw color of a fresh wound.
Why the flame feels like it’s coming from inside me.
The only beings I’ve seen leak flame from their bodies are demons. Sel already thinks I’m Shadowborn. If he sees me like this—
“Oh God,” I whimper.
There must be other explanations: It’s my body’s delayed reaction to the Oath. It’s Sel’s aether still lingering on my skin, turned sour from my resistance. It’s something the uchel put in me when he opened me up. Any could be true, or none. The bottom line is the same: If I can’t explain what’s happening, then I have to find a way to control it, because if I can’t control it…
You know I will, don’t you? Kill you. And you know I can.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Find my barrier. Shape it into every image I’ve ever used to contain After-Bree and her explosive, dangerous rage—and then some.
A wall made of brick. Made of steel. With bolts the size of my fist.
A blockade a mile high.
Tall enough to contain a giant, strong enough to hold back a god.
A bank vault with two-foot-thick bulletproof doors.
Unbreakable metals, uncrackable surfaces, unscalable heights.
I push all of me behind all of them.
No fissures, no seams, no way in or out.
I shove and heave and cry until I’m safe behind my wall.
And when I open my eyes, the flames are gone.
18
WHEN I WAKE up, my head is clear. I’m tired, but I feel like myself.
I slip my satin scarf off and tug on a few damp curls. Let the shiny strands wrap around my fingers, then pop back into place.
My arms look normal again. Familiar. Ordinary.
Except what happened last night was not ordinary.
I review Nick’s explanation in my head: Aether is an element in the air. Mage flame is the byproduct aether creates when it’s called into a solid state. Awakened Scions and Merlins can call aether for various uses. These things I’ve witnessed. But I’ve been so busy learning about the Order and what they can do that I haven’t really taken stock of what I can do.
Sight? Resisting mesmer? And as of last night, Oaths? The more I learn about Oaths and their role in the Order’s structure, the more I agree with Nick that I shouldn’t advertise that ability. But these are passive, quiet things. Easy to hide.
What happened last night was not a quiet thing. And if it happens again around the chapter, I don’t know if I’ll be able to hide it.
Rule Four. Never, ever let anyone see aether pouring out of my skin like burning blood.
My phone rings. I frown. It died at the Lodge and I don’t remember plugging it in last night.
“I charged your phone for you.” Alice is across the room, dressed and sitting at her desk. “Saw it was dead. Got you breakfast, too.” She points her chin at a paper bag on my desk.
As soon as I see it, it’s all I can smell. Biscuits. Still hot.
“You got me Bojangles?”
“Charlotte offered to pick it up.”
We stare at each other in uneasy silence.
“Gonna answer that?”
“Yes.” I reach for my phone and almost immediately wish she’d let it stay dead. “Hi, Dad.”
“Briana Irene. Explain yourself.”
I grab the Bojangles.
The thick scent wafting up from inside the paper makes my mouth water. Buttermilk biscuit–Jesus, take the wheel.
“I should have called you. I forgot. There’s just been a ton going on.”
It’s not just any biscuit. It’s a Bo-Berry Biscuit, thank you Lord. “Bless you,” I mouth to Alice. She smiles and sits down at my desk chair looking very pleased with herself.
“Oh, really? Like what?”
“Started hanging with some kids.”
“And how’s that going?”
Every question leads me right to my doom, I just know it.
“Fine.”
“Fine like getting sent to the dean’s office fine? Like ending up in the back of a squad car fine?”
“It was just a warning…”
Alice raises a brow. Disapproval from two directions. I angle my phone away and whisper, “Don’t you have a class to go to, or something?”