For a long while, I just stare at him, stunned. I don’t understand my part in it, but I know I have one, and I’m grateful and terrified and confused.
“Nice going,” Fox says in my ear as she helps me stand.
I startle, staring at her with my heart in my chest. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t even try that,” she says.
I clamp my mouth closed, aware that there’s no point in denying what we already know to be true, even if neither of us understand it. I don’t know how it’s possible, but maybe I really do need to start considering that I might actually have mage blood in me, and if that’s true, I need to figure out how to get rid of it so it doesn’t get me killed one of these days.
Finally, the bird flies away.
Alphonse turns his back to us, hunched and heaving. Anyone else who had been attacked like that might appear wounded or in need of aid. Not Alphonse. Everything in his posture seems rippled with rage and embarrassment. He’s so rigid, it looks like his bones might snap from how tightly he’s flexing his muscles.
No one dares approach him.
After a few short moments, smoothing his dark, oily hair back, he finally starts to relax, to straighten his back and resume some of his composure.
“That’s enough for today,” he says quietly.
When he turns around to address us, his face is sliced and bloodied. Blood rains from a particularly bad gash in his eyebrow. Suddenly, I lose all the rage I held toward him just moments ago. I had forgotten the most important thing I’d always told myself: he is not better than me, or rather, I am better than him. I don’t need to beat him down to feel better about myself. He is just as human as I am; he bleeds just as I bleed, and he deserves life, just as I do.
His eyes are still squirrely with fear, unable to look at any of us directly, when he says, “Go. Rest. Remember, tomorrow we will meet in the catacombs for our morning session.”
We start to clear the field, but Alphonse catches my elbow when I walk past him.
“Don’t let this interruption go to your head,” he warns. “You are nothing. You cannot defeat me, and you will not last in the Shadowthorn.”
I shrug my arm from his grasp. “Yeah? What’s it say about you to be bested by a raven?”
His lip pulls back, dark rage folding around him. But he blinks it away almost as soon as it’s come, a cool smile twisting his lips instead. “And what’s it say about you that even a raven could find the upper hand?”
He adjusts his armor with the haughtiness of an eldest child who’s just tricked their parents into punishing his younger sibling. Then, head held high on his narrow, irritating neck, he leaves. Long after he’s out of sight, my gaze yearns to burn holes into him.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Fox says over my shoulder. “We both know that raven was you besting him.” Catching the cross look I shoot her, she adds, “Besides, magic or not, you’ve improved leagues since we started.”
Sai walks up behind us then. “You even know which end of the axe to hold.”
His comment is too casual for me to have to worry whether he heard Fox mention my alleged magic, but I glare at her anyway. She should know better than to say such things aloud, out here in the open where any number of people could hear us and report me as a mage. They wouldn’t need proof. If Fox wouldn’t tell them willingly why she thought I had magic, they’d force it out of her, and she would cave. Even if she hadn’t seen me with the mice, anyone caught under the iron of the Magistrate’s Legion said whatever they needed to say to end their own torment.
Fox punches his shoulder, and he walks away, leaving us alone. Or so I thought.
“You need to practice more,” Dimitri growls, coming up behind us. He’s slicked with sweat from yet another grueling match with Güthric. The two of them are quite well-matched, with Güthric’s brutish strength and Dimitri’s agile swiftness. There isn’t a single cut on him, nor bruise. “You need to learn how to use your assets.”
I flush at the unintentional compliment, and eager to see him squirm too, I lower my lashes. “You think I have assets?”
His cheeks burst the most scarlet of reds, like a field of blooming poppies announcing the arrival of spring.
“Aaaand that’s my cue to go,” Fox says. She starts to walk away, but glances over her shoulder at me. “See you tonight? Or will you be in the library studying?”
She winks and I stiffen, burning all the brighter. I can’t tell if she’s implying that Dimitri and I use studying as an excuse to spend time together in a more intimate and private setting or if she’s referring to me summoning another army of mice. One glance at Dimitri tells me he’s interpreted it as the former, so I pretend to do the same.
Fox leaves, her throaty laugh mocking us even as she disappears around the castle walls.
“I don’t understand why you humor her,” Dimitri finally says.
“She’s my friend.”
“I’m your friend,” he says, the protectiveness of his tone turning my heart to liquid. “What has she done for you but get you in trouble?”
I open my mouth to protest, but a sigh fills the space where my words should be. “Don’t you ever tire of this conversation? I know I do.”
I spin on my heels so fast that my silver hair whips through the wind sharp enough to cut. I’m tired of arguing with him. For once, I just wish we could enjoy a moment together and not be at odds with one another. But we’ve always been like this, two branches crafted from two different trees, different in more ways than we are alike. My mother used to say that was what drew us together. Opposites seek each other out because we all need balance, we need people in our lives to help us see things from other perspectives. It is simply the way of the world: long summers need long winters.
Truth be told, I always rolled my eyes at her for believing such a thing. It always seemed to me that things would be a lot easier if more of us shared the same beliefs and common ground. If Dimitri could just see the value I find in this friendship—
His hand, calloused and damp, catches my wrist. He tugs on me to turn me around, but I resist.
With a low groan, he says what’s on his mind. “You’re right.” It’s such a foreign statement on his lips that I can’t help but look back at him. His head is lowered, jaw flexed as he considers his words. “I don’t trust her, but…it’s clear you have chosen to. I will…stop bringing it up.”
My shoulders relax, expression softening.
“On one condition,” he adds.
My scowl returns with a swiftness. I roll my eyes and begin to pull away from him again, but his grip is set, as are his eyes when he spins me back into him. The palm of my hand lands on his chest, taut and warm beneath his black leathers. I’m tempted to melt right into him, and I’m sure he sees my irritation waver, though he doesn’t say it.
“What’s your condition?” I ask, my voice uncertain.
Despite myself, I lean into him. He releases my wrist to brush a tress of my hair back behind my ear. His hand continues to trail down my cheek, along my jaw. When he pinches my chin, he licks his lips. Closer, and closer, I am pulled into him. I am ivy with no other purpose but to wrap myself around him.