Ellara

  I almost didn’t go.

  The mirror in the dorm said enough: a faded bruise trying to bloom beneath the powder, stiffness when I touched my cheek, the way my mouth wanted to pull tight to one side. Selene had offered to “accidentally” spill tea on my uniform so I could claim a wardrobe emergency. Mara had offered to walk me down the hall and glare at anyone who looked too long.

  Gran’s voice won.

  Classes are the one thing no one can take from you.

  So I went.

  The walk to Expression Studies felt longer than usual. The morning crowd poured through Arclight’s corridors in tidy streams, uniforms crisp, voices bright. Floating lamps shifted warmer as we filed past; the floor glyphs adjusted their paths to keep bodies moving. I kept my head down and counted steps, ignoring the prickle at the back of my neck that said someone was watching.

  No one was watching. Everyone was watching. No one cared about anything or everything or everyone cared about anything and nothing.

  All of it felt true.

  The amphitheater was already half-full when we slipped inside. Professor Arlewyn had written the day’s topic across the rune-board in a tidy hand that pulsed faintly with a sustaining charm:

  THE FOUR EXPRESSIONS — CORE THEORY & APPLICATION

  Selene squeezed my arm before we climbed to our usual row near the back. “You don’t have to—”

  “I’m fine,” I lied.

  Mara took the end seat, planting an elbow on the armrest like a posted guard. She didn’t ask. She knew I wouldn’t answer.

  Professor Arlewyn arrived on the dot of the bell, his robes swaying like he’d stepped out of an academy painting. His hair was silvered, his face lined the way stone lines with weather, his eyes sharp enough to pin a dragonfly. He tapped his stylus on the board twice; the runes brightened.

  “Good morning,” he said, in the tone that meant you were polite if you kept your greeting to yourself. “Today we are finishing our overview of Expression theory and moving into formulation and application.”

  He drew four clean sigils beneath the title.

  “For the benefit of those who joined late,” he said, without glancing at the cluster of new transfers three rows down, “a reminder. Mana in its raw state is considered too potent and directionless for practical use under modern magic doctrine. Your body will not use it safely without form. Cores modify and regulate that power into a single—” he tapped the first sigil, “—Expression.”

  “Aura.” The glyph expanded. “The magical manifestation of magic that relates to body and spirit. Fortification. Presence.”

  “Arcanum.” A second glyph flared to life. “refers to spell-shaping elements and force applied outside the body.”

  “Sanatio.” The third glowed gently, slow-cycling; “this type of magic references life; restoration. Purification and healing and surprising enough spirits and communion”

  “Technica.” The last resolved into a circuit-lattice. “Connect of other forces with tech and machines, true harmony with devices and magic constructs.”

  He paced as he spoke, stylus flicking edits into the air.

  “Your core defines which Expression you can safely sustain. It is not a suggestion. It is not a menu. It is the furnace that makes your work possible without killing you.”

  His gaze swept the room.

  “There are other magic systems that you see from other races of the Upper or even Lower plains. Stories of prodigies bending reality, shifting Expressions at will, bodies acting as conduits rather than containers. Fairy tales. Dangerous nonsense especially for humans. Core theory and Expression Manifestation is how we do magic in the modern day.”

  There were chuckles from the front. A boy with too-shiny shoes and an embroidered crest raised his hand like he was being paid per gesture.

  “Professor, my family’s fire Arcanum has registered at Greater rank for three generations. Is it true a multi-core practitioner can add, say, Illusia on top without loss since it is merely another branch of Arcanum?”

  Professor Arlewyn’s mouth twitched at the corner, which for him amounted to a warm smile.

  “Expressions like Illusia or Elementa are but subdisciplines of Arcanum. Think of it this way—because this is important to grasp, and I know many of you have struggled with it. Think of mana as the raw material, and the Expression as the fuel. What you can do with that fuel depends on what type of fuel you have.

  “This becomes tricky when discussing Technica specifically, because it is designed to integrate with our Expressions—but that is the exception, not the rule. You could add Illusia to your use, but it would not change your overall Arcanum output, because the Arcanum reserve itself would remain the same.”

  There were many nodding their heads, others looking contemplative.

  He continued. “As for cores themselves, it is true that many individuals are capable of forming a second core. Fewer can sustain the strain of two Expressions without significant… personalization of technique.” His eyes sharpened. “Two cores split your raw material and processing point. This makes things less efficient for core process and output—but it does make up for it with versatility of use.”

  A girl with ink-blue nails lifted her hand delicately. “Our line favors Illusia. My aunt says that when your rank reaches a high enough progression, it becomes easier to incorporate different Expressions and even change them entirely. Is that true, Professor? And how does that feed into ranking?”

  “Your aunt,” Professor Arlewyn said dryly, “sounds like a clever woman. Ranks are—” he tapped the board again, and a smaller chart unfurled, “—a shared language we use to understand the power of our own concepts, and to imply development and mastery. As for the other question, it is more complicated. Are there other Expressions we have not discussed? Yes. Are they appropriate to this case? No.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He pointed to the rank table, which glowed faint green as each tier settled into place:

  MINOR — training, safe

  STANDARD — combat-viable

  GREATER — advanced

  EXALTED — elite, rarely sustainable

  MYTHIC — legend, recorded, not recommended

  “Your casting aids,” he continued, “are there to keep you honest. If your bracer burns your wrist, it is not a suggestion. If your ring tightens, if your visor pulses red, you are exceeding stability. Do not argue with the tool that has saved more fools than talent ever has.”

  Right on cue, Selene glanced at my wrist. I closed my fingers before she could see the faint pink line where my bracer had dug in during the last lab.

  It had nothing to do with power.

  It had everything to do with control.

  Professor Arlewyn turned the board to a sequence of diagrams—body outlines overlaid with simplified channel paths, the way Arclight liked to imagine we were neat beneath our skin.

  “Application,” he said, and the word fell like a stone into a well.

  The room sat up straighter.

  “Aura.” He pointed at a schematic with thicker lines along the limbs and spine. “Kinetica, Dominion, Fortis. Standards by year.” He shifted to Arcanum matrices. “Elementa, Scriptura, Arcana Nova.” To Sanatio channels. “Vivens, Puritas, Animare.” To Technica lattices. “Machina, Constructa, Ingenia, Synchrona.”

  “Your homework is to write which branch aligns with your aptitudes and with the core you either possess or intend to cultivate. Note that intend is not wish. If you have not yet felt the pull toward an Expression, you will by the end of term.”

  The boy with the crest leaned back, satisfied, already coaxing a small flame into the air beside his desk. If I’d been closer, I would have seen his bracer pulse warm as the flicker crept toward Standard, his grin when it held without wobble.

  Two rows down, a girl adjusted the threads on her cuff and made a small illusory moth land on his shoulder. It looked real enough that he yelped and swatted at it, then laughed too loudly when his friends laughed. The moth vanished in a shard of light.

  Mara made a low sound in her throat. “One day,” she murmured, “I’m going to put a real moth down the back of his collar.”

  Selene pressed her lips together and pretended not to be delighted. Then she leaned toward me, whispering so close I felt hair brush my cheek. “Ell… you’re sure? Your face—”

  “I’m fine,” I said. The lie sat on my tongue like a pebble. I swallowed it. “Please.”

  She nodded, eyes soft, and didn’t push again. Mara’s jaw worked. She didn’t push either.

  Professor Arlewyn closed the hour with a reminder to eat properly. “You cannot argue your way out of fainting,” he said. “We’ve tried.”

  The bell chimed. Noise erupted. Books slid, chairs scraped, and in a breath the room became a market.

  Selene touched my arm. “Lunch?”

  “In a minute,” I said, because the idea of walking into the crush felt like stepping under a wave, and because I needed to breathe without everybody’s air in my mouth for thirty seconds. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  Mara looked like she wanted to argue, then didn’t. “We’ll save a spot,” she said, which was her way of promising she would stand in front of whatever seat I needed with both elbows and a smile that meant try me.

  They went.

  I took longer than I needed to putting away my stylus. The amphitheater emptied in layers until the echoes could hear themselves again. Then the door swung open behind me and sound hit like birds.

  “—no, really, give me it—”

  “—move, Jin, my cousin’s in that section—”

  “It’s true, Arlewyn’s old bones shook—”

  “Not Arlewyn, Halden—Halden made him—”

  The first pair tumbled in with a cluster of others, half-running and half-tripping over their eagerness. A girl I vaguely knew from lab clutched a rune-crystal like a sugar apple, already tapping the facets to wake it. The air above it fluttered, struggled, then steadied crystal-clear into a recording.

  The front of another amphitheater. Professor Halden, arms folded. A boy at the front of the room, ordinary in the way an unfinished drawing is ordinary—lines present, features smudged by something that wasn’t fog and wasn’t light.

  “Mr. Arcanus,” Halden’s voice said from the past. “Remove the glamour.”

  I didn’t advance. I didn’t leave. I didn’t breathe.

  In the recording, the boy didn’t move for a heartbeat. Then the plainness rippled like heat over stone and parted.

  Blue-black hair, uneven where it wanted to be and not where it didn’t. Eyes like stormglass—violet if you looked, something else when you blinked and looked again. A face that wasn’t pretty for the sake of it, but… sculpted, like it had chosen what to keep and what to cut away.

  A gasp went up around the crystal, the same shape relief makes when it breaks a chest open.

  “Oh,” someone said reverently. “Oh, he’s—”

  “Gorgeous,” another supplied.

  “Not noble,” a third said, in the tone of someone inventing a myth so they could own it first.

  “Arlewyn’s going to have a fit,” someone else said, which made no sense, and then made too much sense.

  My bracer hummed against my skin, a nervous habit of the old mechanism when it felt emotion like current. I pressed my palm over it until it stilled.

  “Ellara!” a voice chirped at my shoulder, too loud, too close. Selene, breathless, eyes already glassy with secondhand awe. “You’re brother just became the most popular guy in school”

  Mara appeared behind Selene, folding her arms. She took one look at my face and shut her mouth on whatever she’d been about to say. “Don’t exaggerate Selene; you’re going to Eli a heartache.”

  Someone near the door squealed. “He’s in the plaza, someone said, maybe if we—”

  The room emptied like someone had blown out a candle. Students streamed toward the hallway in a rush that made the floor glyphs brighten to herd them. Selene grabbed my hand because that’s what she does when she’s excited and forgets where her fingers end. “Come on,” she said. “Come on, come on—”

  “I’ll catch up,” I said, softer than a whisper but somehow enough.

  They hesitated. Selene looked between me and the door like it was a test, a real one, not the kind Professor Arlewyn could grade. Mara tugged her sleeve. “Save a spot, remember?”

  Selene nodded, squeezed, and let go.

  When the doorway cleared, the quiet felt like it had weight.

  I packed my bag properly this time, not because it needed it but because the ritual made my hands do something other than shake. Then I stepped into the corridor and let the river of bodies pull me toward the light.

  The plaza outside caught the sun like a net. Students spilled down the steps in knots, a scatter of voices rising and falling in bursts—“he walked past me, I swear,” “Halden is a menace,” “do you think the Vice Principal signed off on—” Names and titles blended with rumor. Breath and rush and heat and the faint smell of ink someone had spilled on a book they cared about.

  He was there. Not in the center, not on the steps, not where everyone wanted him to be, but near one of the carved pillars at the edge of the square, where shadows kept the stone from baking. He leaned as if he’d grown there, one shoulder against the cool, eyes moving without hurry, reading the crowd like script.

  Our eyes met across distance that felt like a year and a door and a window and ten missed dinners.

  I walked. I stopped. I told my feet to make up their mind and they chose him.

  “How was your day,” he said, the corners of his mouth tipping like he might try a smile if the world didn’t throw something sharp at us first, “And I understand that I owe you—little sister?”

  Everything I could have said stacked up at the back of my teeth: fine, good, better now, not now. Its not better its neverr going to be better. The bruise under the powder on my face pulsed with my heart. It must have looked worse in this light. Or maybe he didn’t need light to see.

  Cale’s gaze flicked to my cheek and back. His jaw settled. He didn’t reach for me. He didn’t make a scene. He just stood there, every part of him quiet, and made a promise with the way he looked at the pillar and the plaza and then at me again.

  He dropped his voice until it was only ours. “Who hit you?”

  My mouth opened. Nothing came out.

  Behind us, the plaza kept moving—laughter, boots, a shout, a bell somewhere distant calling someone who wasn’t me. I closed my fist around the strap of my satchel until my knuckles went pale, and for one hot, shameful second I wanted to say no one, because that made it smaller, because that made me stronger, because if I said nobody then nobody had hurt me.

  I swallowed. The stone under my shoes held.

  “I don’t…” I said, which was true in the way that let you sleep at night. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He exhaled once through his nose, a long, patient sound that said we were both lying to ourselves and he was going to let me do it for one more breath.

  “Walk with me,” he said.

  I did.