Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted (Ava and Lucas)

Chapter 229 Ava: Fire

Bureaucracy in the Fae Ward moves with the pace of a paralyzed sloth, leaving me with an itchy feeling between my shoulder blades, as if staying here is the worst decision I've ever made.

Selene spends most of her time slinking around the Fae Ward, finding pockets of space with less wards to sneeze over. Vanessa and Marcus stick with me, with Vanessa sharing my bedroom.

Our first lesson doesn't happen for three days. Why?

Application for Unlicensed Magus to Practice Dangerous Magic Within Residential Areas.

It's an actual title of a piece of paperwork Magister Orion had to file. Apparently, new wizards (though the official Fae-paperwork term is magus, unknown origin) are deemed a deadly force. Whoever runs this place has a serious stick up their butt about me learning magic.

"I don't like it," Vanessa says, staring out the window. "They'll have your name on official paperwork. We have no idea how deep Renard's influence lies."

"It's only within the Fae Ward," I point out, like I have the other thirty times she's mentioned it. "If they're going to find me here, the paperwork won't be the only reason."

Marcus, of course, is quiet. We already know how he feels. He hates it and doesn't trust the paperwork, either.

Not that I disagree with either of them—it's just that, like them, I feel stuck.

unable to reach Lucas for three days. Knowing that they're

has all of us

runes written on them. Unlike the magic book I'm still kicking myself over for leaving in my room at the lodge,

different papers, looking them over again and again. There's nothing that happens when I touch them; no tingle or buzz within my

five papers and told me to find the elements

with a single element within me,

before me. "It helps with fighting. Learning to center, to focus only

grab the one that means fire, close my eyes, and focus

world fade away, leaving only the sensation of my own body, its thudding heartbeat vibrating through my chest, and the pulsing core of magic within me. It's there, bright

out to touch it. Nothing happens. I try to visualize

supposed to access this power if nothing works? Taking another deep breath, I force myself to relax. Maybe I'm trying

drift to the rune for fire sitting on the paper in front of me. Fire. Destructive, passionate, life-giving. I think about its properties—how it consumes, how it transforms, how

Burning.

A dream? A vision? Whatever it was,

fiber of my being. I couldn't move, couldn't scream,

want to pull away from the memory, to escape the torment,

I was nothing. Only pain. No name, no self, just pure sensation. And in that moment of complete dissolution, something else

focus on that feeling, on the memory of being unmade by fire. The bright core of magic within me pulses in response, as if recognizing a