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.

for three days. Knowing that they're

all of

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

looking them over again and again. There's nothing that happens when I touch them; no

these five papers and told me to find the elements within me that correspond to them. With such vague instructions, it's no surprise I've

commune with a single element within me,

helps with fighting. Learning to center, to focus only on what

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

the sensation of my own body, its thudding heartbeat vibrating through my chest, and the pulsing core of magic within me. It's

try to visualize tugging at it, like pulling on a string, but it remains stubbornly distant.

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

on the paper in front of me. Fire. Destructive, passionate, life-giving. I think about its properties—how it

Burning.

life, but of another. A dream? A vision? Whatever it was, it feels as

I couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't see. There was nothing but the all-consuming

wash over me. I want to pull away from

life, that other death, I was nothing. Only pain. No name, no self, just pure sensation. And in that moment

core of magic within me pulses in response, as if recognizing a kindred