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.

Lucas for three days. Knowing that they're fighting over there, not knowing

stress has all of us

sit on the bed beside me, where I'm surrounded by five papers with different runes written on them. Unlike the magic

that happens when I touch them; no tingle or buzz within my

find the elements within me that correspond to them. With such vague instructions, it's no surprise I've had no

with a single element within

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

haven't tried that before—I grab the one that

of my own body, its thudding heartbeat vibrating through my chest, and the pulsing core of magic within me. It's there, bright and tantalizing, just out of

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

if nothing works? Taking

for fire sitting on the paper in front of me. Fire. Destructive, passionate, life-giving.

Burning.

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

couldn't scream, couldn't see. There was nothing but the

throat as the phantom sensations wash over me. I want to pull away from the memory, to escape the torment, but something holds me there. This

other life, that other death, I was nothing. Only pain. No name, no self, just pure sensation. And in that moment of complete dissolution, something else emerged. Something primal and

on the memory of being unmade by fire. The bright core of magic within me pulses in response, as if recognizing a kindred spirit. For the first time, I feel a connection to that