Tangled

Unshift 229

Unshift 229

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.

17:05

that I've been unable to reach Lucas for three days.

ty

Knowing that they're fighting over there, not knowing the full

us on edge.

any progress" Vanessa changes the

I'm surrounded by five papers

magic book I'm still kicking

don't disappear, and Vanessa and Marcus are able to

over again and again. There's nothing that happens when I touch them: no tingle or buzz within my

gave me these five papers and told me

such vague instructions, it's no surprise I've

matter how I try to commune with a single

Learning to center, to focus

you

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

SVR XS. FIR

scents of the world fade away, leaving only the sensation of my own body, its thudding heartbeat vibrating through

of reach.

on that core, that energy that warms me from within, I imagine myself reaching out to touch it. Nothing happens. I try to visualize tugging at it, like pulling on

either.

me. How am I supposed to access this power if nothing works? Taking another deep breath, I force myself

the rune for fire sitting on the paper in front

about its properties-how it consumes,

Burning.

surfaces, unbidden. Not a memory of this life, but of another. A dream? A vision? Whatever it was, it

anything I've experienced.

that raged through every fiber of my being. I couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't see. There was nothing but the all-consuming agony of flesh melting

over me. I want to pull away from the memory, to escape the

17.50

220 Ava. Fire

matters.

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 powerful. I focus on

power.