Chapter 2 The Academy Wants Me

The knock came at nightfall, three slow raps, and Elysande knew before she opened the door that her life had just ended and started again.

Two figures stood on the landing of her narrow rooms above the cobbler's shop. The woman in front wore a charcoal cloak pinned with a black thorn. The man behind her carried nothing and watched the stairwell.

"Miss Veyr," the woman said. "I am Magister Odalys Fenn, of Blackthorn Academy. May we come in?"

"No."

"Then we will speak here." Fenn's smile did not move past her mouth. "You broke a memory curse in the middle of Tanner's Row this afternoon. By morning it will be in every newspaper in Veyrath."

"Then the Wardens can send me a letter."

"The Wardens will send you a cage." Fenn's voice stayed pleasant. "One of them lost his spell today. The Containment Office will call that an attack."

Elysande's hand tightened on the door. "He attacked me first."

"I believe you. They will not." Fenn glanced at Elysande's sleeves. "May I see?"

"See what?"

"The markings."

Elysande said nothing. The silver lines had faded to a dull shimmer under her skin, but they had not gone. She pushed her sleeve up anyway.

The man behind Fenn drew a sharp breath. Fenn did not. She simply looked, long and steady, with the calm of someone who had seen them before.

"The first appearance is always the brightest," Fenn murmured. "They dim after…"

She stopped.

The silence stretched. Elysande felt the cold slide down her neck again.

"After what?" she asked.

"After the first absorption," Fenn said smoothly. "A theory, nothing else. Blackthorn has studied Unweavers in the old records."

It was a lie, and a practiced one. The half sentence before it had been the truth.

"There are no Unweavers in the old records. I checked. Six years of checking."

Fenn's eyes sharpened. "Then you understand how rare you are."

"I understand you just lied to me."

"I understand you are frightened, and I do not blame you." Fenn stepped closer, her voice low. "Listen carefully. What you did today has a price, and the price grows each time you pay it. Untrained, you will lose your mind within a year."

Elysande thought of the yellow kitchen and the name Halvard, still glowing in her head. She thought of the boy in the stairwell, whispering. Her stomach turned.

"Blackthorn offers you training," Fenn continued. "A bed, a tutor, protection from the Wardens. And access to the academy's libraries."

Elysande went still.

"The restricted ones?"

"Eventually." Fenn watched her closely. "Students who earn trust are permitted to read what the public cannot."

The trial records. The tower. Orren.

Six years she had begged clerks and bribed archivists for a single page about her brother, and every door in the city had stayed shut. Now the one institution that had slammed them all was holding a door open.

It was a trap. Every instinct she owned said so.

It was also the only way in.

"If I come," Elysande said slowly, "I choose my own lessons."

"You will have a tutor."

"Who?"

"He will meet you at the academy. The Headmistress has asked to be told the moment you arrive." Fenn held out a sealed letter. "Our carriage leaves at dawn, with or without you."

Elysande packed one bag and did not sleep. At dawn she climbed into the carriage, and a stranger's love for a man named Halvard sat in her chest the whole way up the hill.

---

Blackthorn rose out of the morning fog in black stone towers. The iron gates read the thorn on Fenn's cloak and swung open without a sound, and two ward-keepers in copper-threaded gloves stepped aside from an arch they were tuning. Students in grey robes crossed the courtyard, their coloured cords marking year and discipline, while a bell tolled the quarter hour for lectures. Every one of them turned to watch her pass.

"That's her," someone whispered.

"The Veyr girl."

"My father says she's dangerous."

Elysande lifted her chin and kept walking.

Fenn led her up a spiral staircase, down a corridor lined with glass doors, and into a round study at the top of the east tower. A man stood there with his back to the room.

"Magister Rook," Fenn said. "Your student, as you requested. The Headmistress sends her regards."

He turned.

Elysande's breath caught.

She knew that face. She had seen it six years ago, across a crowded courtroom, speaking calmly into silence while her brother's name was destroyed. Dacien Rook was taller now, leaner, with black gloves on both hands and a stillness that belonged to people who never made mistakes. His grey eyes found her, and held.

He testified against Orren.

"You," Elysande said.

"Miss Veyr." His voice was low and steady. "Sit down."

"I'd rather stand."

"I would rather you did not collapse." He glanced at her arm. "Show me."

She hesitated, then pulled back her sleeve.

The silver lines caught the window light and shimmered. Dacien looked at them for exactly three seconds. His expression did not change. His breathing did not change. Only his gloved hand moved, the fingers curling slowly into his palm.

Fenn had flinched. Her escort had flinched.

He had not.

"You're not surprised," Elysande said.

"Should I be?"

"Nobody has ever seen these before. Everyone who looks at them either panics or stares. You just…" She narrowed her eyes. "You looked at them and ticked something off a list."

Something flickered behind his eyes and vanished. "I have studied forbidden magic for ten years, Miss Veyr. Little surprises me."

"That isn't what I asked."

"It is what I answered."

Fenn cleared her throat. "I will leave you to begin."

The door shut behind her. The room went quiet.

"As you requested," Elysande repeated. "You asked for me?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because the alternative was a stranger." His voice did not change. "Sit."

Dacien crossed to the desk, picked up a thin folder, and set it down in front of her without opening it. "Your schedule. Lessons start at six each morning, in this room. You will not use Unweaving outside them. You will not enter the lower levels. You will not speak to students about what happened on Tanner's Row."

"And if I disagree?"

"Then you will be sent home, and the Wardens will find you by noon." He met her eyes. "I am not your enemy, Miss Veyr."

"You testified against my brother."

"Yes."

He did not apologize. He did not explain. He simply stood there and took it.

Anger she could have fought. This frightened her.

"Why am I here?" she asked quietly. "Truly."

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he walked to the window and looked down at the courtyard, where a hundred students moved through the fog.

"Because if your magic has truly returned," Dacien said, "someone will soon come looking for you. And I woul

d rather they find you here, where I can see them first."

Elysande studied his back and could not tell who he meant to protect: her, or the academy from her.