Page 7

Well, this is certainly inspiring. I shoot Ever a look, but she’s studying the chancellor with rapt attention. So is the redhead Bree.

“Some of you are already considering fleeing, taking your chances against the Paranormal Guard.” His gaze sweeps over our section again, slowly passing over each student, magic pressing against us. A sudden desire to flee rushes through me, hitting me hard and fast, but I grit my teeth. Living with Mr. Peters was terrible, but right now, I’m thankful for how brutal he was. Having endured that is the only thing that keeps me in my seat as dozens of students rise from their own.

I’ve suffered through much worse.

Chancellor Tweed’s magic tastes like copper on the back of my tongue. I swallow, my ribs threatening to rip apart under the pressure. The magic evaporates, like a quick flicker of lights, there in one blink, gone in the next. Almost as though it never happened at all. The students who stood up glance around, confused. They shake it off and quickly sit down, though their faces are pinched with worry.

“Then there are those of you who think you have what it takes.” Tweed casts his power again, but the sweep of his magic is a vacuum pulling at the Foundation side of the auditorium. A few of them fall to their knees, begging for mercy. The girl who was pissed about her phone curls in on herself, holding her head and rocking back and forth, screaming in fright or pain. A cacophony of terror threads through the tension in the room, each cry getting louder and louder.

“Holy shit,” Ever breathes.

That doesn’t even begin to cover it. Foundation bloodlines are strong, but Tweed having stormcraft, magic that taps into nature’s most destructive forces, and mindcraft, the power to control or influence people’s minds? That combination makes him super powerful.

Tweed rips his power away, but their whimpers echo in the auditorium for a few more seconds until his casting fully subsides. But unlike those who’d gotten up under the force of his magic, they struggle to reorient themselves. Mindcraft can ravage one's mind.

The vindictive side of me is pleased he showed no mercy to the Foundations.

More than a handful of them look ready to murder, though it’s clear they’re no match for him, especially not right now. The ruling council and the university administrators are some of the most powerful paranorms to ever exist. Foundations and Ferals alike would be lucky to be even half as strong as he is.

Tweed’s focus shifts to the Ferals again, head tipping. “And a few of you, oddly enough, will have what it takes to beat them all.”

A student shoots to his feet, lips moving fast and his hand flinging out, streaks of pure white magic cracking through the air. Thunder shakes the building right as the jagged tips of his magic slam into a shield a professor on stage manages to cast at the last second.

The professor’s dark hair brushes his forehead as he glares at the chancellor. “Really, Tweed?” he shouts over the hissing and electric snapping of the colliding magic.

The chancellor’s lips kick up, and he simply lifts an eyebrow. “Carver is a revered captain in the Paranormal Guard, or, at least, he was,” he explains to the rest of us before swinging a smug look at the professor. “Now he finds himself serving on my staff. Go on, Carver, stop him.”

With a shake of his head, Carver glances at the student, who is wide-eyed and pale. “Turn it off.”

“I don’t know how!” the guy shouts back. Which is why he’s even here. A lot of people have figured their way around their magic, but the university is meant to teach us how to control our powers with precision and speed.

Foundations laugh, and more than a few of them break into loud whispers.

“What a fucking waste.”

“He has stormcraft?”

“Who let the Ferals in?”

Carver releases a heavy breath. “This is going to hurt,” he calls out, not an ounce of cruelty or mockery in his tone. Simple facts. In the blink of an eye, the blue shield in front of him begins to absorb the white magic, devouring it instead of blocking, and the student releases a strangled sound as the professor’s magic eats the streak of white. The professor’s casting spins ribbons of swirling blue over the student’s until the lightning shoots into his palm.

The power breaks off, and the student groans in agony, cradling the hand he’d cast with to his chest, features pinched in pain.

“What was that?” I ask Ever. I should definitely know more about magic in general, but Mr. Peters didn’t exactly go out of his way to teach me about the various affinities, and I only learned the basic concepts in school.

“I think either some type of absorption spell or maybe siphon magic,” she whispers.

All paranorms can learn to cast certain spells, but that seemed more advanced.

Straightening, Carver brushes the strands of dark hair from his forehead, his piercing gray eyes slicing toward the chancellor. “You were saying?”

The chancellor hums, unimpressed, and gestures toward Secretary Ashteon, the woman who introduced him. She jumps into action, rushing to the front of the stage and holding up both hands as she starts to murmur a spell.

Magic shoots out of her hands and the ceiling suddenly fades away, revealing a multi-color swirl of power, rotating and whipping around in circles like a hurricane. A deep rumbling, like the passing of a train, fills the room, and something inside me quakes.

{Goddess magic,} the voice in my head whispers in reverence.

“The Threshold is a living construct of Vaeloria’s magic designed to measure how your power behaves when amplified and exposed,” Tweed shouts over the sound. He snaps his fingers and our seats disappear.