Page 137 of Death of a Mortal

“Will surely manifest soon. It should either stem from your fire or your shadows. For your sake, let’s hope it is the former and not the latter. That is all for today. Return once you’ve read the books.”

He left me with a sinking feeling that remained long after I returned to my bunk in the barracks. It wasn’t quite dinnertime, as Sevrin had cut our time short, and I wasn’t ready to dive into the books just yet, so I went for a walk. There was still a lot of the base I had not seen yet.

From the barracks, I headed back toward the main road, where a group of soldiers ran in Garrick’s wake, shouting occasional phrases like “pick up the pace!” I passed the school, where two dozen or so children were playing outside, and walked over to the wooden fenceto watch for a minute. Seeing the kids running around together, laughing and jumping, warmed my heart.

They all had rounded ears, so I suspected that even fae children had rounded ears and blunt teeth for a time, both growing pointy once their power emerged. It was my theory, anyways, knowing there were both fae and mortal children here per Aerie. I’d have to ask. But it made sense, then, why my ears and teeth hadn’t changed. They grew over time as the fae child grew, and I was done growing.

As I got lost in memories of Nella and me playing together in Briarstead, avoiding going home to Cassius for as long as possible, a smoking gray glythyr caught my eye on the fence further down. What drew my attention was that a piece appeared to be missing, like a blank spot among the intricate symbols. But when I got closer, I realized the section was still there, faint, as if it might wink out completely at any moment.

I closed my left eye to find that, without the magic vision, the glythyr looked normal, a faint white, no missing pieces.

I put my palm over it, and I could feel the magic within thrumming, but it felt…weak. Thin.

“May I help you with something, dear?” The older schoolteacher, whom Aerie had pointed out to me on my first day, approached.

“Oh, sorry. I just noticed this glythyr here looks damaged. What does it do?”

The small female studied me, the deep lines in her face reaching her temples, where wispy white hair fell to her shoulders. I couldn’t help but think she must be ancient to be a fae this outwardly aged.

“It prevents magic casting. There is no need for magic in a school classroom, and the risk of injury from a child’s magic emerging is high in confined quarters. Damaged, you say?”

She eyed me suspiciously. Right…apparently no one else could interpret glythyrs.

Just then, screams started on the playground, and the teacher and I whipped our heads around to find the source. The scene made her hazy eyes go wide.

There were a few children on the ground in a semicircle around one little boy. Everyone was drenched by water coming from him, jets spouting in all directions.

The screams were coming from the children on the ground, whose focus was on a single little girl, who was trapped in a cocoon of water hovering half a dozen feet above the ground, her eyes wide and distorted by the water, limbs flailing.

My heart dropped. She would drown if we couldn’t get the boy’s water magic under control. Magic that shouldn’t be able to exist on the school grounds with that glythyr…

The teacher shuffled toward the trapped girl, hand clutched to her heart, moving as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Wait! Fix the glythyr, and I’ll try to get to the girl!”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder at me as I hurdled the fence and sprinted into the yard.

“Now! She can’t breathe. We don’t have time. Fix the damn glythyr!” I ran full-on toward the girl and got blasted with a jet of water from the boy, who was screaming in terror. Once I got to my feet, I didn’t look back to see if the teacher had listened. Every second mattered.

I tried to reach into the vortex of water to reach the girl, only to be blasted back by an explosion of pressurized water from the cocoon. It seemed that this boy’s magic was manifesting for the first time, completely out of control and way too strong for a child to control.

I turned my focus instead on him. “Hey, hey, listen to me. Focus on me.” I tried to mimic the way Aerie had tried to calm me when my magic was out of control, keeping my voice steady.

His screaming stopped, but his eyes were wide as dinner plates, chest heaving with rapid breaths and tears streaming down his cheeks.

“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay. Don’t be scared. You can control this. Concentrate on the feeling in your heart. Think about bringing the water back to you.”

My voice didn’t give away how much panic I was feeling. I glanced back at the teacher to find she had her palm pressed to the glythyr.

Good, she’d listened.

She was nearly doubled over with the effort of pouring her magic into it, but the faded section was filling in.

When I looked back at the little boy, he was covering his face with his hands. “I can’t, I can’t, I don’t know how! I’m sorry!”

I didn’t even know how to controlmymagic, how would I get him to control his?

With a gasp from the teacher behind me, the water cocoon and jets stopped and splashed to the ground, soaking the play area. The little boy collapsed at the same time as the girl who had been trapped. She wailed—so she was alive—but the boy made no noise.