Chapter 172: magic doesn’t lie

Chapter 172: Magic Doesn’t Lie

POV: Astrid Vale

Ivy, Eliza and I reached our next class just as Professor Mirelle Veyra rose from her desk, and the room quieted the moment she tapped a stack of papers against the wood.

"A practical assessment is coming," she said. "Moonshade and Blackthorn students will work in mixed groups, combining your abilities to solve a controlled magical problem. Cooperation is the entire point, so choose your contributions carefully."

She read the groups aloud, and I landed with Eliza, a quiet Lycan boy named Tobin who fought like he’d been born swinging, and a witch named Marguerite whose sharp tongue matched her sharper spellwork. Two students near the back exchanged a look as my name was read.

"She’s only just started," one of them murmured, not nearly quietly enough. "Why put her with the advanced group?"

I kept my eyes on my desk. Their doubt stung, but I refused to give it room, even though a small voice in my head asked the same question.

After class, Eliza caught my sleeve. "Come practice with me. We have an hour before lunch."

We found an empty room with a chalk circle still faintly drawn on the floor, and Eliza set a small stone on the table between us. I picked it up and tried to repeat what I’d managed in Professor Veyra’s class, pushing hard toward that steady glow. The stone stayed cold. I tried again, and it flickered once and died.

"You’re forcing it," Eliza said, perching on the table’s edge. "You’re deciding exactly what the magic should do and then demanding it. Last time, you stopped doing that."

"I don’t know how I stopped."

"Then stop thinking about the result. Just notice what it feels like."

I breathed out, closing my eyes, and let my attention settle on the warmth pooling in my palm, the faint pulse beneath it that I’d been too busy commanding to feel. The stone brightened slowly, and a thin thread of light curled up from its surface and drifted in a lazy circle before fading. Professor Veyra’s advice finally made sense, at least a little. I still couldn’t have explained what I’d done.

"There," Eliza said, grinning. "That’s it. You’re not powerful yet, but you’re onto something."

"That’s the most encouraging insult I’ve ever received."

"I contain multitudes."

"Stop borrowing Xander’s lines."

At lunch, Ivy’s phone buzzed against the table, and she glanced at it, then turned it face down too quickly.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Nobody."

"It was Roshan," Eliza said, who had clearly read the screen from where she sat.

Ivy glared at her. "He asked whether I’m free after classes. It’s probably about something ordinary."

"Why would he need to schedule an appointment with you," I said, "if you’re just friends?"

"Eat your food and mind your business."

"Ivy," Eliza said sweetly.

"I helped him through a difficult night. That is all."

She said it firmly, but I noticed she typed a reply before she picked up her fork again, and that she smiled at the screen before she remembered we were watching. Roshan reaching out first, instead of waiting for someone to stumble over him in the dark, felt like a bigger step than either of them was willing to admit.

Later that afternoon, I spotted him in the corridor outside the library. He looked tired, with shadows under his eyes, but his shoulders sat looser than they had weeks ago, as though he’d stopped bracing against every glance. Ivy reached him before I could decide whether to walk past.

"Are you doing better?" she asked.

"Not fine yet," he said. "But I talked to someone. I’m going back this week. I can’t keep pretending I can bury what happened."

Ivy didn’t pepper him with questions or tell him what he should do next. She just nodded and listened, her whole attention on him in a way that made my chest warm.

"Thank you," Roshan said, his voice low. "Again. For all of it."

He didn’t call her little birdie this time. He just said her name, and it landed softer than the nickname had. I opened my mouth, then closed it, and for once let a moment belong to the two people in it.

My group met that evening in one of the practice halls, and the first attempt at combining our abilities went wrong almost immediately. Marguerite built a small construct from woven light, Eliza stabilized its edges, and Tobin was meant to test its resilience. The moment he struck it, the whole structure shuddered and began to swell, pulsing outward like it might burst.

"Back up!" Eliza shouted.

I felt it before I saw it, a sharp wrongness in the air, the pressure building unevenly on one side. Sapphire stirred under my thoughts, sharpening everything, and I realized the weak point sat low near the base, where the weave had tangled.

"Left side, near the floor," I said. "Push there, not at the top."

Marguerite adjusted her spell without arguing, and Eliza poured her power into the spot I’d named. The construct shrank, steadied, and collapsed gently into scattered light. Nobody spoke for a second.

"That was good," Tobin admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "You saw the problem before any of us did."

"Lucky guess," Marguerite said, though she didn’t sound entirely convinced it was only luck, and her tone made clear she still didn’t trust me to repeat it on command.

"We practice again tomorrow," Eliza said. "Properly, before the assessment."

Everyone agreed, even Marguerite, though her eyes lingered on me as we packed up.

That night, I came home to find my phone buzzing with a message from Reed asking how my classes had gone. I curled up on the couch and told him everything, the assessment, the construct that nearly burst, the small win I didn’t want to inflate.

Don’t pressure yourself to master it all at once, he wrote back. You’re learning something new. That takes time.

Xander’s message arrived right after. Did Midnight miss me at the caretaker’s place? Be honest.

I laughed out loud, picturing his face. He barely noticed you were gone, I replied.

Traitor, he sent back, followed by three offended emojis.

I set my phone down and looked around the apartment, at the lamp Reed always left on for me, at Ivy’s jacket thrown over the chair, at the quiet that no longer felt threatening. I had people waiting for me, work worth doing, and a future that wasn’t defined entirely by what had happened beneath the earth.

Tomorrow I would practice again. Not to prove anything to the students who doubted me, but because I was finally curious about what I might become.