Chapter 175: the things I can’t explain

Chapter 175: The Things I Can’t Explain

POV: Astrid Vale

I left Professor Veyra’s office with her questions still circling my head, and I stopped in the empty corridor to try again. I closed my eyes and reached for that jagged, grinding feeling from the assessment, the sense of two currents pulling against each other. Nothing came. There was only the faint hum of the hallway lights and my own pulse, a little too fast.

Eliza found me still standing there, my hand pressed flat against the wall like I might coax the feeling out of the stone.

"You look like you’re interrogating the building," she said.

"I’m trying to feel it again. What I felt before the construct went wrong."

"And?"

"Nothing."

She leaned beside me. "Magic doesn’t always answer on command, especially when you’re still learning to recognize what’s yours and what’s just nerves. It took me two years to tell the difference."

"I don’t want to wait two years," I said. "I want to understand what happened, not just hope it happens again."

"Then write it down," she said. "Every time something feels strange, record when it happened and what you were doing. Patterns show up eventually."

It was practical advice, the kind that made me feel slightly less helpless, and I decided to follow it.

During the break, I found Ivy on a bench near the fountain, her phone resting in her palm, her thumb hovering over the screen. She jumped a little when I sat down.

"Who’s got you so distracted?" I asked.

"No one."

"Roshan?"

"We’re friends, Astrid," she said, though her voice lacked the sharp edge it usually carried when I teased her. "I’m just glad he seems willing to get help. I keep hoping he follows through. I don’t want him hurting himself anymore."

I heard the worry underneath her words, real and unguarded, and I didn’t make a joke. "He will," I said. "He’s already started."

"I hope so."

I bumped her shoulder gently, and she leaned into mine for a moment before we both stood up to head back to class.

Reed was waiting by the apartment gate when classes ended, and I could tell he noticed my silence before I’d said a single word.

"What happened?" he asked, falling into step beside me.

I told him about Professor Veyra’s questions, about the sensation that vanished every time I reached for it. He listened the whole way across the courtyard without interrupting.

"Not understanding something immediately doesn’t mean you’re failing," he said when I finished.

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Mostly," I admitted. "But I want to figure it out myself. Not because I don’t appreciate your help. I just need to be the one who works it out."

"I wouldn’t take that from you," he said, and he meant it, his hand brushing mine in a quiet promise that he would stay close without stepping in front of me.

We reached the apartment, and Xander was already inside, sprawled on the couch with Midnight asleep on his chest, a sight he clearly hoped no one would mention. I mentioned it anyway, and he told me the kitten had simply fallen asleep there, which was not the same as choosing him.

"You’ve been thinking about magic all afternoon," he said, squinting at me. "I can tell. You’ve got the crease."

"What crease?"

"The one between your eyebrows when you’re overanalyzing."

"I have work to do."

"You can spare an hour." He eased Midnight onto a cushion and stood, stretching. "Walk with me. Or I’ll challenge you to something, and you know I’m unbearable when I win."

"You’re unbearable when you lose, too."

"Then we’re both unbearable. Come on."

We ended up on the academy grounds, racing each other along the edge of the practice field in the fading light. I wasn’t fast enough to beat him, but Sapphire lent me enough speed to keep it close, and he kept turning around to shout ridiculous things at me over his shoulder. When he finally tripped over a loose root and sprawled across the grass, I laughed so hard I had to sit down beside him.

"That was Midnight’s fault," he said, panting.

"Midnight wasn’t even here."

"He’s spiritually responsible."

Somewhere in the middle of all that laughter, the knot in my chest loosened, and the assessment shrank back to something manageable.

That evening, the three of us settled onto the couch with tea and what remained of the food Reed had made, the apartment quiet and warm around us. I curled my feet beneath me, watching the steam rise from my cup.

"Sometimes I worry about how much of myself I still don’t understand," I said.

Neither of them interrupted.

"I’m not afraid of being powerful," I said. "I’m afraid of finding out something about myself that changes how I see everything that came before. My mother. Why she hid things. Why she died."

Reed took my hand, his fingers steady around mine, and Xander shifted closer until his shoulder pressed against my other side.

"Whatever you find," Xander said, "you won’t be finding it alone."

"No easy answers," Reed added softly. "But we’ll be here for all the hard ones."

They didn’t promise to fix anything, and that made it easier to believe them. I rested my head against Reed’s shoulder, and for a while none of us said anything at all.

Later, in my room, I opened my notebook and wrote down everything I could remember from the assessment, the sensation, the timing, what I’d been doing, the way the magic had answered once I stopped forcing it. Then I closed the cover and remembered Professor Veyra’s words about not chasing what refused to be chased.

Tomorrow I would approach the lesson differently, with patience instead of pressure.

Midnight chose that moment to leap onto the bed, wobble across the blankets, and flop against my side, purring loudly enough to drown out my thoughts.

I laughed and stroked his head, letting the ordinary moment settle over me, small and warm and exactly enough.