Page 76 of The Ordeals
‘Knox, no!’
Chapter 25
Magic in a Teacup
Iflip the cup from Knox’s hand. Tea dashes across the floor, smoking and fizzing and I gape as the flagstone floor seems to pulse. The poison laced through the tea bleeds a vibrant yellow before fading to nothing as the magic seeps away. I realise I’m shaking, my hand still poised near Knox’s face, and I quickly draw back, trying to contain my leaping heart.
There’s a choking sound and we all whip to the right, finding another hopeful hasn’t been so lucky. She’s drunk from the same teapot, the one set before Knox … and the smoke is billowing from her jaw.
‘Frances?’ Tessa says, throwing her chair back. ‘Frances, shit …’
The woman claws at her throat, eyes bulging in terror as she chokes and chokes—
‘Alden!’ Knox barks. ‘Do something!’
Alden blinks once, clearing away the shock, and leaps up, skidding across the table dividing him from Frances, grasping her by the shoulders.
‘H-help me …’ she gasps, blonde curls shivering around her cheekbones as her skin turns grey. ‘I can’t …’
‘Hold on,’ Alden says, gritting his teeth and staring down at her. And as I watch, his magic suffuses his veins. He’s a botanist, and I knew he could create antidotes, knew he could detect thebitterness of poisons, but to see him draw from a well of raw magic, to wield it in this way to counteract the poison spreading through Frances … his very skin glints, threads of it weaving over her, wrapping her throat, pulsing.
‘Knox, I need you.’ His gaze strays to Knox before fixing once more on Frances. ‘This poison is strong … I need your power.’
Knox strides to him, placing his hand on Alden’s shoulder and closes his eyes. I gasp softly as Knox seems to feed his own magic into his friend and Alden’s magic … explodes. Brighter and brighter, it blazes from him, filling Frances with light. Her eyes fly open, hands reaching for his arms as Alden feeds his magic into her, breaking the poison down inside her body. Knox begins to shake, but he doesn’t remove his hand. Doesn’t stop feeding the magic –hisraw magic, into Alden. To see an alchemist wield in this way, how he can change the very form of his magic to allow it to bond with Alden’s, to strengthen his own …
Knox is more than powerful. If he can bolster another’s magic in this way, like he’s stoking a fire, turning it into a furnace … that magic in the wrong hands, wielded by the wrong person …
It’s lethal.
Alchemists are revered. I’ve seen their creations around the city. But to see it wielded like this in front of me is something else. Time suspends in the hall as we all stare, watching, waiting, hoping they can somehow stop another murder, stop another life from ending in this semester of too many deaths. We’re fighting for twenty places. We all know that. But to lose someone now, like this, just before the final Ordeal … it’s intolerable.
I grip the edge of the table, focused only on Frances. On this woman who could have been Knox, or could have beenmeif I’d drunk from that teacup. The realisation leaves me numb. That tea, that teapot … it was between me and Knox. It was meant for one of us.
Alden snarls, features pinching tighter as his magic begins to gutter, and I know he’s feeding everything, fighting as hard as he can to stop her dying, reaching that point of burnout to stop this horror—
Frances murmurs, and it almost sounds like she’s giving in, like she’s ready for death—
‘No,’ Alden growls. ‘Not again.Not again.’
Her head snaps up and she rakes in a breath, deep into her lungs and collapses forward. The glow of magic begins to recede, the threads retreating, returning to Alden. Knox wrenches his hand away from his friend’s arm, severing the connection and doubling over, retching as Alden catches Frances before she slumps to the ground. She looks up at him, sobbing silently, fear and horror still marking her features.
‘Thank … thank you,’ she whispers.
Alden nods once, stepping away from her, and sweeps his gaze over his friend. He’s composed, movements sure and controlled as he checks on Knox then looks up at all of us, hopefuls, scholars and among us somewhere … the murderer.
And as I look at him, all I find is fury. Barely contained, writhing only skin-deep. In that moment, I’m sure he could bring down this entire hall. Thrust Killmarth into the sea and watch as we all drown in his endless rage. I shiver, fear and awe knotting inside me. He was powerless when his father was murdered, powerless and young. But not anymore. He’s trained, he’s nurtured his raw power and now, he’s a weapon. He’s been hiding it, I realise. He hid it in the Crucible, in the subsequent Ordeals. I would bet anything that he’s been saving his moment for the final Ordeal, that this wasn’t planned, that this was purely an instinctual rush to save a vulnerable life. I swallow, pulse beating thick and fast in my ears. Magic like his and Knox’s combined … the kind of power they wield … they could do more than change a world when they’ve been honed by Killmarth.
They could end it.
‘Whoever did this, whoever you are, know that I’ve marked you.’ Alden’s voice rumbles, like an approaching storm. ‘You coward, trying to pick us off at fuckinglunch. I know the taste of your magic now. I’ve tasted the poison you wielded. I will find you. And I willsmileas you take your last fucking breath.’ There’s a tremor in his fingers as he brushes his hair away from his forehead, gaze searing into every single person in the hall. No one moves. No one dares breathe.
Ribbons of fire fill the sky as dusk descends over Killmarth. It’s the first full moon since Greg was bitten in the Morlagh, and he’s preparing for a long, sleepless night. Greg keeps grumbling about how we’re making such a fuss, and he might not even transform at all, as Tessa rolls her eyes, huffing quietly. We’re flanking him on either side as we step into Fetlock, and Alden peels off to go and prepare a fresh dose of wolfsbane to ease Greg’s symptoms throughout the long night.
Aligned mainly with botanists, the scholars in Fetlock are the tight-lipped, brooding sort with laboratories lining a lower level and a tower room at the very top, sealed with glass. The glasshouse contains twisting plants, spliced species and delicate blooms hidden in the loam-filled pots and trays. The entire hall is perfumed with the scent of new life, of wildness and green instead of books, wood polish and dust. As I breathe in deeply, I realise it smells like him. Alden. All fresh woodland and a hint of citrus dressed in smoke. My stomach does a flip just thinking of him.
‘Grant says we can wait the night out in one of the disused labs on the lower level,’ Tessa says over her shoulder to me. ‘We should know by midnight whether Greg will transform or not.’
‘Are any of the professors or medical staying here with him?’
