Emory watched him carefully. “You know, I’ve never seen anyone exert so much control over their magic as you do. It’s like using it is as easy as breathing for you.”
“Trust me, it’s not.”
“Downplay it all you want, but I’ve seen what you can do. It’s a shame you keep it so bottled up all the time. You could do anything you want with such power.”
The words echoed Romie’s own questioning of his small aspirations. But where Romie’s criticism of him was always dipped in disdain because she wanted more for herself and couldn’t stand the idea of anyone not wanting the same for themselves, Emory’s comment felt different. Flattering. He saw in it that same curiosity and awe she had back at Threnody Prep, reminding him of what his magic could be if he let himself use it without so much fear.
But Baz was no longer the naive boy he’d been back then. In his mind’s eye, he saw Professor Selandyn, the grief she carried at losing her student. Nothing good came from thinking oneself invincible.
“Control is more important than power,” he told Emory.
She looked like she wanted to say more on the matter, but instead she asked, “Where should I start, then?”
Baz rifled through the pile of books between them and handed her An Introduction to Alignments.
She raised a brow. “I read it last term.”
“You studied it through a Healer’s eyes and probably didn’t pay much attention to all the intricacies of the other tidal alignments. If you’re going to use Darkbearer and Lightkeeper magics—Reaper magic, for Tides’ sake—you need to understand how they work just as much as anyone who specializes in those magics.”
Emory thumbed through the thick volume, looking dejected. “There are four alignments for each house. That’s—”
“Sixteen alignments to study.”
“I’ll be reading this until my senior year.”
“Best get started, then.”
Emory made a show of turning to the first page, righting herself on her chair. Baz grabbed for his own book and noticed her looking at her hands again.
A small smile tugged at her lips. “You have to admit, that darkness was kind of… beautiful, wasn’t it?”
Baz was too wary of Eclipse magic to ever call it beautiful, but he thought of the darkness reflected in her eyes, of the way her lips had parted in awe as she wielded this small wonder, and his chest tightened.
“Just read the book.”
9 EMORY
EMORY KEPT DOING BAZ’S IMPOSSIBLE reading assignment well into the next day. She read about Seers on her way to her first class and was seized by how strangely accurate their psychic sense could be. She read in class, too engrossed in the intricacies of Glamour magic—the compulsive power those with this alignment could wield to bend people’s will to their own or influence others’ decisions—to care about her selenography notes or the makeup exam she would have to take soon. She read between bites at lunchtime, her razor focus on the way Soultenders could manipulate emotions drowning out the bits of conversation in the dining hall—which, from what little she gleaned, still revolved around Travers’s grim demise.
She was still reading later that afternoon on a sunlit bench beneath a cloister window, so captivated by a chapter on Memorist magic that she completely forgot about her next class. A thought occurred to her as she read: If Memorists could see people’s memories, could one potentially bring to light the bits and pieces she couldn’t remember from that night in Dovermere?
It would be too much of a risk to ask one—too intrusive and damning to have someone poking around in her head. But if she was a Tidecaller, she might in time learn to do it herself.
The thought was at once thrilling and unbearable, because all Emory saw was the selenograph saying she now belonged to House Eclipse. All she could think of was that this magic made her wrong. She wanted to burn the spiral mark off her skin and pray it took these gifts with it.
And yet, even as all those feelings churned inside her, she felt a small glimmer of excitement, too. This sense of rightness that had started when she’d reached for the Darkbearer magic in the library—a risk she’d taken only because Baz was there, and she trusted him to turn back time if she got out of control, like he did at the bonfires. That sense of rightness only kept growing the more she read about each alignment. She couldn’t deny the curiosity that vibrated through her now, this itch to try all of it, to reach for these magics that could be hers if she wanted.
She did stop reading long enough to meet Penelope in Noviluna Hall for a late-night selenography study session. The library there was as somber as a new moon sky, with two stories of polished dark wooden shelves lined with narrow ladders, a domed ceiling accentuated with silver filigree, and gleaming black marble floors.
It was beautiful in an austere way, calling to mind a winter’s night; in fact, a permanent chill permeated the library, as if the dead themselves lingered, out of sight for all but the Shadowguides who might commune with them. The long tables in the middle of the main alley were dotted with frosted everlight lamps and lanterns of varying shapes and sizes, their suffused light casting the place in a silvery blue glow. It would have been an unpopular place among students if it weren’t for the thick, luxurious furs that covered the benches, the baskets of woolly blankets found at each table, and, perhaps above all, the coffee and hot cocoa cart at the entrance of the library that made the whole place smell divine.
Emory stifled a yawn as she looked up, bleary-eyed, from her selenography textbook. She and Penelope were among the last few students here. The other girl was engrossed in an old leatherbound journal from a long-ago Darkbearer, content to sit here with Emory while she studied for her selenography exam. She had even indulged Emory’s questions earlier about all things Darkbearer magic, without so much as batting an eye as to her sudden curiosity. It was as if they’d picked up where they’d left off last term, going back to their old routines, and Emory was grateful for this small slice of normalcy.
She’d had quite enough of selenography for one evening, though, and longed to get back to her room so she could keep reading An Introduction to Alignments in private.
“I think I’m calling it a night.”
Penelope blinked up at her. “Want me to walk with you?”
“It’s fine. I wouldn’t want to tear you away from your book.”
“It is rather riveting. This Darkbearer could manipulate her own shadow to do her bidding and used it to spy on people at her queen’s request. Can you imagine?” She shook her head in awe. “I’m barely able to fully cloak myself in darkness.”
Emory knew Penelope, like herself, grappled with feelings of mediocrity when it came to her magic. Darkbearers had a less practical alignment than most—much like Purifiers and their balancing of energies, which didn’t always translate well into the real world. There was a certain unspoken hierarchy to the alignments, magics viewed as elite and those that were less so. Students whose abilities garnered enough attention from talent scouts usually pursued postgraduate studies with full scholarships to the best magic universities and obtained the highest-ranking magically inclined jobs on the market. Meanwhile, students with less desirable alignments might end up going to regular university after Aldryn to pursue careers outside of their magic, much like those who didn’t have enough magic to warrant collegiate studies to begin with.