Waking in his arms was how I wanted to start every day for the rest of my life. It was so soothing, so comforting, so wonderful. It was the way he encapsulated me in his embrace, so warm and tight and right… Everything that’d happened this past month melted like marshmallow problems over the campfire of his heart. It was the bird in the wall clock tweeting, already fucking quarter to nine –

  I elbowed him sharp between the ribs. “We’re late! Why doesn’t your damn clock work?!”

  “Huh?” Endlessly deep eyes opened easily. “What’s the issue?”

  “It’s quarter to nine!” I was already dragging myself to my feet and realising I didn’t have anything fresh to put on.

  “Twenty-five minutes. Essentially early…”

  I’d have to run to my room, hope I had at least one shirt clean of the three, skip breakfast entirely… “How aren’t you even worried? You’re still horizontal!”

  “Twenty-five minutes. Five to dress, five to get to class, the rest still for us.” He stretched, scooped a sock from the floor, tossed it at the desk. It almost knocked a metal bowl, upside down. “Some apples under there. Pick two.”

  I held back on more and did as he said. By the time I turned round, he was upright, a pressed shirt held out to me. I let him slide it over me and delicately do the buttons. “It’s kinda big on me…”

  “No one will notice under the robe, and besides, it looks stylish. If you look this grand as you are, imagine how handsome in some nice garments.” He straightened the collar and grabbed my robe from the hook for me to slip into. “Go see the snow. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  “I – it snowed?”

  He smiled softly. “Too busy getting distracted?”

  “Maybe if you put some clothes on –”

  “Go see it. I’m right behind you.”

  *

  It was snow. It happened every year. Sometimes deeper than others but as the old Forester saying went, ‘if it’s below your brows, go feed the cows’. I bit into my apple, and as a robed Kaspar joined me on the balcony I handed the other over. “It’s mesmeric,” he said, like it was some expensive painting before us and not just snow.

  “It’s not even that much. Barely ankle height.”

  He leant on the railing. “I imagine it’s as much as all the snow I’ve ever seen put together. Here, I believe there used to be lawns below us. The trees still stand proud, though their roots are blanketed, and regard yonder – some people must have already walked down there. How entrancing a change a single night can create.”

  “Depends on the night, I guess. Some nights sure can make an entrancing change.”

  “Are you doing that trite thing people do where they pretend they’re talking about the scenery, when in actuality they’re referring to the person beside them?”

  I grunted. “You don’t have to ask questions you already know the answer to,” I said lightly.

  “Say it. It’s cute on you.”

  His arm drew me into his warmth and while we ate, a bright stab of orange darted over the white lawns, a fox, nose pointed to what must be the groundskeeper’s shed. It ducked behind, its brush tail still twitching around the corner. “This valley also has such an enviable relationship with its wildlife. Foxes, deer, raccoons… I’ve seen them all from this balcony. Mostly in the evenings. I’ve been told there are wolves and bears, even. It’s marvellous here.”

  “You really think so?” I asked. “Feels like we’re always fighting them over our dinner.”

  “Ah. Around my city, they’ve reached such scarcity we’ve resorted to importing them to give the hunting parties something to aim at.”

  “...Maybe that’s why there’s none left.”

  He sank a little lower. “I entirely agree with you. My family could not countenance it. But disagreeing with them doesn’t get you far.”

  “I know how that feels. What do they do? Scorn you, laugh at you? Are you ridiculed for it?”

  “Worse. Ignored… Forgotten.”

  My reply came in the form of my hand finding his, fingers intertwining, thumb tips touching… “Hey,” I said softly. “Want to see something that’ll blow your mind?”

  “So soon after last night? You think I can handle more?”

  My other hand to my mouth, I whistled loud. The fox’s head stuck up sharply and I tossed my apple core down, and Kaspar did the same. It scampered over, stark orange on the white, managed to snag both in its maw, and trotted merrily away across the snow. “I think I love living here,” Kaspar said.

  *

  So I was a little distracted in conjury. Wasn’t my fault. Kaspar was right there, barely an arm’s length away, looking that damned hot, and I was supposed to sit there and not have my hands on him? Unimaginable. Even the training camps in Dreadfall weren’t this torturous.

  “Focus on your work,” he said when he caught me glancing over for the third or fourth… hundredth time. “Your candle won’t light itself.”

  “I don’t wanna. I’ll try it once someone else takes the attention first.”

  “Why would you not want to be first?” His voice was a little flat, a little pointed.

  “You don’t see it? I get singled out. It feels awful anyway. And I don’t want that Stack guy opening his flat-toothed maw in my direction again.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “But you have a gift for this, clearly. Use it. Take the chance to be recognised and celebrated. And if anyone dares bring you down, I’ll give them as good as they gave you. I swear it.”

  I knocked the candle and it rolled pitifully across the desk. Way in the other corner, Stack’s gangly form was apparently trying to light his own through sheer force of will – hands trapping the wick, fingers splayed, face reddening. He looked at me sharply, and then so did Professor Field – “Oakley! How goes it with the nascent doyen?”

  At least the new robe was easier to hide in as she strode magnificently down the aisle. “It’s fine…”

  She eyed me and I shrank more. “It’s fine, what?”

  “Sorry: it’s fine, professor.”

  Shook her head. “It’s fine but I don’t understand? It’s fine but I don’t want to practice?” She swayed a little like the answer was floating in the air and she was trying to hook it with her nose. “I’ve been watching you. You haven’t been trying lately.” I bit the inside of my cheek and I shrugged. I didn’t have anything better to offer. “See me after class, Oakley,” she said primly and patted the table as she left, sweeping away to darken someone else’s desk.

  I caught Kaspar’s mirthful grin. “The first reprimand. Nice work. Class is almost done anyway – tell me about it in history?”

  “Assuming I don’t become history in the next ten minutes.”

  “Very nice, Gan.” His hand wandered over and found mine below the desk, closing around it briefly. Firmly squeezing. His warmth becoming mine. “Very nice.”

  *

  “This isn’t a reprimand, firstly and foremostly and forefunctionally,” said Field in her usual grand voice. Didn’t know why she needed it. Only the two of us in the room now and she was right in front of me.

  “So what is it then?”

  Her voice dropped and it threw me completely. “It’s just us now. No one else is watching you.” So she could speak in a normal way! “And if you light that candle for me,” she said, rolling it back across the desk to me, “I won’t tell anyone.”

  I grunted and sighed. Kicked my boots against the stool under me. Felt the increasingly familiar buzz of energy welling up, sourcing it, drawing it, building it within me until I felt it sapping my energy, my body wilting a little with the force of it. Sights on the candle. Fixed on the wick. Knowing what I wanted it to do. Envisioning how I wanted it done. Making it real, making it happen, directing the energy up through me and charging into the candle and making myself the conduit for the change I wanted to see in the –

  The flame blossomed like it had always been there, just temporarily forgotten what it was meant to be doing and grateful for the reminder.

  “Makes sense,” she said. She perched on the desk on the space beside mine. “So why didn’t you do that in class?”

  “Cos when I’ve done stuff before,” I grumbled, “everyone stares at me like I spat in their food, and a couple of them call me awful things. You heard all that stuff. It kept happening so I stopped trying. Standing out isn’t good.”

  “I do understand,” she said. The candle started levitating as she focused on it. “I told you I was well into my thirties when I took up the arcane arts, and I told you for a reason. My peers called me Granny Field, Wrinkly Wendy, or just The Old Crone. Some people hate what’s different but their hate always comes from a fear, and often that fear is instilled into them by those who really should know far better.”

  The candle rose higher and all at once, turned completely vivid green. “So if you know how much it hurts, why don’t you put a stop to it now you’re the professor? You let it happen every time.”

  Her face folded. “You have to trust me, Oakley.” It span in the air and became a wax dinnerplate, then a metal one, then the flame bloomed and cascaded in a shower of sparks and tumbled onto my desk as a silvery metal star. She pressed it into my hand; it fit neatly in my palm. “I’m doing what I can.”

  It still felt warm. “And what if I don’t trust you on that?”

  A mix of disappointment and hurt crossed her face, and she didn’t seem to know what to say. I stood from the stool and no answer came. “May I leave?”

  “Of course,” she said, and I did. I don’t think she moved from the desk as I pulled the door firmly shut on the way out.

  *

  Theory elemancy passed like the removal of a splinter.

  Holly found me in the lunch hall and I guess I needed to look more standoffish because she sat down right across from me. At least she blocked my view of that group of the other Foresters who always converged in that same corner table, like the gatherings of a coven. Occasionally they shot me looks. They sure hurt like they shot me anyway. “If it’s not a good time, I can go?”

  “Good time for what?” I returned. Holly blinked at me and I sat up a bit straighter. “Sorry. A lot’s been going on.”

  She stared right at me as I spoke and I didn’t like it, but I needed her on my side today. “It says something in my case study book and it sounded… odd. I wanted to ask you about it, Leafy.”

  “Go on?”

  “Is it true that Foresters are like when the spirits fused with the souls of Clearlanders?”

  I tried my best not to hiss under my breath. Don’t know if I managed it. “I don’t need you spouting your hearsay nonsense again at me right now. I’m really not in the mood. I was told to trust all my professors and yet none of them help me out when I need it. I feel like I have to hide everywhere all of the time and the slightest moment I show my face, someone hurls something rancid at me.”

  Holly looked like I’d slapped her. I winced. “It was a genuine question,” she said. Heaved a book onto the table and shifted her tray out of the way. Opened it to a page and pointed. “It’s like a hundred years old but it had this footnote on why Foresters split from Clearlanders like they did, and I decided not to trust it right away and come ask you for your side of the matter.”

  I stared at the page. Chewed the inside of my cheek. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. It’s just… tough. It’s all so tough.”

  My head slumped forwards but her voice was still clear over the general hubbub of the hall. “I get it. I figured it’d be tough for you as an outsider so I decided I wanted somewhere here, even if it was only our dorm, where you would feel normal and safe and at home, no matter what else happened.”

  “Why are you nice to me?”

  “Huh?”

  I lifted my head, spoke a bit clearer. “Why are you nice to me? You’re always trying to be nice to me.”

  “I think everyone deserves kindness, especially when they’re struggling. Don’t you?”

  “It’s been getting really hard for me to think that.” I shoved my bowl. Didn’t know if I wanted to finish it. “And yeah, for your thing, it is a rumour I’ve heard plenty of times, but all the people who said it felt like they were polishing their horns over it. I don’t know how true it is. I’d guess someone made it up once ‘cos it sounded cool, and then it became established lore. I’m sorry for snapping at you. Why’s it important?”

  “It isn’t,” she said. “But I thought I’d ask for what you knew, so I know how much to trust it.”

  *

  I spent the afternoon on the forest road and felt a little better for it, and realised I’d have to apologise to Holly to keep the peace, even if I knew there were still thorns waiting for me in the brambles of her more typical Clearlander ways. I wished I knew how to actually fix any of it. Holly’s thorns, Kaspar’s secrets, the bodies Robin treated. Mostly I’d been leaning on the fence of the little hut and wishing I could do anything, anything as well as even a single bloom of that perfect field of foxgloves. It was so nice there, the flowers still resplendent even in the snow, I skipped history to stay a while longer. Not that I wanted to update Kaspar on Professor Field letting me down anyway.

  And in the evening, after I’d offered some kind of apology, and while Grove talked in impassioned detail about the mechanical writing machine her older sister had been trying to build – an ‘automaton’, so it was called – the three of us sat on cushions on the rug and toasted marshmallows over the Ooh. Grove, Holly, and me. The three of us, and it was wonderful. I felt like I’d known them for years. The oddest, most garish little home in the world, but it still felt like a home. Not perfect, but still a home. “Thank you,” I said a few times, even though they were both confused about what I was thanking them for. Said I didn’t really need to thank them for it. But I did.

  How many years had it been since I’d had a home?