ell me again, how do I cut the radishes, professor?”

It was about half past four o’clock on Friday afternoon and I was finishing up my very first week of Potions TA sessions with Madame Alexanders. She had been very patient with me thus far, despite my ineptitude.

On Monday I made our first batch of potions combust by accidentally touching the concoction when I was testing its heat. On Tuesday I’d come through on collecting the ingredients Madame Alexanders had asked me to gather, but I cut them incorrectly, which caused our brew to boil over like violent soup. Wednesday proved to be disastrous when almost everything I touched exploded. And Thursday simply defied explanation.

But today was Friday, and I was adamant about not screwing up our experiments at least once this week.

“The radishes should be cut into equilateral rhombuses,” Madame Alexanders said in response to my question.

I picked up my knife to follow her instruction, but stopped short. “Wait, isn’t that just a square?”

“Miss Knight, do I have to do everything for you?” my professor sighed.

“No, no; I got it. One set of equilateral rhombuses coming up.”

I went back to work completing the tasks that Madame Alexanders had assigned. After finishing with the radishes, I also prepared the chamomile, lavender dust, broiled snake heart, and siren scales for today’s brew.

Our goal this week was to create a sleeping potion that triggered terrible nightmares. Madame Alexanders wanted to teach the rest of the class how to concoct it next Tuesday, so this was our last chance to get it right in the testing stage. I wasn’t entirely sure how we would know whether or not we’d been successful. I assumed, for now, that so long as nothing was exploding, we were on the right track.

“All right,” Madame Alexanders said as she turned up the heat of the Bunsen burner. “Now for the next step.”

Using a ladle, Madame Alexanders scooped a serving of the potion into two beakers. She pulled a spindle from one of her lab cases and pricked her finger over one of the beakers. A single drop of blood fell into the mixture—turning the contents a violent shade of orange. My professor produced another spindle and held it out, gesturing for me to do the same.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “I’m not stabbing myself for the sake of some lab assignment.”

“Crisanta, one of the reasons for having a TA is so that we can have more than one test subject per experiment. It’s scientific inquiry, my dear. In order to prove a hypothesis is valid you cannot simply take the first result as the golden rule; there must be multiple tests with consistent results.”

“But I—”

“Crisanta, you agreed to be my TA, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid of a prick of pain?”

“Well, no.”

“Then please, proceed.”

“Fine,” I huffed, snatching the spindle. “Because princesses pricking themselves on spindles always works out so well,” I muttered under my breath.

A droplet of my blood fell into the second beaker. Its contents took on the new orange shade as well. Madame Alexanders promptly reached into a lab case and removed a jar that contained the very flower I’d been dreading working with. This was the first time we were actually going to try incorporating the Poppy into our designated Poppy Potion.

My professor unscrewed the lid and used a pair of forceps to carefully lift the red-and-black polka-dotted flower out of the jar and place it on a silver dish.

As Madame Alexanders had emphasized again and again in class, we were never supposed to directly touch Poppies. While their effects varied when mixed into different potions, direct skin contact with the flowers was dangerous on all counts.

When people touched Poppy flowers they were catapulted into a deep, stone-like sleep that drained the victims’ strength so that by the time they woke up they were vastly weakened. The duration of the sleep and the conjunctive weakening varied from person to person. But whether you grazed a single Poppy petal or a ton of them were dumped on top of you, the sleep and energy-draining process began instantaneously. Accordingly, my professor could not overemphasize the importance of not touching them.

Madame Alexanders held the Poppy with her forceps and used a pair of tweezers to pluck six petals from its full blossom. She deposited three petals into each of our beakers. The moment the petals sunk into the orange liquid, the concoction fizzled, making loud, snapping sounds that reminded me of popping bubble wrap and breaking breadsticks in half.

As the noise continued, the potion within each beaker began to change color again. Dark purple lines streaked and pulsed through the liquid like irritated synapses in the nervous system. Eventually these streaks blended in with the mixture, the entire concoction turning a sickly shade of mauve. After the contents of the beakers settled, my professor took a syringe out from another lab case and filled it with the new liquid.

“For my records,” she explained as she injected the potion into a vial before corking it.

Once the vial was stored, my professor abruptly grasped the beaker in front of her and took a sip of the liquid. After she’d swallowed it, she checked her pulse by placing two fingers to her neck. Then she held up both arms—underside up.

For a second, nothing happened. Then the veins in her arms started to darken. From her fingertips to her shoulders, her veins turned a deep purple. I would have freaked out had it not been for the calm, almost content look on my professor’s face and the reassuring nod she gave me.

When all the veins in her arms had been affected, Madame Alexanders smiled. “Well, I would say that we have our very first successful Poppy Potion on our hands, Crisanta. But I suppose we shall not know for certain until the morning.”

“Why then?”

“If we have nightmares while we are asleep tonight, then the Poppy Potion will have done its job. That is what we were engineering this potion for, after all—to affect the quality of one’s sleep, not to cause sleep.”

I paused for a second, registering something. “Wait, did you say we?”

Madame Alexanders glanced down at the other beaker sitting on the table between us. “As I said, dear, we cannot be certain of our success without holding multiple tests.”

I stared with revulsion at Madame Alexanders’s violet veins.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

I grimaced, causing Madame Alexanders to put her hand on my shoulder. “Come now, I know it looks frightening, but the vein coloration will only last a few hours, and beyond the bad dreams there will be no other side effects.”

My eyes fell to the floor.

“You are not afraid of a few nightmares are you?” my professor asked, noticing my aversion.

I was not sure how to respond without divulging anything too proprietary, so I went for a vague truth. “I already get a lot of nightmares, professor. So if I drink this, what do you suppose will happen?”

“I believe that means your nightmares will be even worse.”

“Great,” I huffed. “Just what I need.” I stalled for a moment and shifted uncomfortably as another thought occurred to me. “Professor, I also have Twenty-Three Skidd tryouts tomorrow. If there was ever a reason to get a good night’s sleep . . .”

“Crisanta, we had a deal. If you want to keep yourself, and your friends, from being returned to detention, you need to commit to this job completely. And, dear . . . if I may speak so boldly, you are a very fierce young lady. I was present when you and Blue entered the Twenty-Three Skidd tournament in Adelaide last semester. A few nightmares will not slow you down tomorrow, I assure you.”

Though I appreciated the compliment, I was still reluctant. My trepidation seemed to strike a chord of sympathy with my professor. “I realize it is a lot to ask, Crisanta. TA positions are rarely associated with being a guinea pig.”

I grimaced. “Is this going to be a regular thing, drinking gross potions and such for the sake of science?”

“I’m afraid so.”

I thought on this and made a strategic decision. “Then let’s make a new deal that takes into account the previously unforeseen dangers of this TA position.”

My professor looked at me skeptically. “I’m listening.”

“If I do make a Twenty-Three Skidd team, there are going to be practices. According to my friends at Lord Channing’s, most teams practice twice during the week and once on weekends. The deal is that I’ll drink whatever concoction you give me, but I’ll only do these TA sessions three days a week so that if I’m chosen, it won’t interfere with my schedule.”

Madame Alexanders studied me for a long moment. I knew I was pushing my luck. This job had already got my friends and me out of detention, but the problem of practice schedules had been on my mind for about a week now. While the odds of making a Twenty-Three Skidd team were slim, I needed assurance I’d be able to make practice sessions if I did.

“Very well,” Madame Alexanders replied.

“Really?” I perked up.

My professor nodded and gestured toward my designated beaker. “Yes. Now drink up.”

I gripped the beaker then flicked my eyes to my professor one more time. “You’re sure there are no other side effects?”

“One hundred percent.”

I still didn’t think drinking nightmare potions was a good idea, but I gulped down my hestitation at the promise of eventual freedom twice a week should my tryouts go well.

I shut my eyes tight and took a sip of the potion. Immediately after I swallowed, my stomach felt like it had been frosted over by some malicious, ice-based enchantment. Conversely, my throat felt warm, like I’d just chugged a bowl of chicken soup.

I noticed the veins in my own arms changing color. As I watched the deep purple creep its way up my arms, Madame Alexanders put two fingers to my neck and took my pulse. A pulse, by the way, that was speeding like a hummingbird’s heartbeat.

Once she’d taken it, my professor removed a notebook from her lab case and scribbled down a few private thoughts. Thankfully, once the discoloration in my veins had finished its course, the weird sensations in my stomach and throat subsided. Hastily, I snatched my jacket off a lab stool and put it on to hide the freakishness that now literally pulsed through me.

Madame Alexanders closed her notebook and grinned triumphantly. “Well done, Crisanta. You are now free to go. We are done for the day.”

“I should hope so,” I said as I grabbed my book bag and headed for the door. “See you Monday, professor. Have a good night.”

“Oh, I am not planning on it, dear,” my professor responded all too excitedly. “In fact, if we’ve done our jobs right, neither of us will.”

“Hurry up, SJ. You’re gonna get us caught,” Blue urged.

We were in the restricted section of our school’s library. It was sixteen minutes past nine o’clock and, being Friday, the library had closed a little over an hour ago. Accessing the restricted section involved walking to the back of the library and going through a set of doors under a marble arch between two rows of bookshelves. Because this would have been impossible with the librarian, Mrs. Fofferman, or the guards around, we went after-hours. The doors beneath the archway were locked—only Mrs. Fofferman had an actual key—but Blue was our key on these clandestine missions. Her lock-picking skills were exemplary.

“Borrowing” books from the restricted section involved breaking in when the guards had their nine o’clock debriefing sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, taking a few texts out for us to investigate, and then returning the books in secret and repeating the process when we had the next opportunity. The guards were only away for twenty minutes, so we had to get in and out quickly.

I glanced around anxiously. Moonlight streaming in from some of the high windows offered the only illumination. The windows were interned within decorative metal cages that resembled the thorny greenery of rosebushes. This cast weird shadows across the mauve, fluffy carpeting. It also made the twenty-foot cherry wood bookshelves seem like larger-than-life monsters. I cautiously eyed the streams of semi-sparkling dust particles that floated through the air and clung to the shelves.

Blue and I had gathered the books we wanted for the night, but SJ was taking too long. She was currently trying to map Alice’s Wonderland and mentioned that she needed a book on the King and Queen of Hearts, which she’d spotted on a previous night. What she had not mentioned, however, was that the particular book was twelve shelves up.

I squeezed the two texts in my hand apprehensively as I watched SJ lean out to try and grab the book. She was standing on a rolling ladder attached to the bookshelf two feet short of her goal. The problem was that she couldn’t move the ladder any closer because of the burning dust cloud floating beside her.

These texts were off-limits for a reason. In addition to the fact that the information contained within could be proprietary, the books were old and one of a kind. Thus, our school’s staff relied on more than just a lock at the door and a scary librarian to keep unwanted readers out. Lady Agnue had an arrangement with our realm’s transportation department that gave her access to small quantities of magic dust.

Magic dust powered our realm’s magic trains. Mined in the mountains, it was a fuel source beyond compare. While only approved transportation authority workers were allowed to gather it, they sold small quantities of magic dust to Lady Agnue so that Madame Alexanders could further enhance it for security applications.

Yup, those dust particles I’d described a minute ago were not simply the result of dirty airspace and shelving. These clouds were purposefully enhanced via potion and placed in the library to pose problems for people who entered the restricted section without permission.

Burning dust particles were like floating particles of acid that affected anything biological. So the books were fine, but intruders wouldn’t be. The particles floated about the restricted section like innocent bubbles caught in a breeze, ready to scorch the skin of wayward students.

There was currently a large cloud of the stuff floating between SJ and her book. Another smaller cloud was wafting steadily closer to her from above.

Blue was so distracted keeping an eye on SJ that she didn’t notice a cluster of dust hovering toward us. I stretched my hand across her chest and directed her to take a step back. The dust drifted by us and continued on its way.

I heard a slight yelp and my attention darted back to SJ. A small particle of dust had touched her hand. Even in the dim light, I could see the red burn on her skin. It was like she’d touched a hot cast iron pan.

“SJ, are you—”

“Forget the ladder,” Blue interrupted before I could get out my concern. “SJ, just climb up the shelves and get that dang book yourself.”

“Blue, my elective this semester is Advanced Embroidery, not acrobatics. I am trying my best,” she responded.

Blue sighed and shook her head. “Honestly,” she said to me. Then she pulled the book bag off her shoulder and shoved it in my arms. “Hold this a minute.”

Blue rubbed her hands together, released a few quick breaths, and then bent into a runner’s lunge. I saw her analyze the space between SJ and where we were standing, taking note of every cloud of burning dust clinging to the shelves and rolling through the air. Then she popped the hood of her classic blue cloak, which she always did in major moments of mischief, and took off. She bolted along the corridor between the shelves, leaping and ducking to avoid the burning dust. Then she bounded off the ground and scaled the bookshelf like an alley cat crossbred with a mountain climber. In less than six seconds she reached the book SJ wanted and snatched it off the shelf.

Clinging deftly to her position, Blue twisted around and regarded me. “Catch,” she said, and she sent the book sailing through the air. I caught it in my arms. Blue gave SJ a cocky look. “See, was that so hard?”

SJ huffed with indignation and descended the ladder while Blue came down in a manner as athletically impressive as her ascent.

“Now let’s get out of here,” Blue said, taking her book bag back from me. She checked her watch. “We only have three minutes until the guards finish their meeting.”

Gathering up our things, we left the restricted section. Blue locked the doors and we scurried to the main exit.

The library was huge—maybe a third the size of the ballroom. Dozens of wooden tables, shining from being so well polished, reflected the unlit gold lamps with lavender glass shells that were spaced along each one.

When I was here to study—not break rules and steal books—I much preferred the less conventional seating. Tucked away in the corners were fifteen-foot tall structures made to look like enormous, multi-armed golden candelabras. Only instead of candles, each arm held a comfy purple seat like a laidback birdcage chair.

Every candelabra’s stem had a thin staircase spiraling up it, which was used to reach the tallest arms. I rather liked to recline into these chairs for long hours of reading when I felt too cramped in my room. Even during midterms I could count on these seats to be empty. Most girls at Lady Agnue’s weren’t as fond of precarious positions as I was. But then, there were a lot of things most girls at Lady Agnue’s didn’t do that I did.

Such as feed bacon to statues.

Outside of the library main doors, two granite pillars provided seating for Guardgoyles. They were supposed to serve as an alarm system, but they were quite chatty. In fact, I’d never seen them do anything but talk. Given that one had to be silent inside the library, I found this to be an odd contradiction.

Guardgoyles were stationed in other areas of the school too, but students—myself included—rarely saw them. They were mainly placed in the parts of campus where the staff members had their living quarters and in some of our school’s watchtowers.

The two outside the library were named Russell and Nick and they were super chill. They were tasked with sounding the alarm if students tried to sneak food into the library, borrow more books than permitted at a time, or (in our case) gain access when it was closed. However, unbeknownst to the school’s staff, the Guardgoyles could be bribed with bacon.

I pulled the plastic baggie from my jacket pocket as the three of us slipped out of the library doors. While Blue relocked them, I approached the Guardgoyle on the left.

“We’re back, Nick.”

“Crisanta Knight,” the Guardgoyle said. “I see your visit inside was productive.” He tilted his chin at my stack of books, which I had just placed on the floor while he stretched his wings.

Made of stone, Guardgoyles had the bodies and tails of lions, but their heads were more like Doberman Pinschers—ears erect for listening. They also had wings like dragons protruding from their bodies. They could move these wings, as well as their necks, heads, and tails, but no more than that. They were permanently glued to their designated positions.

I scaled the uneven brick wall à la Blue to reach Nick. I held out my hand and gave him two strips of bacon. “Here’s your second helping,” I said.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning I took a few strips of bacon from the banquet hall in preparation for our evening activities. We’d made an arrangement with the Guardgoyles over winter break. In exchange for four pieces of bacon each, three times a week, Nick and Russell didn’t sound the alarm when we went into the library after-hours. We gave them two pieces when we entered, and two pieces when we left.

Personally, I thought we got the better end of that deal, considering if we’d gotten caught we would be in a world of trouble.

“Hmm. Hickory smoked bacon isn’t my favorite,” Nick commented through his mouthful of meat. “You know I prefer applewood.”

I leapt off the wall and landed silently on the cold tile. “Sorry,” I said, walking past an anxious SJ to reach the other Guardgoyle. “That’s all they had today. I’ll bring you extra on Monday.”

Nick harrumphed, but continued chewing. I climbed the right wall just as easily and presented the second serving to Russell. He greedily snatched up the bacon, his stone incisors scraping my palm.

“Hey, watch the teeth,” I said.

“Watch your sass,” Russell replied. “We may be dogs, but we own you in this situation.”

I raised my eyebrows. Then Russell grinned and licked his chops before stretching out his neck toward my hand. “Just kidding,” he said. “Now give me a pat.”

I matched his grin, patted his rough, stone head, and then leapt down right as Blue finished locking up. “One minute to spare,” she said. “We better skedaddle.”

“Good night, girls,” Nick and Russell said in unison.

I turned back and shhhed them, but waved goodnight all the same then scooped up my books.

“I hate this, you know,” SJ said, as my friends and I hurried down the corridor. “Thievery is stressful and exhausting.”

“At least you don’t have to battle boys on Pegasi tomorrow,” Blue grumbled. “Why did the night before tryouts have to be our only shot at borrowing books for the weekend? We need to get to bed fast. It’s vital that Crisa and I get some rest before tomorrow.”

Right, rest, I thought as we dashed around a corner and entered the final hall before the stairs. I’m sure that’ll be easy with the adrenaline of a break-in, a stomach full of nightmare potion, and my usual dreams of the future weighing me down . . .

Hm. Pirates. That’s new.

A ship swayed beneath my boots. Boards creaked with my every step. Scraggly, intimidating men stood menacingly around me and gas lanterns across the deck began to glow as the gray skies of my dreamscape turned into night.

There were two pirates waiting for me ahead. One had a crooked posture and nose. He had a stereotypical parrot perched on his shoulder, wore striped knee socks, and held a lantern that illuminated the gold in his teeth. The other man was handsome in a malicious sort of way. His black hair was tied in a ponytail, and the polished buttons on his jacket made him stand out compared to the dirty rags worn by the other men on board. Suddenly this man grabbed me by the collar and thrust me forward. I tumbled onto a plank, barely able to keep myself from falling over.

On my hands and knees, I looked down at the otherwise black water to see a pair of giant yellow eyes peering up at me. I was hypnotized by those eyes, paralyzed as I watched a great, scaly body circle in the waves beneath me. Waiting.

The scene swirled—colors distorting and putting me more off balance than the shaking plank. I was standing now, and staring at the water until a voice drew me back. The man with the ponytail was taunting me.

“You’re but a passing ship in the night that cannot possibly hope to hold water in the long run. And speaking of holding water, I do hope you’re a fast swimmer, because my old friend gets antsy when I tease him with fresh meat.”

I flicked my eyes toward the monster below. In the distance I thought I heard ticking. I tried to sharpen my focus on the creature, but my vision swelled with haziness. By the time clarity returned, all traces of the sea were gone. They’d been replaced by stone.

My mind drifted through rocky passageways. It was blurry and the terrain was constantly changing. I saw plummeting drops, wide caverns, and stalactites and stalagmites. Was I inside a mountain? It was cold but not dark. Patches of white, clinging to the rocks, emitted a shimmering light

My consciousness veered out of the tunnel, which continued farther ahead, onto a bright rocky platform. The light was coming from the left where the platform dropped off. I drifted to the ledge and stared down. Eight feet beneath me, a black transparent dome covered a great chasm like a force field. This chasm had so much of the white stuff seeping through the stone that I was completely dazzled.

My vision grew clearer and I realized what the white substance was—magic dust. I’d been seeing deposits of it throughout the mountain, but within the chasm the veins were deeply concentrated.

My consciousness hovered over the force field before passing through it, diving into the mountain’s depths. I descended for a hundred feet. The chasm widened on the way down. The magic dust deposits also grew until at the bottom of the chasm every surface seemed covered in the glowing material. There I came upon a work camp abundant in hovels and mining machinery. At first I didn’t notice the people operating the equipment. Their rags and slow movement camouflaged them against the dull gray of the machines. But on further inspection there were at least three or four dozen men, women, and children down here.

Suddenly my attention diverted to a very distinct sound coming from up top.

The sound of high heels began to echo through the mountain, and it had the effect of an electrical current on the miners—supercharging them into high gear. The people began to work faster, moving like lightning where they had been barely trudging along before.

My consciousness was suddenly at the top of the chasm again, above the black dome. With a screech like a banshee on a sugar high, a monkey with giant bat wings came flying out of the tunnel across from me. It flew over the force field, baring its fangs and clawing at the airspace above the barrier—careful not to touch it. As the sound of high heels drew closer, the force field rapidly dissipated.

The cries and shouts of people wafted up from the work camp below. The flying monkey dove into the chasm with its claws outstretched, reappearing with a terrified man in its clutches. With a scream, the monster took off the way it’d come, the man in its grasp crying and pleading for mercy.

In the moment of silence after the barbaric attack, I couldn’t catch my breath. But the terror was not over. As the cries of the first flying monkey faded down the tunnel, a half dozen of its winged brethren emerged. They began diving into the crater after more people.

Shouts filled the cavern. Agonized, mangled silhouettes and shadows reflected against the walls as the monkeys disappeared with their catch. All the while, the steady beat of approaching high heels grew louder.

My subconscious did not stick around to meet the person who owned the footwear. It began to glide like a ghost through different parts of the mountain again, darting from cavern to cavern like it was searching for something, until it arrived in a massive room, about the size of the school library.

The ceiling was terribly high. Magic dust clung to the tips of stalactites, making them look like daggers dipped in powdered sugar. But the feature that caught my attention was the floor. Reefs of rock zigzagged along the ground. The different heights made the place feel like a labyrinth. In the middle of the cavern was an open area split by a river.

My consciousness swooped to the ground of the enormous room, and I found myself wandering through the maze of rock, my hands tracing the rough barriers. An icy draft touched my skin. Wherever this mountain was, it was somewhere up north. I kept moving. The river came from a runoff that started at the back of the cavern, and wormed through the floor in many avenues carved from years of its passing.

On the other side of the river, opposite where it began, something glimmered profoundly. A giant crystal, large enough to be a dining room table for six people, sat in the middle of a pool where the water collected. The crystal appeared opaque white, but as I moved closer, I began to see purple and green lights buzzing inside. There was water within the crystal as well, and the lights zoomed through it like fireflies desperate to break free of a jar.

It was mystifying. I was ten feet away when a swirl of icy shadows and wind whisked me away. My dreamscape changed—the warmth from the sun and the smell of spring melted away the cavern’s chilly grasp. Alas, as calming as this atmosphere was, the situation I was dropped into was gruesome.

I stood on a grassy plain surrounded by hills and severed by a churning river. Both hills and plain were an odd shade of pale blue, as if the terrain had absorbed color from the sky. A fierce battle was underway by the gray sands of the riverbank. Blue, Jason, and SJ were up against an enormous company of knights wearing armor that was black, gold, or blood red.

SJ used her slingshot to fire portable potions (a highly concentrated weapon of her own invention that released different potions she’d brewed upon impact). Jason and Blue moved like hurricanes through their assailants—him with his trusty axe and her with her equally trusty hunting knife.

The threesome was outnumbered. The ratio could not have been kinder than ten to one and before long the odds began to overwhelm them.

My perspective shifted to focus on SJ and the knights she was fighting. The knights were coming at her from all angles. She did well at first, but while she was fending off two attackers from the front, one approached her from behind that she didn’t see. He raised his sword.

Abruptly my perspective shifted to Blue. A knight struck a blow so hard that she was thrust to the ground as she deflected it. She rolled down the riverbank, gray sand sticking to her hair and clothes. She attempted to get up, but another knight slammed his shield into the side of her head. Blood formed at a gash on the edge of her hairline, but she continued to fight ferociously. She launched herself up in the form of a spinning kick that knocked her assailant away. When she whirled back around, another knight was already throwing a spear at her chest.

The world seemed to move in slow motion as the weapon moved toward her. Blue had no time to deflect or defend. She was without hope. And in that horrible split-second before the spear hit, she knew it.

Mortality screamed for mercy, but she didn’t. The spear’s point reflected in her eyes and then . . .

Jason threw himself in front of Blue. The spear penetrated him instead of her.

“Jason!” she screamed.

The scene stood motionless, as if time was holding its breath. Then everything sped up so quickly it felt like a sensory explosion. Jason fell to the ground by the river. The knight yanked out his bloodied spear. He attempted another strike at Blue, but she shouted in fury and tackled him to the sand. She unleashed a downpour of fists to his face. Other knights tried to attack her, but she brandished the knight’s spear—the very one that had struck Jason—and obliterated anyone who came close in a cyclone of rage.

The ground started to rumble. Panicked cries of knights began to echo around the plain as a golden glow blinded the company.

I did not see what was coming after them; my dream perspective remained with Blue, who had run back to Jason’s side.

She fell to her knees beside him in the sand. Jason’s face was expressionless, his body motionless, his shirt stained in dark red. Blue grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, shouting his name once more. He remained still and her face turned ghostly white. She put her hands to his stomach where the wound was, and blood coated her skin.

The ground quivered, the river sloshing in the confines of its banks. The glow in the background became brighter and the scene shook and shone with increasing intensity. Then, just as the world threatened to tear itself apart, I woke up. My heart felt as though it had all but burst from my chest. The top and sweatpants I wore were soaked with sweat. I panted like I’d run ten thousand laps.

The term “bad dream” by no means described what I’d just experienced. That was the worst nightmare I’d ever had. Madame Alexanders would be thrilled. I, however, could not have been more devastated.

I did not write down the vision in my journal like I typically did. I would never be able to forget this dream even if I tried.

I looked over at Blue and SJ. Sometimes I woke them up by talking in my sleep when I had particularly vivid dreams, but I could see both their faces at the moment, and each was still lost in slumber.

Before I even fully realized, I was out on the balcony. I had grabbed a jacket, slid on my boots, and was now leaning over the railing, trying to rid myself of the grisly images I’d seen.

I placed a hand on the vines that surrounded our balcony and brought them to life like the ones outside our detention tower. I didn’t care if Lady Agnue got mad. I didn’t care if she had to call Lenore back here and the vines got torn down. I had to get away.

The vines awakened and lowered me to the ground six floors below. I proceeded to wander across the campus, keeping to the shadows so as not to be spotted by any guards. My mind was blank, as lost as the stars behind the charcoal clouds.

I found myself heading toward the practice fields. Their pull was comforting to me like a homing beacon. I made my way to the back of the barn. There was a tree there that I was partial to when I felt the need for some space. It was a deciduous one with a particularly smooth, thick trunk, and a cradle of roots at its base. Angled away from the school, it was a great place to seek solitude. There, in the silence, I leaned against the trunk and gazed out at the grounds. My body shuddered violently, trying to shake the darkness of my latest vision.

Before starting our training, Liza had warned me that the more I used magic, and the stronger my powers became, the more intense and revealing my visions of the future would be. Despite this warning, I feared that I had underestimated how brutal a consequence this could be. I mean, what I’d just seen . . .

I clutched my head in my hands.

Jason was going to die.

I swallowed hard, sunk to the ground, and hugged my knees to my chest to keep from crying. My eyes shut tightly as my mind whirred.

When? Where? Why? And most importantly, how? Not how was it going to happen. How was I going to tell him? And how was I going to tell Blue?

Jason was a good friend to all of us, so seeing him get killed was hard enough. But Jason was more than a friend to Blue, even if he didn’t know it yet. At the end of last semester Blue had revealed to me (and later SJ) that she had feelings for him. She claimed that she wasn’t sure how deep those feelings ran, and was not sure what those feelings would progress into, but she did not want Jason, or Daniel, or anyone else, to know they existed. Yet.

In all honesty it made perfect sense. Blue and Jason were really good friends. They had tons in common, were always on the same page, and fit like a sandwich with a side of chips. I didn’t know how Blue—or Jason for that matter—hadn’t seen the signs sooner. But I supposed this kind of clarity was usually more obvious to people on the outside of a situation.

I could understand why Blue may have denied her feelings for a while. Crushing on a friend could be complicated. I was happy she’d come to terms with how she felt, but clearly her timing was not great.

No girl wants to learn that the boy she’s into is doomed after finally fessing up to liking him.

It was true that Blue was already on notice that Jason’s fate may not be so savory. Her prologue prophecy had revealed that he was going to “die twice” and that it was going to be her fault on both counts. However, we knew from our time with Liza that such predictions could be interpreted to have different meanings. Ergo, the whole “die twice” bit, along with Liza’s assurances, actually calmed our worries. Since a person could not physically die twice we assumed the prologue alluded to something more figurative.

Unfortunately, unlike prologue prophecies, my visions had no such wiggle room. My dreams of the future were never wrong. Sometimes they showed incomplete images—fragments of what was to come—and not always in the proper order. So there were some gray areas. But such zones of uncertainty were opportunities to influence the before and after, not change what had been foreseen. Which meant that one way or another, what I’d dreamt tonight would come to pass. Jason would be killed by that riverbank. In sacrificing himself to save Blue, his death would inadvertently be her fault.

It was unavoidable. The future had been set.

I thumped my head against the tree in frustration. A couple of leaves drifted to the ground. My burst of anger returned to sadness as I watched them fall.

My heart didn’t simply hurt from the realization about Jason’s future. For lack of a better word, it felt like my heart had been julienned. Jason—my friend, my dear friend—was going to be killed, and I didn’t know what to do. Worse, I knew there was nothing I could do.

I got up from the grass slowly as thoughts raced through my mind. Whether I wanted to or not, I knew I had to tell him and Blue. They deserved to know, and I was past keeping secrets from people, especially when the knowledge I held pertained directly to them.

As this vision was about him, I’d have to start with Jason. Although, I had no idea when a good time was to tell someone—let alone one of your closest friends—that they were going to die.

I wasn’t one to break down easily, but it was all I could do not to scream.

With too much weighing on my mind to head back to bed, and the dark cold eating away at me in my nest of roots, I decided to go into the barn. Beating up hay dummies always helped ease my tensions. Plus, the Twenty-Three Skidd tryouts were tomorrow. If I was going to be up all night, I might as well get some last-minute practice. It would be a shallow distraction given what I’d just learned, but I had to fight these terrible feelings in light of several factors.

One, I didn’t know when this dream would come to fruition. It might happen in a week; it might happen in three years. Two, I couldn’t let on that something was wrong until I’d had the chance to talk with Jason and Blue. And three, I still had dozens of other Book-destroying, protagonist-murdering, antagonist-plotting problems to worry about. Those ongoing plot lines would inevitably determine the future of the entire realm, so I had to put them first. Just like I knew Jason would.

I pushed open the barn doors and was surprised to find it flooded with light. A good number of gas lanterns within the barn were lit—their vibrant flames crackling away like miniature suns behind their glass barriers.

What moron left the lights on? I wondered as I stepped inside. If the wind knocked over a single one of these lanterns without anyone here, it could set the whole place on fire.

I closed the doors behind me and made my way deeper into the barn, drawing my wandpin from the jacket pocket I’d popped it into before leaving my room.

Lapellius.

The wand extended itself.

Lacrosse sword.

The handle thickened in my grip as my wand extended. The spear of a jousting lance sprouted at one end and the basket of a lacrosse stick emerged simultaneously on the other.

Eager to forget my terrible dreams, I made my way to where the hay dummies were kept. I set up a few and began laying into them. With one swift strike-twirl-twist-strike combo after another, my mind eventually went blank as my body moved in a state of autopilot. At least, it did until I was startled by a sudden voice.

“Hey.”

I spun around with the blade of my lacrosse sword at the ready. I pulled it back when I saw the person to whom the voice belonged—Big Girtha.

“Geez!” I said as I relaxed the weapon. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry, sorry.” she responded. “I heard something and came to check it out. Figured a raccoon got inside the barn. Didn’t expect to find a person. What’re you doin’ out here?”

“Trouble sleeping,” I replied. “And you?”

“Same. It gets old sometimes, so I come down here and try to tire myself out. That way maybe I’ll sleep better, or at least clear my head. I have a sparring mat and a few hay dummies set up over there.” Big Girtha gestured somewhere beyond the haystack walls surrounding my area. “I came back here to get a few more because I destroyed the ones I was working with.”

These hay dummies were normally super durable. I wondered what she could’ve been doing that had caused so much damage.

“What’s your weapon of choice?” I asked curiously.

“These,” Big Girtha said, holding up two balled fists. She nodded to her right bicep then her left bicep. “I call this one Kraken, and this one Kraken.”

“Aren’t people who name their arm muscles supposed to give them different names?”

“Ordinarily,” Big Girtha agreed. “But this way, when I’m about to throw down with someone, my battle cry can be: ‘Release the Krakens!’ A singular version of that word doesn’t sound anywhere near as cool.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Not bad,” I said. “I once considered having a battle cry myself. But then I realized that when someone is trying to kill you, it’s not wise to waste time on something trivial like yelling ‘Whablamo!’”

Big Girtha stared at me. “When did someone try to kill you?”

I stopped and fully comprehended the severity of what I’d let slip.

No one outside of my group of friends, Liza, Lady Agnue, and of course my enemies, knew the whole story behind my exploits last semester. All the alternative versions of the truth gossiped up by my classmates until now had been far off base. Regrettably, I’d just given one of my classmates a shred of actual truth that I had not intended to divulge. And the classmate in question was a former nemesis!

“What? Never mind. Forget I said anything,” I responded vaguely, trying to avoid her gaze and the subject.

Alas, Big Girtha was not as dense as her physique. I’d given her a palatable clue, and she was connecting the dots.

“While you were gone last semester, people tried to kill you,” Big Girtha repeated, thinking out loud. “I know your fighting has gotten a lot better, and you practice all the time. I saw you and Blue come down here all through winter break. But you train differently than you used to. Not just because you use a spear instead of a sword, but because of your aggression. The look on your face when you train . . . it’s so angry and serious. And then there’s Mauvrey . . .”

I grimaced, but Big Girtha continued.

“When Jade and I brought her up the other day, your eyes went totally dead. Blue got so defensive too, like she was worried about something big, something more than how we used to mess around with each other.”

Big Girtha exhaled as she began to pace. “Mauvrey started acting weird when you left school last semester, Crisa, like she was preoccupied with something. And there were a lot of times when I noticed her doing strange things. She’d sneak out of our room late at night when she thought Jade and I were asleep and wouldn’t come back until right before dawn. She began studying potions and researching magic. She seemed uninterested in anything normal. The paranoia she’s always had about stupid things like coins on the floor became more extreme. And one day I found a corset in her closet that had been dyed black. I thought it looked familiar—a lot like the missing, poisonous one from the Treasure Archives—but I didn’t say anything.

“Next thing I know you’re back at school. I see Mauvrey working on something in our sewing classroom after-hours. On the night of the Ball of the First Frost you’re sent to the infirmary. Then Mauvrey goes missing, and when I go dumpster diving for my Looting & Shooting final exam later that week I find a black ball gown in a garment bag with your name sewn into the tag. It was like someone had stolen the dress the school seamstresses made you for the ball and thrown it out.”

Big Girtha shook her head. “I guess I just didn’t want to believe it . . .”

“Believe what?” I was almost too afraid to ask.

“That Mauvrey tried to kill you,” Big Girtha said grimly. “She was the one who broke into the Treasure Archives and stole that corset. She has to be. She got rid of your actual dress and disguised that poisoned corset to look like a gown for the ball, which you wore and almost died from. When she failed to kill you, she ran away from school. Didn’t she?”

I refused to meet Big Girtha’s eyes.

She hadn’t been completely spot-on. Mauvrey hadn’t left school because she’d failed in her attempt to kill me. She’d left because she genuinely thought she’d succeeded and—believing that her job was done—went to rejoin Arian and the rest of her antagonist buddies.

Also, while I figured the late-night ventures Big Girtha was referring to were cases of Mauvrey meeting up with Arian, and that her magic research had to do with defeating me and breaking into the Archives, I had no idea what had prompted an escalation of her irrational fear of coins. She’d had that peculiar tick for years. I’d discovered it during our first year at Lady Agnue’s when we were roommates.

Once, during one of our arguments, Mauvrey had said she wished I would just get expelled already so that she wouldn’t have to share a room with me. In response, I had rolled my eyes and picked up a bronze coin lying on the floor by my nightstand.

“Here,” I said. “Maybe your wish will come true.”

I tossed the coin onto her comforter as a form of harmless snark, but she totally freaked out. She flung herself backward so fast she fell off the other side of the bed.

It was an odd reaction. And over the years I discovered that it was not an isolated incident. For whatever reason, Mauvrey was super weird about coins. She never picked them up from the floor. She never even flipped one to settle a bet.

Strange as it may have sounded, part of me had sort of liked this about Mauvrey. The quirk was the most interesting, unorthodox thing about the girl. Now, of course, she had the whole “evil and homicidal” thing going for her.

I’d always assumed I was the only person to have noticed Mauvrey’s distaste for pocket change. But it seemed Big Girtha knew about it too. The bulky girl was a lot more perceptive than I’d given her credit for.

Big Girtha was now far too close to the truth, my truth, for comfort. When I finally got the nerve to face her, I knew by the look in her eyes there was nothing I could say that would convince her otherwise. I would’ve been wasting my time denying it. So I decided not to. Instead I took a different approach—first a warning, then a forced leap of faith.

“Look, Big Girtha,” I said, “there’s a lot more happening right now that you don’t understand. Dangerous, unpleasant stuff, not just to do with me, but the whole realm. Which is why my advice to you is to let the matter go. Stop digging. If you don’t, you might not like what you find.”

“I’m not making any promises, Crisa,” she responded. “I mean, would you stop digging if the situation was reversed?”

“Admittedly not,” I replied. “Which brings me to the following. I can’t stop you from asking questions, but there is one promise I am going to have to ask you to make. Big Girtha, you can’t tell anyone about Mauvrey. It’s part of a deal I have going with Lady Agnue. If she finds out that I let even a little piece of the truth slip, what she’ll do to me is way worse than anything Mauvrey ever did.”

Big Girtha nodded. “Don’t worry, Crisa. I’ll keep your secret. I just have one condition.”

I looked at her suspiciously. “What?”

“Stop calling me Big Girtha,” she said. “I know that’s what everyone in school has always called me, but the fact is I seriously hate it. I’m plus-sized and sturdy like an ox-herder, but I have feelings. And whether you’re seventeen or seventy, no girl likes having a nickname that revolves around her massive build.”

Her honesty threw me and I felt an unexpected tinge of guilt. “I’m sorry, uh, Girtha. I had no idea.”

“It’s cool,” she replied. “You’re not the only one who can put up a front, you know. But if you and your friends could lose the nickname, maybe the other girls will follow. Oh, and it would also help if Blue stopped with her more colorful nicknames for me too. I mean, Gigantore? Really? How’s that not supposed to hurt my feelings?”

“I’ll talk to her,” I promised. “And, um, thanks. For keeping my secret.”

“I should be thanking you for trusting me enough to keep it. I guess this means we really can be friends, huh?”

“Girtha, I’m trusting you because I have to, not because I want to,” I responded bluntly. “It’s a step in the right direction. But make no mistake, the faith I just placed in you is out of necessity, not camaraderie. If you ever want me to trust you fully, you’re gonna have to prove to me that you can be trusted first.”