“Oh gods…” someone in the crowd whispered.

  The ground underfoot began to tremble—fine at first, then violently. Cracks spidered across the podium. I started walking toward the elf, ignoring the shaking.

  “Elandr…” My voice came out low, with a rumble like a rockslide. “You lied to me.”

  “I did not lie,” the elf kept his icy calm, even though his robe fluttered in the pressure of my aura. “Academy Charter, Article Forty-Two: ‘Dark magic and mental attacks are prohibited.’ You broke the rules.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your rules!” I roared. “You promised me a meeting! I met your conditions! I won!”

  I grabbed him by the collar of his expensive robe and yanked him close.

  “Take me to him. Now.”

  In the same instant—whoosh.

  My hand clenched emptiness. Elandr blinked out and reappeared ten meters behind me.

  “Greg, I ask you to stop,” he said loudly. “You’re frightening the students.”

  I turned, slowly.

  “FRIGHTENING?!” I shouted—and the lightbulb on a lamppost popped with a sharp crack. “Are you serious?! I wiped everyone out! I did what you wanted! I need answers—and you just tossed me out like trash?! Disqualified?!”

  Rage flooded my vision red.

  “They stole what was right in front of my nose! One step! One damn step!”

  “Enough,” Elandr said coldly. “Calm down. You can compete again next year.”

  “Next year…?” I repeated quietly.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  For me—with my shredded memory—a year was an eternity.

  “There won’t be a next year.”

  My hand went to my hood on its own. Not a decision. A reflex, hammered in by thousands of fights. I tore the fabric off.

  “Look me in the eyes, elf.”

  I locked onto him. The darkness in my eyes began to rotate, dragging light into it. I’d done this a thousand times. I knew how to snap willpower like a twig.

  Elandr froze. His pupils widened. A veteran magister—and he couldn’t look away. His face went gray.

  Then soft hands covered my head and yanked the hood back down over my nose.

  The darkness vanished.

  “Enough, Greg!” Alexia’s voice shook.

  “Enough?!” I tried to shake her hands off. “I’m playing the good boy here, enduring your lessons—and I just got played!”

  A ring closed around us. Upperclassmen, trembling, pointed their wands at me. I looked them over and laughed—mean, sharp, hysterical.

  “Wands? Seriously? Pathetic.” I spat on the ground. “You can’t cast properly with your hands? You need little sticks to feel powerful? I’ll snap every last one of you like matchsticks!”

  “EVERYONE BACK!” Elandr snapped as he came back to himself. He was breathing hard, rubbing his temples. He looked at me now—not with coldness, but with caution. And maybe the realization that one more second and the Academy was done.

  “Greg,” he said. “You will meet with the Vice-Rector. Personally. Wait to be summoned.”

  He turned and left quickly, dragging the shaken instructors with him.

  Alexia grabbed my sleeve.

  “Come on. Now.”

  She hauled me off the stadium, away from the crowd. We reached a quiet inner courtyard where an old oak tree stood. I dropped onto a bench, still boiling. My hands shook. Magic churned inside me, demanding an outlet.

  “Bastards…” I hissed. “I hate them… I’ll tear them all apart…”

  Lianelle sat down beside me. The same proud Lianelle I’d humiliated in fencing. She stared at me in silence, sighed—and reached out.

  Her fingers slid into my hair.

  Alexia sat on my other side and put her hand on my head too.

  “Easy, Greg…” Lianelle whispered. “Easy, savage. It’s over.”

  They started petting me. Four hands.

  And something strange happened.

  All my rage—every shred of darkness that was about to burst out—just… shut off.

  Like someone pressed an OFF switch.

  It felt disgustingly good. The warmth of their hands went straight into my skull, unplugging thought, anger, humiliation. I went limp, slumping against Lianelle’s shoulder. My eyes closed on their own.

  “Mmm…” slipped out of me before I could stop it.

  I didn’t understand what was happening.

  Why did this work?

  I was a monster who’d been ready to erase the Academy’s elite a minute ago.

  And now I was sitting there—almost purring—and I didn’t want them to stop.

  Was it magic?

  …Or was I just that lonely?