her a hack for the noble artists, content to waste her powers until she’d showed them she was too good to be ignored. She’d divined sieges and storms and spies. She’d written books foretelling the futures of Demeine—for noble perusing only, of course. A pearl amongst grit, they called her.
I could be too.
I tucked the paper away and pushed through the firs to a stone path. For all this fancy gardening, there wasn’t a marker in sight. The path Emilie must’ve wandered off was stone, cut through with swatches of bright green moss, and I followed it eastward up a small incline. Around a bend of more orange trees, a pond of blue thyme, with yellow primrose spotted through like fish, rippled in the breeze. I skimmed my fingers along every flower and leaf as I walked, everything green and living, and pulled a poppy from a patch of red. We’d only enough land to grow what we needed in Vaser.
Winding closer to the academy, the observatory a great unblinking eye of glass glaring down at me through the holes in the treetops, I touched an orange. My stomach rumbled against my ribs. Most of the land around Vaser was too dry to produce such extravagance.
This was why Laurel was gaining so much ground—nobles wasting money on things like this.
“Pretend you’re Estrel Charron,” I whispered. “A winter, soft enough to be wanted and threatening enough to be feared.”
If she could do it, maybe I could too.
“It would be best if you did not touch things you have not been told are safe to touch,” a gentle voice behind me said. “It is not a good way to start your first day, Emilie des Marais.”
I froze. The person behind me laughed.
“Turn, please. I prefer to see what I have to work with in its natural habitat, and your mother said you were quite the wild child.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I swallowed, turned, and straightened my back. Time to be a comtesse. “I’m sorry. It was real pretty.”
“Don’t worry, dear. I’m Vivienne Gardinier, and I’m here to help you.” She was an older white woman, craggy lines like ice crevasses set deep into her skin, and clean brows shaped like snowcapped peaks brightened her forget-me-not eyes. Strands of curled white hair, escaping from the smooth knot at the back of her head just so, rustled against the shoulders of her pale-green dress. A scar split her pink lips from bow to chin. “Come—it is a normal day of instruction for the other girls, but your roommates have arrived, and I would prefer you acquaint yourselves with one another before attending classes. And don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.”
I lifted my skirts and took her arm, the expensive beading of her dress rustling against mine. It made my stomach clench in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. “Yes, ma’am.”
She swept up the path. “Mademoiselle when necessary. Here you may call me Vivienne. Only soldiers and sailors say ma’am, and you must remember to enunciate. Your accent will find nothing but scorn in Serre, I am sorry to say. You sound quite harsh, but it is a sad lesson we must all learn. People with power can be particular, can’t they?”
As if she didn’t have any power. Nobles were the ones who talked differently, snipping the ends off words with nasally sighs.
“Yes, Mademoiselle,” I said. “They can be.”
She patted my hand. She was warm, and this close, smelled of roses. “Your mother says you’re very particular about your magic?”
“I won’t use a hack.” I swallowed. The building loomed above us, only a thin screen of trees separating us. “My magic’s all me.”
I was my own.
“An artist after mine and Estrel’s hearts, I see.” She smiled and pointed to one of the towers far above us. “Your mother said you took no joy from the midnight arts, but even so, I imagine someone so dedicated to their studies would appreciate a meeting with Mademoiselle Charron?”
Black smoke leaked from a half-closed window far above us, storm smeared against the sea of sky. I reached for it with my magic, and a teeth-chattering shudder ran through me.
Power—raw and ready.
“Yes,” I whispered, feet moving on their own. “I would.”
“Then I am very pleased to welcome you to my school, Emilie.” We rounded a bend, and she paused before an open door taller than two of me and drenched in silver etchings of stars encircling the moon, white rabbits on onyx skies, and a brazenly gilded sun and