Chapter 5

NICHOLAS

I felt my face grow hot. “You think this is funny?”

“No.”

“Then why aren't you doing anything?”

He glanced at the water swirling around my arms. “Because I don't want to.”

For a moment, I was speechless. Then my temper snapped.

“You arrogant little fucker.”

I advanced, forcing the water around my wrists into two narrow blades. I slashed one blade through the air beside his face.

He barely flinched. It was like he was utterly indifferent to anything I did to him.

My stomach twisted.

I had been challenged before. I'd been insulted, mocked, and even beaten once by a fourth-year fire mage who still took every opportunity to remind me of it.

But no one had ever made me feel so thoroughly irrelevant while standing directly in front of me.

I wanted to wipe that stupid, blank expression off his face. I wanted to make him react. To make him show even a fraction of the fear or anger he ought to have felt.

So, I leaned forward and spat at him.

The saliva struck his cheek. A collective gasp rippled through the stands.

I sneered, though my heart was hammering with a strange, vicious satisfaction.

“You don’t belong here, you filthy mixed blood. You're an abomination.”

For the first time, his expression changed. It was subtle, and I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t staring so intensely at his face.

The edges of his eyes tightened slightly, his lips thinning.

The air around us changed then. A loose strand of his white hair lifted from his cheek. A breath of wind slipped past my face.

I glanced at the fluttering banners hanging around the hall.

I looked back at him. The air around his body had begun to stir in slow, almost imperceptible circles. Dust lifted from the ground and drifted around his boots. The damp fabric of his clothes fluttered, although there was no breeze anywhere else in the arena.

His expression remained almost unchanged.

But his eyes…those icy blue eyes were settled on me with a focus I'd never seen in them before.

My smile widened. There you are.

I'd finally gotten to him.

I raised my hand, water gathering around my wrist once more.

“What's the matter?” I taunted. “Did I hurt your little feelings?”

The wind strengthened. A few loose pebbles scraped across the arena floor.

Around us, people whispered but I barely heard them. All my attention was on the man in front of me.

“Come on,” I said. “Show me what a pathetic mixed-blood like you can do.”

I drew the water into a tight spiral, preparing to strike—

“Enough.” Professor Thornfield’s voice cut across the hall.

I turned toward her. “Professor,” I began.

“Enough, Mr. Ashbourne.”

“I’m trying to get him to—”

“We do not permit discrimination of any kind in this academy.” Her gaze flicked briefly toward my opponent. Then back to me. “Not in my classroom. Not in the Crucible. And certainly not under the guise of a duel.”

I scoffed. “With all due respect, Professor, he needs to defend himself. Isn't that what the Crucible is for? How is he supposed to survive outside the academy if he can't even be bothered to fight back against a student?”

“You were given permission to challenge another student. Not to humiliate him. Not to assault him. And certainly not to use his heritage as an excuse for your behavior.”

I glanced at the strange guy who had said nothing throughout this whole exchange. The wind around him had calmed now. I hated the way he stood there, as though none of this concerned him. As though he were above all of this.

As though I were the one making a fool of myself.

I didn't like it. I liked it even less when Professor Thornfield stepped between us.

“The fun’s over, Mr. Ashbourne,” she said.

“You can't be serious. He—”

“Enough.”

She lifted one hand and the ground beneath my boots shifted.

I barely had time to react before thick roots erupted from the ground, curling around my ankles and pinning my feet in place.

“What the—”

They were not enough to hurt me, but enough to make it abundantly clear that she could keep me there for as long as she pleased.

“I suggest you remember who is in charge of this class,” she said.

I clenched my jaw.

With another small movement of her other hand, the roots loosened.

I was free. But the message was clear.

The duel was over.

I looked past her shoulder.

He stood exactly where I'd left him. White hair. Pale eyes. Blank expression.

His face was back to being indifferent as though nothing had happened at all.

My hands curled into fists.

Professor Thornfield gestured toward the exit. “Leave the hall, Nicholas.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to demand another round, to make him finally fight me properly, to discover what lay beneath that infuriatingly empty expression.

But I could feel the eyes of the entire academy on me. I couldn’t ruin my hard-earned reputation because of an insignificant boy.

So I turned and walked away.

The crowd parted as I climbed the steps out of the Crucible. People whispered around me as I passed. 

I ignored them all.

At the top of the stairs, I paused.

I looked back one last time.

He had bent to retrieve his torn hood. He pulled it over his head, concealing his white hair once more.

My teeth ground together.

He had made a fool of me today and I would not forget it. I’d show him who, exactly, he was dealing with and why he should’ve known better.

I smiled. “It's not over yet.”