Perhaps if I tried hard enough, I’d come up with some sort of plan to convince the Council to keep my magic intact for one more week, one more day, one more moment. . . .
Far away, softer than an echo, sounded the faintest clap of thunder. I shivered. That was me. My magic, worming into the world around me without my permission. “Behave yourself,” I whispered to it. But the clouds continued to loom in the distance.
“Clara!”
Papa marched down the hill and plopped into the dirt beside me. His forehead was deeply furrowed. “What happened in there—well, how are you feeling about it? What are you going to do?”
I let out a bitter laugh and pressed my knees close to my chest. “There’s nothing I can do, Papa. The Council has made up their minds.”
“I think you’re giving up too soon.”
“No.” I rested my chin on my arms and watched the sun sparkling on the dew-slicked grass. “I’ve tried for five years. I’ve fought so hard to tame it on my own. Maybe it’s better this way.”
The sounds of teachers shouting at me, of breaking glass, of my own sobs, filled my head.
“Something’s wrong with me,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. “With my heart, perhaps. If—if I was a really good witch, then I’d be able to—”
“No, blossom, no.” He shifted closer to me, draping an arm around my shoulders. His other hand, callused from years of gardening, covered mine. “You are a good person, you hear me? Nobody bad would have worked so hard to become a healer.”
I wiped my sleeve against my teary eyes. “It shouldn’t have been a struggle at all,” I said. “Magic reflects what’s in our hearts. Every teacher’s said so. It’s this force inside of you that harnesses your emotions. So my emotions must be horrible.”
Papa was painfully quiet. The silence echoed my own words back to me so I could hear how silly they sounded.
“I think it’s more that your magic can hardly keep up with you,” said Papa eventually. “You’re ready to save the world, but your power . . . well, it just needs a little more time.”
The brightness of my love for him was clouded by the dark reality of my situation. “I don’t have time.” When I closed my eyes, I could see those Councilmembers surrounding me like birds of prey, claws at the ready to snatch away my magic.
Papa’s hope for me was constant and sweet. But it was also naive.
I turned from him, folding my arms tight against my middle, where magic thrummed impatiently. The dark storm clouds that had loomed in the distance now hovered over our cottage. “You don’t know what it’s like. You haven’t seen me in my apprenticeships. You don’t know what my magic does.” I could almost hear Madam Ben Ammar’s scream that day when my hands had gone up in flames. How even she, calm and brilliant, had been frightened by what my magic could do.
“I just . . . I just think you should fight. Fight to keep your magic the way it is.”
“Fight the Council?” I fiercely shook my head. “Papa, I don’t know what you see when you look at me, but when the Council looks, they see her.” My voice broke on the last word. The fire in my heart grew. My mouth tasted like ash.
She was everything I hated. Wild, thoughtless, impulsive. Just like my magic. The magic she had prayed that I would possess, too.
“My magic is all I have,” I said between staggered breaths. “The power to help someone. And still, it’s not even mine—it’s hers. She gave it to me.” Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I was foolish to think I could be different from her.”
Papa carefully drew me close, my head resting against his heart.
“I hate her,” I said—to the air, to the sun, to my magic, to myself.
“Clara. Listen to me.”
The more I thought of her, the more my magic seemed to be a real, white-hot flame emanating from my body. My chest tightened; my shoulders quaked; heat rolled through me—
Papa gasped and pulled back from me. Over his heart, where my cheek had just been, the yellow fabric of his shirt was scorched, curling and black. And from his skin, small pink blossoms poked forth.
I screamed.
Papa clasped a hand to the flowers on his heart, shuddering. His face turned the color of bone as more pink blooms poked out from the gaps between his fingers.
“What’s happening?” I asked, my voice quivering and weak.
I touched a trembling hand to his cheek and he yelped, flinching away. A bright pink burn was left behind.
My head whirled like a seed spinning from a tree. Thunder crashed, and suddenly, buckets of rain fell from the sky, soaking our cottage as well as the village of Williamston below. I became drenched as I scrabbled to my feet and stumbled back from Papa, afraid to look away, but equally terrified to see my magic ravaging him.
He coughed, an awful, rattling sound. He covered his mouth with his hand, and when he drew it back, five pink petals lay in his palm.
His eyes were wide and bloodshot. For the first time, he was looking at me with the same fear as the Council had.
“Clara.” My name was faint and hoarse. The flowers on his breast were blooming.
Azaleas, that old book had said. A sign for care—and for stubbornness. Poisonous if ingested.
Papa glanced at his chest and seemed to realize it the moment I did.
“Get help,” he breathed.
I laid Papa on the sofa and darted to my bedroom.
I couldn’t help him, even if I knew how; not after my touch alone had hurt him. I needed a magician who was skilled enough to save him.
Beside my bed was the case of flowers and spare supplies I’d brought back from my time with my most recent teacher, Master Young. I unlatched the lid and threw it back, digging through little glass phials and stems of lavender and lilac.
A green maple leaf was tucked neatly at the bottom, a charm used for sending messages—although it would take too long to reach anybody, especially given my wild magic. And I couldn’t waste a moment.
There was another option. The Morwyns lived close by. If Xavier could not help me, then his parents would.
I set aside the maple leaf and dove under my bed to pull out the small jewelry box that contained my life’s savings. Every coin I’d scrounged up from selling scraps of fabric or doing chores about town. Every tip from a generous patron, from my time assisting various witches and wizards. The pearl earrings Papa had given me for my sixteenth birthday. The gold band my mother had thrown at Papa before disappearing in a cloud of smoke fifteen years ago.
I dashed into the hallway. Just beside the front door, Papa’s boots and mine lay cast aside. I tugged on my dusty gardening gloves along with Papa’s overcoat and the bowler he wore when we traveled. It would be little protection from the rain, but judging by the growling thunder and the turmoil in my heart, the storm—and my magic—would not let up any time soon. As I stuffed the coins and jewelry into the coat’s pockets, I dared to glance at my father.
He had grown quiet, eyes shut and chest heaving. Sleep would help. But there was no telling what the azaleas’ poison could do, given time.
I swept into the sitting room and hovered over him, cautiously touching the cracked leather of my glove against his index finger. His eyelids fluttered open.
“I’m getting the Morwyns,” I whispered. “I’ll be back before you wake.”