Five days after Amara had come to the Impossible Academy. Five days of confusion, silence and pretending. The sky in these parts always seemed to be gray — as if the sun had forgotten how to shine. The trees were all wrong, twisted in the wind. The stone walls of the academy thrummed with an energy she couldn’t explain, and the halls whispered to her at night.

She was perched on the edge of her bed, her knees drawn to her chest, her eyes focused on the ornate window that would not open. Her roommates had gone off to training early, but she had not stirred for hours. This wasn’t what she expected.

This was not a magical boarding school filled with charm and grace. No. It was a cage done up in gothic luxury. A prison. She sighed and rested her forehead on her knees.

She missed her bed back home. Her old lamp. The creak of the villa’s staircase. Even the dumbass kitchen tiles she’d once sworn she hated. Her thoughts spiraled. And she thought about that night at prom. The fire in her wrist.

The screams.

Her mother dragging her through falling plaster as if they were fleeing the apocalypse. And there she was — this cold, enigmatic place with its wary gaze. Surveillance cameras hidden in the recesses of hallways. Gargoyles carved from stone that appeared to move when she wasn’t watching. And most damning of all — the ghosts.

She’d heard them.

Then, on the second night, a girl in the hallway had whispered to no one, her voice cracked and far away. Another time, Amara was sure she saw footprints appearing in a patch of dust like magic… without any actual person to make them. She didn’t belong here. But she couldn’t leave.

Her heart was squeezed too tight in her chest, her breathing erratic. The memories hit her like a wave she had no power to stop.

What am I?

What did Mom do to me?

If only I could have remained normal?

“Stop,” she whispered to herself.

But it didn’t stop.

Her hands trembled.

Her skin flushed hot.

The pain was back — sharp and excruciating — stinging through her wrist. She rolled off the bed to one side and curled herself up on the floor.

“N-no—”

She struggled against it, but the warmth intensified, snaking through her veins. Her back arched, breath catching.

And then—

Her eyes opened wide.

They glowed.

Bright amber. Flickering with flames. She did not see it, but the wall behind her splintered. The air around her shimmered. The lights flickered in the hallway outside the dorm room. Then came the smoke. Then the flames.

Showers of sparks came from under the door as a shout reverberated down the hall. Students scattered while shouts of panic rang out.

“Fire! Get out—get out!”

The entire east wing went into a frenzy. Books burst into ash. Curtains melted. Dust waves rolled through the stone. Doors were flunged open and students, screaming in panic, ran barefoot into the courtyard.

And there, at its center, Amara lay dazed. A trail of sweat coated her forehead, her eyes still half luminous, her breathing ragged. She did not even feel the pain anymore — all of it had been swept away by the terror in her chest.

“Hey—HEY!” a voice yelled above her. Then hands seized her — firmly, strongly — and jerked her away from the burning room. Her body was lifeless as they dragged her through smoke and out into the fresh air.

She blinked against the cold slapping her skin. She was on her knees in the grass, the heat of the building behind her still licking the back of her. The dormitory’s east wing was ablaze. The windows, one, then another, shattered, and glass splattered to the ground like glitter.

And she… she had done it.

She looked at her hands, trembling.

“I—I did this,” she whispered.

No one answered. No one had to.

Her fingers curled slowly. She felt it. In her bones. In her blood. In the way the fire didn’t frighten her as much as it knew her. As if it had been waiting to be summoned.

Students surrounded it with buckets of water and some attempted to summon rainfall to quench the fire. Professors shouted orders as air shifters attempted to smother the flames with blasts of wind.

Still, Amara stayed frozen.

She’d burned something down.

She wasn’t normal.

She never would be.

“I’m not like them,” she whispered to herself.

Then—

She collided with something.

Or rather—someone.

Hard.

Amara gasped and stumbled backward, rubbing her shoulder. The stranger did the same. For a moment, they could only look at each other in disbelief.

And then—

CRACK.

A spark lit between them. They both sprang backward, panting.

“What the hell—?” the guy muttered, blinking. He was tall, lean and had storm gray eyes that looked as bewildered as she felt. His dark hair was tousled over his forehead, and he was in a training uniform with ash dust sprinkled over the sleeves. Amara’s eyes widened as her wrist ached again.

But this wasn’t like before. This time, there was something else when they touched. Something she had no name for.

“What was that?” They spoke at the same time.