Chapter Nineteen: Portals, Vacuums, and Poor Life Choices

  Just what else could she do?

  The question sits in my head like a group of geese outside my apartment at 6:00am, aggravating, impossible to ignore. I stare at Kaela and Lyra's door. The rune on it is dark now, faint chalk in the grooves, a pattern that looks smug even when it isn't glowing. It shouldn't look smug. But everything in this Academy has a personality, and most of them are judgmental, just like a goose. But unlike geese, the Academy doesn’t even have the decency to hiss first. It just waits until you make a mistake and then writes it down in permanent ink.

  My wrist is still tingling where Willow grabbed me. I can still see it, the way she placed her palm on the rune like she was smoothing a wrinkle out of fabric, and the glow just stopped. No flare. No resistance. No drama. Like snuffing a candle in a room that's been on fire for hours. And then she walked away. Of course she did. And the worst part was how casual she looked, like she’d just corrected my posture.

  I should probably think harder about what that means. But standing here staring at runes isn't going to answer any questions, and Kaela and Lyra are on the other side of this door, probably wondering if I've been vaporized or arrested or both.

  I reach for the handle. My hand hesitates for half a second, some instinct that says maybe I should knock, maybe I should announce myself, maybe I should do literally anything that resembles normal social behavior. But then I remember that normal social behavior died the moment I got pulled through a portal into a fantasy school, so I grip the handle and turn it. If anyone in this building is offended by my lack of manners, they can put it in a complaint box. Preferably one I am not magically sealed inside.

  The door opens. I step inside and immediately interrupt a domestic crisis.

  Kaela and Lyra are mid-argument in the way only people trapped together can argue: too close, too intense, and fueled by the kind of boredom that mutates into violence when left unsupervised. Kaela is on her bed, knees tucked up, tail swishing like an offended cat. Her horns catch the dim lantern glow and make her look like she's wearing tiny crowns. She's holding a rolled-up sock like it's evidence in a trial.

  Lyra is standing near the desk with her arms crossed, posture rigid, eyes sharp. Her tail flicks once, twice, like punctuation. The tension in the room is thick enough to spread on toast.

  "I am telling you," Kaela says, voice pitched loud enough to be confident and quiet enough to pretend she's not screaming, "That Forest Scurrier had political ambitions."

  Lyra's stare could freeze lava. "Forest Scurriers do not have politics."

  "I'm sure some have hobbies," Kaela insists, waving the sock for emphasis. "Like crime."

  Lyra pinches the bridge of her nose like she's trying to press her patience back into place. "Kaela. We are currently confined to our room. I don't have the emotional bandwidth for this."

  Kaela points the sock at her like a prosecutor making a closing argument. "You always say that when you don't want to admit I'm right."

  Lyra opens her mouth, probably to deliver a devastating counterargument, and that's when Kaela sees me. Her eyes go wide, the sock drops out of her hand like it just betrayed her, and she makes a noise that is half gasp, half squeak, half "Her Grace save me," and promptly falls off the bed. She tips sideways and disappears with a thump, legs kicking once as she hits the floor. It’s the kind of fall that would be funny in any other circumstance, like if there weren’t knights outside and my life wasn’t apparently a practical joke someone committed to long-term.

  Lyra doesn't move.

  I stand in the doorway with my hand still on the handle, frozen in the posture of someone who walked into the wrong bathroom and is now trying to decide if backing out would be more embarrassing than staying. The lantern overhead flickers slightly, casting dancing shadows across the stone walls.

  Kaela pops back up from the floor, hair wild. "FEY!"

  "Hi," I say weakly, stepping into the room.

  "How did you get in here?" Lyra says, staring blankly at me like she just saw a Winged One.

  Kaela scrambles up onto the bed like the floor has turned to lava, her movements frantic and graceless. "Did you teleport? Did you portal? Did you bribe the door? Did the door just let you in because you're you?"

  The door slams shut behind me.

  Kaela flinches. Lyra's gaze flicks to the door, then back to me, and I can practically see her mind working through possibilities like she's solving an equation. "Answer," she says. The word lands like a gavel. Which is unfair, because I did not consent to this courtroom and I definitely did not bring snacks.

  I take a breath. The room smells like soap and sweat and ink and that faint floral scent Kaela always seems to have clinging to her.

  Two beds, one covered in stuffed animals. A washbasin. A desk cluttered with notebooks, chalk, and the kind of tidy chaos that screams I am holding my sanity together with organization. It looks like a normal dorm room. Which makes the fact that I am currently the weirdest thing in it feel like an achievement.

  "I didn't portal," I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel.

  Kaela leans forward, hands gripping the edge of the bedspread so tightly her knuckles are pale. "Then how?"

  I hesitate, because saying the name feels like tossing a lit match into a room full of dry paper. "Willow," I say finally.

  Kaela blinks rapidly, processing. "Willow?"

  "She. . ." I start, then realize I'm doing that thing where I talk too fast when I'm nervous, like if I get the words out quick enough reality won't have time to argue. I force myself to slow down, to breathe. "She found me in the hallway."

  Kaela's eyes widen. "You were in the hallway? Fey, there are knights in the hallway."

  "Yes," I say dryly. "I noticed. They were very shiny and intimidating."

  Lyra's jaw tightens. "Why were you in the hallway?"

  "Because," I say, and my voice goes flat with sincerity, "I was locked in my room and I was going to go insane." The memory of those four walls closing in on me, the silence pressing against my eardrums, talking to myself, it all rushes back. "I figured out how to open my door," I say, trying to move past the moment before it gets too heavy.

  Lyra's eyes flicker with interest despite herself. "How? The headmaster locked it using runes on the outside of your door?"

  I lift my hand, palm up, like I'm presenting evidence in court. "I used my mana sight and I found the rune feeding mana into it." The memory of that moment is still fresh, the way the world exploded into color, the way the mana streams became visible like veins of light running through everything.

  Lyra's posture changes, subtly. She leans forward slightly, interested now despite herself. "And?"

  "And I redirected it," I say, the words coming easier now that I'm explaining something technical rather than emotional. "Like... you know how when Mira and I were running from the monster, and the runemarks broke, and the mana streamed out?"

  Kaela nods fast, her tail swishing with the motion. Lyra just stares.

  "I didn't know what was happening then," I continue, "but I remember what it felt like. Like the mana bent toward me."

  Lyra's voice is careful, measured. "So you used that."

  "Yeah," I say. "I pinched the feed. Cut off the seal's supply. And then I pulled." I make a gesture with my hands, like I'm physically drawing something toward myself.

  Kaela's mouth opens in a small 'o' of surprise. "You redirected mana."

  "Like opening a dam," I say, "It flooded toward me. The seal flickered and then it stopped working for a few seconds."

  Kaela's expression shifts into concern, her brows knitting together. "Did it hurt?"

  I think about my chest. About the pressure. About the fullness. About the way my lungs felt like they were trying to swallow something too big. "A little," I admit, because lying to Kaela feels wrong somehow. "But mostly it just feels like I ate too much."

  Kaela's brows knit further, confusion mixing with worry. "Too much food?"

  "Too much something," I say, pressing a hand to my sternum where the sensation still lingers. "My stomach feels full. Heavy." There’s a faint metallic taste at the back of my tongue, like I bit a penny and my body decided to keep it as a souvenir.

  "Where did the mana go?" Lyra says. "If it didn't go into the rune, then it went somewhere."

  I point at myself with both hands, feeling ridiculous.

  Kaela's hands fly to her mouth, her eyes going impossibly wide. "It went into you?!"

  "Yes," I say, because apparently we're just saying horrifying sentences now and pretending that's normal. "It went into me."

  "That can't be good." Lyra says.

  "I'm fine," I say automatically, the words coming out before I can think about whether they're true.

  Lyra's stare says that wasn't the question, and I feel like I've just failed a test I didn't know I was taking.

  Kaela leans closer. "Are you okay?"

  "I think so. I feel full. Like I just ate a massive meal and now my body is mad about it."

  Lyra's voice drops, "Fey, that's not normal."

  "Neither is opening portals," I point out, because if we're going to catalog my abnormalities we might as well be thorough. "And yet, here we are."

  Lyra's gaze flicks over my face like she's searching for cracks, for signs that I'm about to spontaneously combust or open a portal to the void. "And Willow."

  "She. . ." I exhale, trying to organize my thoughts into something coherent. "She saved me. . . Willow grabbed me and pulled me into a closet." Even saying it out loud makes it sound absurd, like something from a bad comedy sketch. A closet that smelled like dust and old soap and the kind of secrets that don’t like being aired out. She shut the door like she lived there.

  Kaela blinks several times in rapid succession, her mouth opening and closing like she's trying to process the image. "A closet."

  "Yes," I repeat, because apparently I need to say it three times for it to become real. "A closet."

  Kaela frowns, leaning forward slightly, her confusion evident. "Why was Willow in a closet?"

  "I don't know," I say, spreading my hands helplessly. "She was just... there. Being weird."

  Lyra crosses her arms, her tone flat and matter-of-fact. "Willow has always been weird."

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Kaela's grin goes feral, delighted, her tail swishing behind her with obvious excitement. "You must have really wanted to see us."

  I feel heat creep up my neck, uncomfortable with the attention. "I came because you're the only people I trust in this place."

  Kaela's grin widens impossibly further. "I'm going to rub that in Mira's face."

  Lyra's tone is dry, long-suffering. "Please don't."

  "I will," Kaela says with absolute conviction, bouncing slightly on the bed. "I absolutely will."

  I open my mouth, then close it, then decide to commit because we're already this far down the rabbit hole. "Willow also did what I did."

  Lyra's posture shifts, her analytical interest sharpening. "What?"

  "She unlocked your door," I say, gesturing toward the entrance behind me. "The same way I unlocked mine." I gesture helplessly, trying to find words for something I barely understand myself. "I was about to do it myself. I lifted my hand to start. Willow grabbed my wrist, put her hand on it, and the rune just stopped. Immediately. No effort. Like snuffing a candle."

  "Fey, Willow is trouble. We can figure this out without going to her." Lyra says.

  "I'm not sure, she seemed like the kind of person to find me first," I say.

  "That's scary," Kaela says.

  Lyra doesn't deny it. Instead, she turns and grabs something from the chair by Kaela’s bed. A folded uniform, dark fabric, the Academy crest stitched on the chest in silver wings, seams traced with runes that look like decorative stitching until you remember decorative stitching can light you on fire in this world.

  Lyra holds out the uniform, speaking, and changing the subject. "Take it. I want you to repeat what you did."

  “But that’s my uniform. . .” Kaela says, looking worried.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get you another one.” Lyra says.

  “Fine. . .” Kaela says.

  Lyra turns back to me.

  "Fine, but we're talking about Willow later?" I say.

  "Fine," she relents.

  I take the uniform and set it on Kaela's bed because her bed is apparently the designated chaos zone, and then I take a breath and blink hard. Mana sight hits me like someone dumping glitter into my eyes, and for a moment I'm overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information flooding my senses.

  The room explodes into color. Red mana drifting from the lantern in lazy spirals. Brown and gold and faint green threads in the wood and stone, pulsing with the slow heartbeat of living materials. The runes in the uniform glow like veins of pale light, tiny lines woven into the seams that pulse gently, storing a reservoir of power that makes my fingers itch.

  I reach out with that internal sense and I find the mana inside the fabric. It's like finding a current in water, a flow that wants to move, that's just waiting for permission.

  I pinch. And pull.

  Mana floods toward me.

  My chest tightens. Then my stomach. It's the same as before. The pressure builds, uncomfortable and strange, and I'm suddenly very aware of my internal organs in a way I never wanted to be.

  I suck in a breath through clenched teeth. "Oh."

  Kaela's voice comes out strangled, higher than normal. "Fey?"

  Lyra's tone is controlled but there's an edge under it, worry bleeding through her analytical facade. "Stop if you need to."

  "I'm. . ." I swallow hard, fighting against the sensation. "I'm okay."

  I blink out of mana sight and the normal world returns, shadows less dramatic, my eyes less full of color, my body still full of something else. I press a hand to my sternum, feeling the pressure there. "That felt. . ."

  Kaela leans forward eagerly, worry and curiosity warring on her face. "Like what."

  "Like a mistake," I say honestly, because there's no point in sugar-coating it.

  Lyra's gaze moves to the uniform, sharp and focused. "The runes."

  Kaela grabs it before I can stop her, because Kaela has never met a dangerous object she didn't want to hold like a baby animal, mushrooms included. She flips it over, fingers tracing the seams with careful attention. The runes aren't glowing. They look dead. Like thread. Like harmless decorations. Like I've somehow broken something expensive and irreplaceable.

  Kaela frowns, her brow furrowing. "Did you break it?"

  "I don't think so," I say.

  Lyra steps closer, eyes intense and focused. "Wait."

  We watch in silence, the three of us staring at a piece of clothing like it holds the secrets of the universe. One second. Two. The runes stay dark. Dead. Not even a flicker.

  "It's not recharging," Kaela says, her voice uncertain.

  Lyra's gaze sharpens, understanding clicking into place. "The mana type." She turns toward her desk, reaching for her notebook without looking away from the uniform. The notebook is open, pages filled with neat, tight handwriting and diagrams of runes. Next to it is a pencil. A yellow pencil. A Number 2 pencil. "There must not be any Fabric Mana in the room. That's why it can't recharge."

  Kaela groans. "Now I'll have to get a new uniform.” She throws it into a basket in the corner of the room.

  I sink down onto Kaela's bed, suddenly needing to sit. Kaela scoots over immediately, sitting closer to me. Her tail thumps against my back with her excitement.

  Lyra moves to her own bed across the small room, settling onto it with her usual precise posture. She pulls one leg up, resting her notebook against her knee, watching me with that analytical intensity that makes me feel like a specimen under glass.

  "I still don't understand what this has to do with portals," Lyra says, her voice thoughtful. Her tail continues its rhythmic swishing, brushing against my shoulder blade. "You said powers on Earth follow themes, right?"

  Lyra and Kaela both look at me, waiting.

  "I mean heroes have themes," I say. "Fire heroes. Water heroes. Earth heroes. Stuff like that. Their powers match. It doesn't make sense. My theme is portals. Why am I also apparently a mana vacuum."

  Kaela's tail stills for a moment, then starts up again, slower, more thoughtful. She reaches back and grabs it, pulling it into her lap and playing with it. "What do you mean?"

  "I can absorb mana. I can open portals. Those are two completely different things," my hands gesturing as I try to explain. "They shouldn't both be me."

  Kaela tilts her head, still playing with her tail, wrapping it around her wrist like a bracelet. "Why not."

  "Because powers don't work like that," I say, frustrated. "On Earth, you get one thing. One theme. One ability. You don't get two unrelated powers. That's not how it works."

  Lyra's eyes narrow slightly from her bed, that analytical look settling over her face. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knee. "Unless they're not unrelated."

  I turn to look at her. "What do you mean."

  "You said you absorbed mana," Lyra says slowly, like she's working through the logic as she speaks. "And you said you opened a portal. But you haven't explained what happens to the mana after you absorb it."

  The question hangs in the air. I open my mouth. Close it. Because I haven't thought about that. I've been so focused on the fact that I can absorb it, on the fullness, on the pressure in my chest, that I haven't actually considered where it goes.

  "I don't know," I admit. "It just... sits there. Inside me."

  Lyra leans forward slightly, her posture shifting into full lecture mode. "What if it doesn't just sit there. What if you use it."

  Kaela's eyes go wide, her hands stilling on her tail. "To open portals?"

  "Exactly," Lyra says, and there's that tone in her voice, the one she gets when she's figured something out and it's elegant and obvious in hindsight. "You absorb mana. Your body stores it. And then when you need to open a portal, you use that stored mana as fuel."

  I think back to the monster attack, to the moment everything went wrong.

  "The runemarks," I say, the pieces clicking together. "When I drained them, I was full of mana. And then the portal opened."

  Lyra nods, her expression satisfied. "You had the fuel. Your body needed to release it. So you must have opened a portal."

  I press my hand to my chest, feeling the fullness there, the weight of the mana I pulled from Kaela's uniform. "So I'm like a battery."

  "A battery that opens portals," Kaela says brightly, her tail swishing with renewed excitement. "That's actually kind of cool."

  The thought makes my skin crawl. "So I need to learn to control it. . . then I can go home."

  "Yes," Lyra says simply from her bed.

  Kaela's smile fades slightly, her hands tightening on her tail. "Or you could stay here with us and visit Earth sometimes?"

  "I can't stay here forever," I say, because the words have been sitting in my chest like a splinter and I need to get them out. "I have friends on Earth. I have my mom."

  Kaela's smile wobbles, and I can see her trying to hold it together. Her tail droops slightly in her lap. "We're your friends too." Kaela doesn’t look at me when she says it. She picks at a loose thread on her blanket like she can unmake the moment if she keeps her hands busy.

  "I mean..." I start, then decide honesty is better than softness because softness will make me cry and I refuse to cry in front of Lyra's notebook. "Maybe you two are," I say carefully. "But not Mira."

  Kaela's eyes widen in genuine shock. "What."

  Lyra's brows lift slightly, and she looks almost offended on Mira's behalf. "That's not true."

  I scoff, because they're clearly delusional. "Mira doesn't even like me."

  Kaela sits up straighter, offended on my behalf now. "Yes she does."

  Lyra nods, calm but firm, like she's stating a fact. "She does."

  I stare at them, wondering if we've been living in the same reality. "You're both delusional."

  Lyra's tone is dry, analytical. "She wouldn't spar with anyone she didn't care about."

  I blink at her, processing that statement. "That's the saddest love language I've ever heard."

  Kaela beams, her whole face lighting up. "It's romantic."

  "It's violence," I say flatly.

  Kaela leans in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "She has a soft center."

  I stare at her, trying to reconcile that statement with reality. "Kaela, she literally threatened to use me as a training dummy."

  Kaela nods eagerly, like that proves her point. "Yes. Soft center."

  Lyra's mouth twitches with amusement. "Ask her."

  "Sure," I say, dripping sarcasm. "I'll ask her next time I see her, which might be never with all the knights outside."

  The fullness in my stomach shifts again, easing a fraction, and I realize I'm breathing a little easier. Like the mana inside me is settling. Digesting. Becoming part of me in a way that makes my skin crawl. I open my mouth to speak and my stomach growls. Loudly. Like an animal. Like something that's been starved for days.

  I freeze, embarrassed.

  “That,” I say hoarsely, “was either my stomach or an omen.”

  Kaela blinks. “Which is worse?”

  “Depends,” I say. “Do omens require snacks?”

  Kaela's grin falters, concern replacing amusement. "Are you hungry?"

  "Maybe," I say, because the idea of eating food when my body feels full of mana is absurd, but the growl is real and undeniable. "When we meet back up with Mira we should go get some food."

  Then pain slices through my leg. A cramp. Sudden, brutal, like someone grabbed my muscle and twisted. I gasp and clutch my thigh, my fingers digging into the fabric of my pants.

  Kaela jerks toward me, her hands reaching out. "Fey!"

  Lyra stands instantly, her chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. "What's wrong."

  "I. . ." I grit my teeth, fighting against the sensation. The cramp tightens, radiating up into my hip. It feels like my body is trying to split in two, like my muscles are rebelling. And then the pressure inside me shifts and I realize, with absolute clarity, that my body has decided to solve the problem without asking my permission.

  And then I see it. A portal opens at knee height, right in the line between Lyra’s boots and my bent leg, close enough I feel cold air lick my skin, floating in the air like a wound. It isn't like the big one. Not the one that swallowed me. Not the one that dragged a monster through. This one is small and trembling, edges rippling like heat haze, a thin ring of rotating runes flickering weakly around it like they're struggling to stay drawn.

  I can hear something through it. A voice. Muffled and distant but unmistakably real.

  "Mira?" Lyra whispers, stunned, her voice barely audible.

  The portal wavers, the edges flickering like a candle in wind. And then Mira's voice comes through, muffled, distorted, like it's traveling through water or thick glass.

  "Lyra? Is that you? What is happening?" Mira says.

  Another cramp hits. Worse. My stomach twists like it's trying to turn inside out, like something inside me is being wrung out. I curl forward with a sharp inhale, my vision blurring at the edges.

  The portal shrinks slightly, fluttering, its edges becoming less defined.

  "I think Fey opened another portal. She looks like she's in pain."

  Through the portal, I can hear Mira speak, the words garbled but the tone unmistakable. "Her grace," she snaps, voice fuzzy but unmistakably Mira, "you can't stop yourself, can you."

  I laugh weakly through the pain, because of course that's her response. Not concern. Not are you okay. Just irritation, like my organs are inconveniencing her, like I'm being dramatic on purpose.

  The portal flickers more violently now, the edges fraying.

  Mira's voice pushes through one more time, fading, warping. "How did Fey get. . ."

  Snap. It closes. The portal collapses in on itself like a soap bubble popping, and suddenly it's just gone. The room is suddenly too quiet, the absence of sound almost painful.

  I gasp, panting, sweat prickling along my hairline and down my spine. The cramp eases rapidly, like the pain was tied to the portal's existence and now that it's gone my body is pretending nothing happened. My leg still aches, a dull throb, but the sharp agony is gone.

  Kaela stares at the spot where the portal was, mouth open, her eyes huge.

  Lyra's breathing is controlled but her eyes are wide, her usual composure cracked. "What just happened."

  I swallow hard, my throat dry, hand still gripping my leg like I'm afraid the pain will come back if I let go. My stomach is less full now. Not by much. But enough that the pattern clicks. Enough that the memory of draining the door, of feeling overfilled, of the pressure fading slowly lines up with the portal opening when my body shifted. When something inside me moved.

  I stare at the empty air between us, heart hammering, mind racing so fast it feels like it's going to ignite. The pieces are falling into place, the pattern emerging from the chaos.

  Kaela whispers, her voice trembling slightly, "Fey..."

  I lift my head, meeting their eyes. Lyra's sharp and analytical. Kaela's wide and worried. Both of them looking at me like I'm a puzzle they need to solve, like I'm something dangerous and fascinating in equal measure.

  "I think," I say slowly, voice shaking with adrenaline and something dangerously close to excitement, "I figured it out."