Unrequited Hearts

The first chime of the morning had barely faded through the crystal towers of Crestwood Academy when Professor Elowen swept into Advanced Alchemy.

Her navy robes brushed the stone floor behind her, embroidered with silver constellations that shimmered faintly when she moved. With a flick of her wand, the classroom windows opened, allowing cool autumn air to curl through the room.

Beyond them, the academy grounds stretched across the mountainside: slate rooftops, ivy-covered archways, floating lanterns, and distant spires disappearing into the clouds.

“Today,” Professor Elowen announced, “we will be brewing a volatile restoration draught.”

A murmur moved through the class.

Sophie tightened her grip on her wand.

“Volatile?” someone whispered behind her.

“Potentially,” Professor Elowen continued, her sharp eyes moving over the room, “if any of you decide the instructions are merely suggestions. You will measure every ingredient precisely. You will stir clockwise exactly seven times. And you will not, under any circumstances, add starbell petals before moonwater.”

Laura sat at the table beside Sophie, her hands folded carefully over her parchment. She looked nervous, as she often did in practical magic lessons.

A strand of pale hair had fallen loose from the braid over her shoulder, and her gray eyes moved anxiously between the ingredients lined along the worktable.

Sophie gave her a reassuring smile.

“You’ll be fine,” she said softly. “Just follow the order on the parchment.”

Laura’s lips curved into a small smile. “I always get afraid I’ll mess something up.”

“You won’t.”

Sophie had said those words to Laura countless times since she transferred to Crestwood last year.

Laura had arrived in the middle of junior year with no friends, no familiar faces, and a habit of keeping her gaze lowered when anyone spoke to her.

Sophie had remembered what it felt like to be new. To be on the outside of something everyone else seemed to understand.

So she had invited Laura to sit with her, Kai, and Nathan.

At the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do.

Kai had been immediately welcoming. He had made Laura laugh within ten minutes of meeting her, mostly by pretending that a bewitched suit of armor was his long-lost uncle.

Nathan had been quieter, but gentle. He had walked Laura back to her dormitory after the first dinner she spent with them, because the western halls were confusing at night.

Sophie had thought nothing of it.

Not then.

She had not known that, slowly, Nathan would begin looking at Laura the way he used to look at her. He would care for Laura the way he used to care for her.

Sophie had loved Nathan since eighth grade.

Since he had transferred to Crestwood with a guarded expression that dared anyone to ask him why he had left his old school. Sophie and Kai had found him sitting alone in the Moonspire courtyard during lunch, angry at the world while every other student avoided him.

Kai had whispered, “He looks like he needs friends.”

“He looks like he might hex us,” Sophie had whispered back.

“Then it will be memorable.”

By the end of the day, Nathan had joined them at dinner.

After that, they had been inseparable.

Sophie, Kai, and Nathan.

The trio everyone at Asterwyn recognized.

They had spent years sneaking into the stargazing tower after curfew, sharing hot chocolate in the winter greenhouse, and studying for spellwork exams in the library until the enchanted candles burned low.

Nathan had been there when Sophie failed her first flight lesson and crashed into a hedge. He had sat beside her in the infirmary, holding her hand while Madame Virel repaired the sprain in her wrist.

I’ve got you, Soph, he had told her.

For years, those words had been enough.

Then Laura arrived.

By senior year, Sophie had learned that some kinds of pain did not leave bruises.

They lived in the spaces between sentences. In the pauses when Nathan’s attention drifted away from her. In the way he now smiled at Laura before he noticed Sophie standing beside him. In the quiet knowledge that the boy she had loved since eighth grade might never understand what he meant to her.

“Partners,” Professor Elowen called, breaking Sophie from the memory. “You will work in pairs. No exceptions.”

Students shifted around the room.

Sophie glanced instinctively toward the door, as if Nathan or Kai might appear out of habit.

But they would not.

Nathan and Kai were both in Arcane Combat across the academy’s eastern wing this period. Sophie had been placed in Advanced Alchemy after earning one of the highest marks in potioncraft last spring, while the boys had chosen the combat track together.

For once, Sophie did not have either of them beside her.

Only Laura.

“Miss Sophie Valery and Miss Laura Hawtoon,” Professor Elowen said. “You will share a cauldron.”

Laura looked at Sophie with visible relief.

“Thank you,” she murmured as they moved to the station near the center of the classroom.

Sophie set down her satchel and rolled up the sleeves of her academy robes. Between them, a black iron cauldron sat above a rune-carved brass burner. Around it were the ingredients for the restoration draught: crushed sunstone, moonwater, powdered white ash, silverroot, and delicate blue starbell petals that glittered as though frost had settled on them.

Laura studied the parchment. “Moonwater first?”

“Yes,” Sophie said. “Then the ash. Then sunstone. We wait until it turns gold before adding the petals.”

They began carefully.

Sophie measured the moonwater while Laura stirred. Steam rose from the cauldron in thin pale ribbons, carrying the scent of rain and crushed herbs. Around them, other students murmured spells beneath their breath, their wands glowing in various colors.

For several minutes, everything went smoothly.

The liquid turned from clear to milky silver.

Then pale gold.

Sophie smiled. “See? You’re doing great.”

Laura relaxed a little. “I think I understand it now.”

“Good. Let’s add the silverroot next.”

Sophie turned toward the ingredient shelf to reach for the small glass vial.

Behind her, Laura inhaled sharply.

Sophie looked back.

Laura was holding the starbell petals over the cauldron.

“Laura, wait—those come after—”

The petals fell.

The cauldron screamed.

It was not a sound Sophie had ever expected to hear from metal and potion, but the iron shuddered violently, its sides glowing bright blue. Runes flared across the burner beneath it. The golden potion rose in a twisting column, swelling higher and higher as magic crackled through the air.

“Back away!” Professor Elowen shouted.

Sophie reached for Laura.

The potion exploded.

A violent blast of blue-white light tore through the room, throwing both girls backward. Sophie hit the stone floor hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Heat seared across her forearm as sparks rained down around her.

For a moment, there was only ringing in her ears.

Then the classroom came back in fragments.

Students yelling.

A cracked window.

The sharp smell of smoke and burnt herbs.

Professor Elowen shouting counterspells.

Sophie pushed herself up on one elbow. Her head throbbed. Her sleeve had been burned through at the forearm, and beneath it, a thin line of blood ran down her skin. Tiny flecks of blue magic fizzed harmlessly against the floor around her.

Across the room, Laura was sitting against a toppled chair, one hand pressed to her forehead.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” Sophie started to say.

But the classroom door burst open.

“Sophie!” Nathan’s deep voice cut through the chaos.

Her heart stopped as her gaze landed on his handsome face.

He stood in the doorway, his Arcane Combat uniform slightly disheveled, wand already drawn. His chest rose and fell sharply as his beautiful blue eyes swept across the smoke-filled room.

He was looking for her.

For one breathless, stupidly hopeful moment, she knew it.

Then Laura screamed, stealing the attention. “Nathan!”

Nathan’s gaze snapped toward Laura. He moved immediately.

He crossed the classroom in seconds, weaving past frightened students and scattered pieces of shattered glass. He fell to his knees beside Laura, his wand casting a soft green glow over her face.

“Laura, look at me,” Nathan said, his voice rough with panic. “Are you hurt?”

Laura’s eyes brimmed with tears. “My head. It hurts.”

“I’ve got you.” Nathan cupped her face gently, his thumbs brushing soot from her cheeks. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

Sophie sat frozen on the cold stone floor.

The words struck harder than the explosion.

I’ve got you. Once, Nathan had said that to Sophie.

When she had slipped from her broom during flight practice.

When a nightmare had sent her running into the common room at two in the morning.

When she had twisted her ankle after climbing the cliffs beyond the academy grounds.

Those words had belonged to her.

Or at least, she had once believed they did.

Now Nathan was holding Laura as though the entire world had narrowed to one frightened girl in his arms.

Sophie looked down at her bleeding wrist, her eyes stung with unshed tears.

It was ridiculous, really.

She was injured. Laura was injured. Nathan was their friend. Of course he would help.

But he had not even seen Sophie.

Not yet.

“Sophie!” Kai’s voice came from the doorway.

He rushed into the classroom with his dark combat cloak thrown over one shoulder, his wand glowing gold in his hand. He must have followed Nathan from the eastern wing, but unlike Nathan, Kai’s eyes found Sophie immediately.

His face drained of color.

“Oh, no.” He dropped to his knees beside her. “Sophie, what happened?”

“I’m okay,” she said automatically, still eyeing Nathan and Laura through blurry vision.

Kai looked at the burn on her arm, then at the blood on her wrist. “You are very clearly not okay.”

“It’s just a scratch.” She murmured as her chest ached painfully.