Ezra’s blade connected with the stone with a pop of displaced air that plugged Maslyn’s ears. While Maslyn shrunk from the sensation, Ezra continued forward. When the prince stopped fast as if running into some impediment, Maslyn’s spell was revealed.
Ezra bounced back hard, stumbling with quick steps that would have left Maslyn on her ass. If not for the terror locking Maslyn into a rigid stance, she would have laughed.
Had she really just cast on stone? She couldn’t explain what possessed her to even try. She definitely couldn’t explain how it had worked.
Silence settled around them, a brief reprieve from the coming onslaught.
Finding his balance, Ezra moved forward, blade outstretched until he met the invisible impediment again. Focusing outward to catch Maslyn’s eye, curiosity, rather than the anger she expected, filled his face.
Trace rushed over, stopped fast from joining his charge by the same barrier. It was watching the bodyguard’s panicked motion that broke Maslyn’s stupefied stance. She stepped forward, fingers outstretched to find the invisible wall for herself. The shouts and calls surrounding her went unheard. Even when the blame and insults hurled at her filtered past her shock, it wasn’t enough to distract her from the horror that she’d done this impossible thing in front of seven witnesses.
Maslyn dragged her attention from the prince to Falan. Best case scenario, he would use this to get her kicked out for good. Worst case, her father was right—
With wide eyes, Maslyn watched Falan and his friends draw close. She saw their mouths move under angry expressions. She heard nothing but a loud humming piercing her temples.
From a pace away, the prince’s movement turned her head.
Heart in her throat, sure this time she would find him sending evil looks and deadly threats her way, blinked fast at his still-easy demeanor. He even shrugged, a mischievous grin proving he wasn’t angry.
When his lips moved without sound, dismay overwhelmed her again.
If not for her peers’ bereavement penetrating her woozy haze, she might have considered she was deaf. Tapping his knuckles in an arc around Ezra, Trace made a face that confirmed no sound escaped the unobservable sphere.
“What did you do?” Coen, Ezra’s second guard, spoke from behind her. His controlled fury was set in the line of his shoulders and stiff steps. He pitched his voice so only she would hear.
“I put him in a cage?”
Trace turned to look at her, piercing her with an assiduous stare. “Get him out.”
“Sure. I mean—Ummm. Okay.” She had no idea how to do that, but she stepped forward anyway.
Ezra stepped back, and she offered a grateful smile. While they were separated by some unseen obstruction, the close proximity was still intimidating. Putting her hands up until her palms pressed flat against the invisible surface, she allowed a tendril of pride to sneak through her panic. She’d done this. A Tamil of her own making.
Her initial alarmed terror fast took over this sense of vanity. She’d played outside her father’s rules. Outside her promise.
“Get him out!”
Here was the attention Amahan feared. Attention even Dash had warned her about. The attention she thought impossible to attract with her soul stripped from her being.
Claude’s hand gripped her arm. Pain bloomed. Hours and days and weeks of training had her shift her weight to slip his grip. There was no thought. She just did it. Even with the world like a dream. With Ezra pounding the hilt of his blade against the unseen surface in silent reproach. With Falan shouting threats and bodyguards looming.
It was Tylor’s awed tone that broke through the din of over-sensory chaos. “How’d you do it?”
Maslyn shook her head, lips pinched. She had no idea but wouldn’t say that. Not to him. Not out loud where anyone might hear. They would lose faith that they still needed her and avoid whatever repercussions would come.
She sucked hard at the inside of her cheek, avoiding Tylor’s wide-eyed stare that was the opposite of Claude’s aggressive stance. She’d disconnected herself from the bully, but only Ezra’s guard’s sharp command kept Claude from latching onto her again.
A hand on the barrier focused her thoughts, even if it made it more difficult to avoid Ezra trying for eye contact.
Get him out. That was important right now. That was all that was important. The rest didn’t matter. Not Falan’s voice rising above the others. Not Coen and Trace’s disapproving presence. Not even Ezra’s watchful gaze. If she let the terror of what this incident might mean for her future take root, she’d never get Ezra out of the prison she’d created.
Claude’s shout was too close to her head for her to ignore. “Let. Him. Out.”
He didn’t touch her. Trace’s hovering presence ensured that, but Claude’s presence and clenched fists suggested not even Trace could keep him from lunging at her if she didn’t do something soon.
She narrowed her eyes, pulling on the confidence she thought was gone with her power. “If you give me some space, I will.”
Claude stepped back. He took another step when Maslyn’s pointed glare didn’t waver. Tylor’s hand on his friend’s shoulder kept him from saying the things Maslyn saw in his expression, but his face remained stern.
Maslyn looked for Falan. His voice, at first loudest among them, was quiet now. He, along with the fourth friend, was gone.
That helped her relax.
Ignoring Ezra’s watchful gaze peering at her from inches away, she put her first real thought into figuring out how to fix this. She refused to consider that the prince’s bodyguards might kill her for this. Or, worse, that the Dean might kick her out.
To further distract her was the zing along her skin Ezra’s presence pulled from her. Not even the barrier could keep that at bay.
It was another detail to ignore.
She bent her head and closed her eyes, recalling the memory of the moment she caused this problem.
A breath of breeze. She remembered that. The whisper that conveyed the secret of this Tamil. It was that small moment that led to this one.
Hope surged. While her world was again remiss of magics’ whisperings, that second was proof she would never connect with it again.
Claude must not have agreed with Maslyn’s style of work. The few heartbeats that passed with her head bowed were too much time for him. He stepped back to her. He didn’t touch her, but his words pressed against her like a physical invasion.
“It doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard. Get him out of there!”
Pulling her eyes to him, heart racing, she was proud to keep her voice steady. “I will. You might want to join the first years if you think this is helping.”
Claude’s face pulled even more feral. If he meant to respond, she didn’t care. She turned her back on him to pace the perimeter of the invisible sphere, trusting Trace and Coen would keep him from attacking her.
Ezra spun with her movements, exuding calm. She tried to smile, to feign confidence. He nodded in encouragement, and she went back to her task.
Of course, it was too much to ask to expect everyone not to gawk. Ezra’s guards took turns watching her every move. Tylor hadn’t taken his eyes off her since asking his question she did not answer. More and more students were drifting over to see what the trouble was.
A shove from behind pressed her face to the barrier. She was so surprised, she couldn’t even be mad.
But Ezra was. From inches in front of her that might have been miles, the venom in his eyes aimed at Claude startled her.
Dropping her center mass, she pivoted, turning Claude with a wrist lock that worked more effectively than it ever had in practice.
“Claude, touch me again, and we’ll have a problem.”
He spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re going to have more than me to worry about when this gets out.”
“And you’ll have an even bigger problem when we can blame you for distracting me so long the prince suffocates in there.”
All the fight went out of him.
She let him go, backing out of his considerable reach.
“Is that true?” asked Coen, the bodyguard Maslyn recognized from the pastry shop.
She considered not answering to pay them back for leaving her alone to get attacked while they dealt with the gathering crowd.
“Easy, Coen,” Trace said. “She’ll get him out.”
She met Coen’s eye. “I don’t think he’ll really run out of air. I just need Neanderthal to give me some space.”
The stone. The stone. The stone. The stone. The stone.
The stone?
The stone!
She’d forgotten all about it. This devastating point she had to keep a secret.
Trying not to let her frantic energy show, she moved around the perimeter, ghosting fingertips over the transparent surface, pretending to analyze it. Kicking along where the barrier met the ground, she circled it twice before panic set in.
There was no trace of the rock that could ruin her life.
Anxiety threatened to take her breath.
Closing her eyes, she sank to a crouch, pushing one of her throwing knives into the damp grass. If anyone asked, it was this she cast to create this new Tamil. No one would look twice at a rock, even if it sat at the base of her spell.
When she opened her eyes, Ezra’s face was there. She held his gaze, searching for an answer to her earlier question about him working against her. If he was, he was a great actor. Nothing in his expression hinted at anger or distrust or some anticipation of revenge. If he was in on a plot against her, she imaged this would have set his fury ablaze.
He put a palm to the barrier in a gesture of support, and the last of her doubt fled.

This is an excerpt from C.M. Martens’ In the Fade, book 1 in the Magic Fade series. copywrite 2023-2024. All Rights reserved. For information or to reprint or publish, please contact C.M. Martens at cmm@cmmartens.com