After Lilith strutted away, Elise tried to comfort me, but her words barely reached me. My mind was still replaying every second of the encounter, her mocking laughter stuck in my ears like a splinter I couldn’t dig out.
‘For us, magic is as easy as breathing. For you, it must feel like drowning.’
I hated her. Goddess, I hated her. But the worst part was… she wasn’t wrong.
Because that was exactly how it felt. Every time I tried the spells taught in class, the pressure not to fail dragged me down until icy water filled my lungs, and all I could do was sink.
And yet… when I used the magic from those books the library gave me, it was nothing like that. I hadn’t been suffocating. I’d been weightless, free, just enjoying the current of magic running through me, not worrying about rules or
