SWORD ACADEMY (censored)

I’m finally in my element, touring around my favourite place at the academy—the Registry. In addition to the extensive library and main General Studies classroom, there are vocational courses with more specific training in various areas. I already know where everything is and have filed away the syllabus for each offered program with plans to sit in on every single one of them. Too many opportunities to learn is the best problem of my life.

While the Ward focuses on hands-on application and development under the Healing Sect, the Registry focuses on brain-powered theory and research under the Scholar Sect, providing the foundation needed for implementation.

There are three key courses I’m interested in to start. Technology will teach me about devices engineered to connect with the spark, from the wrist monitor I’m currently wearing to the negation cuffs used at S.W.O.R.D. Penitentiary. Meanwhile, Statistics follows the spark path from the start of the decline a hundred years ago. Finally, Sociology will guide me through the divide between all Scintilla’s citizens. The last course interests me the most. I’ve always struggled with gaining access to the resources I need to sate my spark curiosities. Learning more about why the division is necessary might help me invoke changes to the existing structure. Knowledge is meant to be shared, and that’s my primary goal.

Being at the Registry also has a side benefit of keeping my spark well still. Various emotional triggers impact my spark regeneration, but contentment quiets it. When I’m calm, my sparks are calm. When I experience joy, my sparks hum inside me, deeply satisfied with my state of being and not feeling the need to urge me toward that sated place. Likewise, when I’m unsettled, my sparks are unsettled. While it scares me how easily they can become volatile, they aren’t actively trying to hurt me. They’re trying to restore my inner balance. Where my earth and water sparks and I are still in the getting to know each other stage of our relationship, their efforts to help aren’t very helpful, but I embrace their good intentions all the same.

“I’m signing up for Criminology,” Sunny ticks.

Ainsley mock gasps. “I’m shocked.”

Sunny splooshes a laugh. “What about you?”

Ainsley shrugs. “Probably Physics.”

Grady headtilts. “To help with your fighting?”

“Bullseye!” she reports.

She always resorts to violence. I wonder if she’s enlisted in the Fighting Sect already.

“I’m taking Politics,” Pritchett says proudly, though no one asked him.

“Because your father’s an Orderman,” everyone replies in unison.

He grumbles his displeasure, but doesn’t push it, sliding forward in the crowd to where the other Orderlies are walking together. They receive him with enthusiasm, and I spin my saucers.

“I’m going to focus on Law,” Bryson flickers, sweeping a red curl behind their ear. “I heard a rumour they’ll take us on a day tour to S.W.O.R.D. Court this spring.”

“I’ll have to take Psychology too then!” Sunny radiates, “so I can tour S.W.O.R.D. Asylum!”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll get to see it up close and personal one day,” Ainsley clips.

Sunny beams, and I shudder. We’ve been spending a lot more time together since Grady took an interest in her, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what he finds appealing about her. She creeps me out. It’s nice more people are coming to the Registry though, even if the subject matter that one focuses on is more than a little disturbing.

“What about you, Cam?” Witley gusts.

“Economics I think,” she whirs.

“Me too!” Witley whiffs, sliding her hand into Cam’s who brings it to her lips and kisses it.

“Archaeology for me,” Ty rumbles. “Did you know there are studies where they’ve dug up artifacts infused with the spark and still haven’t figured out how it merged? And the spark lives on in the bones long after a Sparkler is dead and buried.”

“Oh yeah.” Grady howls with laughter. “Sparkheads are constantly digging up graveyards near the city. It’s become a doggone problem.”

I squidge up my nose. “Why?”

“They grind up the bones to snort them,” he nips.

There are cries of horror and laughter in equal measure.

“That’s not funny,” Charlie splashes. “Addiction is a serious problem.”

“I find it funny,” Sunny backfires, coiling a blue strand of hair around her finger. “So, shut up before I cut your tongue out and you have to.”

Charlie freezes right up, and I resist the urge to run like the coward I am.

Ainsley cuffs Sunny on the back of the head. “Stop scaring the sheep, you sexy little weirdo.”

Sunny grins from ear to ear and slides her arm through Ainsley’s.

“What about you, Grady?” Ainsley quickfires.

“I’ll probably bounce around until something sticks,” he growls, “but I’ll start in Physics with you.”

Ainsley fist bumps him in gratitude, and I squinch my brow. Grady’s been weird with me since I misinterpreted his agreement for Frank to receive his earth spark. Was it my fault he wasn’t paying attention what I asked? If I’m being totally honest, it’s more than that misunderstanding. Grady and I have very different opinions about the release of our sparks. I’m pro, and he’s a hard no. Also, the more time I spend with Frank, the less time Grady seems to want to spend with me, so we’re at a little bit of an impasse in our friendship growth.

It probably doesn’t help that Frank keeps calling him Gradient Taint which he’s affectionately shortened to GT. I tried talking to Frank about it on Grady’s behalf, but that just made Frank use the nickname more often. I even tried begging, but he stopped my begging with kisses to shut me up. I forgot what I was asking for after that.

“Fiona!” Grady bays, bringing my attention back to the group.

I look to Frank at the rear of the line. He’s looking right ahead at me, a proud gleam in his eyes saying he knows what distracted me, and it was him. That gentle giant is absolutely tuned into every part of me. My cheeks bleed red, and he grins. I scrub my hand over my face to will some of the heat out of it, and he grins wider.

“For spark’s sake,” Grady barks. “Just forget it.”

He grabs Sunny’s hand, and they take off together down the hall, leaving me to stare after them.

I spend dinner with Frank continually nudging me from his place beside me, mirroring my frown with his own.

“Come on, Water Lily.” He pulls me up from the table. “Let’s go get the sad washed off you.”

I smile at that. Frank has become something of my own personal bodyguard. He checks the bathroom before I enter and stands watch outside while I shower. He doesn’t even make me feel silly over it, like it gives him great pride to be able to do this simple thing for me.

I doubt this sad mood is going to be so easily washed away, but Frank gave me a job to do. I get right to it, starting the shower and lathering myself up with his favourite body wash. It smells like lilies. It does not smell like sadness, but I’m still sad. Because of Grady. I want to make things right with him. He’s important to me and the first person I really connected with at the academy. Despite our differences, he has a good heart and is a loyal friend I don’t want to lose.

I scrub at my skin a little too hard. Why does everything have to be so hard for everyone? I want to help Grady connect with his spark as I have mine, all the charges actually. None of them seem to be working with the grain. It isn’t a difficult concept. I just listen to the needs of my earth and water sparks and try to see how their reactions are tied to wanting to help me, not hurt me. Things wouldn’t be so hard for the others if they did the same.

I feel so attuned to my sparks, appreciating their efforts to maintain balance within me, especially my earth spark. My water spark barely makes its presence known. I often forget about it entirely unless I’m in direct contact with water, like now, in the shower.

My earth spark hums contentedly inside me, and I finally allow myself a reprieve from my worries. Solely focusing on the feeling of my satisfied spark well, I rinse the remainder of the soap from my body before reaching for the handle to cut the water off. Something snaps inside me when the shower stops. I cry out in anguish, but the pain doesn’t last. It’s a single, sharp twinge as though something was snipped with a dull pair of scissors. Not a small, insignificant something either. My connection to my water spark was severed. I can’t feel it anymore. It’s just gone, like it was never there in the first place. I look down at the drain thinking I’m going to see some evidence of it washing away.

Frank’s inside the stall with me before I’ve even thought to shield myself. I don’t flush with embarrassment for once. I’m too devastated by the loss to worry about anything else. Tears pour from my eyes, and I’m sure my dead water spark is pouring out with them.

“Oh no!” Frank whoops.

He wraps my towel around me before kissing my cheeks where the tears continue to flow. I look up at him through soaking wet lashes and see the proof of my loss. My dead water spark is dusting his lips.

We were warned this would happen. For those of us with spare sparks, Singularity is part of our progression. It’s necessary for us to advance, but I didn’t expect it to feel like this...like I just lost a piece of the puzzle that’s me. I’m frozen in place from the shock.

Frank pulls off his shirt, hauls it over my head, and wrangles my arms through the holes. It provides far more cover than the towel, hanging to my knees, and is easier for him to manage than trying to force me into my own clothes. He sweeps me into his arms, then we’re walking out of the bathroom, down the corridor, and up a stairwell I’ve never noticed before. We keep walking and walking with me leaning against him while my tears stain his bare chest with more dead water spark dust.

He pushes into a room where there’s only one bed, his room, a single on the very top floor of the Dormitory. He slides me under the covers on the far side of the bed, lays down beside me on top of them, and opens his arms to me. I lean into him, a renewed batch of tears further ruining his skin. He responds by wrapping his arms tighter around me and leaning down to place a soft kiss on the top of my head.

We stay like that until I think my chest might burst from the pressure of my grief. I have to think of something else, a distraction to force the calm I need to keep my earth spark from wallowing with me. There’s no way it’ll cry silently.

I shift around on the bed to face Frank, cupping his sweet cheeks in my hands. His smile has a sadness to it I want to chase straight off his lips, so I lean further up and press my mouth to his. When he kisses me back softly, the gravity of our connection loosens the weight constricting my heart. I try to strengthen the kiss by pushing toward him, but he pulls back instead. The feeling growing within me, desire replacing sadness, retracts like a whip. The rejection stings.

When I look up at him, he’s frowning, and my earth spark reacts in kind, settling a heavy weight on my limbs. It isn’t crushing me, just laden with grief. Something has changed in me. Maybe the change isn’t one Frank’s interested in. I resign myself to another loss. “I’m not your Water Lily anymore.”

He takes my chin in his hand when I try to break eye contact, keeping me focused on his green rings and white flecks. “You’re still my Water Lily.”

“Then why don’t you want me? I’m offering that.” We’ve only ever kissed, but I’m very obviously trying to take it further. And failing. My cheeks flush red, and he smiles at me.

“I want you,” he bumbles, “but not like this.”

I sniffle, the squalling about to start again.

“You’re a bud I want to enjoy watching bloom,” he buzzes, “but not right now. Right now, you need to grieve.”

I don’t think the tears are ever stopping. “I don’t want to grieve. I want to forget.”

He forces my cheek back against his chest, tightening his hold around me again. “You need to let yourself feel this. And I’ll hold you while you do. You’re not alone.”

I feel his earth spark reaching out for mine, but I resist, not wanting to expose him to the full heaviness I’m feeling.

“Let me in,” he vibrates softly.

I squelch a sigh into his chest and relent. He holds me for hours while he runs his fingers through my hair, tightening his hold when the tears flow and loosening it again when they subside. Then, when I have no more tears left to cry, when I think I might die from the emptiness of the well that used to hold my water spark, my earth spark takes over the empty space, growing stronger with the extra room. It settles in to remind me how I’m not alone. It’s enough. It’s all I need and more than I ever hoped for.