So this morning at breakfast a Willowa junior brought me a note summoning me to Lana’s office and bro my stomach DROPPED hahaha the whole time I was walking there I was imagining having to explain to her that yes, I found another journal, and yes, we were all reading it, and no we haven’t figured out what they were studying yet. My heart was fuckin hammering when I finally knocked on the circling fish knocker.

But I wasn’t in trouble at all. Instead, Jasper got up from his place at the desk, beaming and opening his arms wide and I jumped right into them.

I haven’t spent a ton of time with Jasper or anything. But the time I have spent with him has been mostly traumatizing, so though I don’t feel like I know him very well, I do feel like what I know about him is like… the important stuff. Jasper was there when we lost Cara, and when we thought we’d lost Julian, and when I raised Julian from the dead hahahaha.

He squeezed me tight, then held me at arms length. “Look at you in your uniform!” he cried. “I barely recognized you!”

“Jasper is here to speak to your arcane sciences class,” Lana explained. “I thought it would be best not to surprise you in front of your peers.”

I hesitated, briefly confused, before Jasper said, “you’re just a normal kid. We’re not supposed to know each other.”

Lana shot him a look. “I’m sorry Shiloh, I know —”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted dully, and Jasper and Lana exchanged a glance.

Jasper reached out and touched a thumb under my black eye. “No sunglasses,” he observed.

Which is true. I don’t wear the sunglasses here. Everyone here’s sort of a freak anyways, so the black eye hasn’t even come up.

“Neal and Julian wish they could have come,” Jasper said. “They were going to come and surprise you, but —” he stopped, and I caught Lana’s sharp look. “Something came up?”

“What came up?” I asked, suspicious.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Lana said gently. “Now, you’re going to be late for class if you don’t hurry.”

I forced a smile at Jasper. “I’ll see you in there,” I said, and then obediently left the room.

But on the way down to arcane sciences, I called Neal.

He answered the phone, “Everything okay?” which was exactly what I was calling to ask him.

“Jasper’s here,” I said and Neal sighed.

“Oh, right.” He sounded exhausted. “We were all gonna come and surprise you actually but —” And he stopped right in the same spot Jasper did.

“Are you on a case?” I asked.

Neal blew out a long breath. “Kinda,” he said. “The thing is…”

And Julian took the phone. “Shiloh? Lana suggested, and we sort of agreed, that it wouldn’t do you any favors to show up on the island.”

I sat with this for a moment. “So… you’re just gonna keep me isolated here?”

“That’s the idea,” Julian said.

“Why?” I asked.

There was an awkward silence. Then Neal said, “So remember that whole situation with Polecat?”

I groaned. “Oh come on.”

“That was my bad,” Neal said.

“It was a stupid prank!” I cried.

“Yeah, I know, but it could have gone bad. I mean it was so irresponsible and Lana pointed some things out to me and —”

“Like what?” I demanded, and when he didn’t answer immediately, I added, “Neal! You promised you’d always tell me!”

“I promised I’d never lie to you, it’s different,” and then, more hesitantly, “I just don’t want to be a bad influence, Shi,” Neal said helplessly.

Devastating. How dare he even — I cannot —

“Lana told us you’ve decided not to study your abilities?” Julian asked quietly and something clenched in my stomach.

“So?” I snapped. Neither spoke for a moment, apparently looking for the words. “You said it would be my choice!”

“It is,” Julian said. “It absolutely is. But Lana observed that outright denial is pretty similar to the way we’ve dealt with our abilities and —”

“That is bullshit,” I interrupted.

“Yeah, I know,” Neal said. “But what’s not bullshit is that you need to figure out your path without our influence, and if we show up on that island, the old Palefish families will all decide you’re worth looking into, and none of us wants that, alright?”

The fact that he was right — probably more right than he even knows — about how my classmates would react if it came out that I was the Hawthorne’s apprentice last year, did nothing to sooth the helpless outrage.

“You’re supposed to be safe there,” Julian said, gently. “Lying low. Making your own way.”

He means having fun at college, pretending to be normal. Or at least a freak among many freaks.

Obviously they have no idea what it’s actually like to be here.

Like let’s just say it plain. There are two types of students here: the children of the wealthiest, most powerful, secret society in the country, kids who have grown up surrounded by whispers of magic, every door opened for them, eyes filled with every wonder this world this world has to offer, and other worlds besides. And then the rest of us, who are here because something horrible happened to us. You think any normal kid gets into Palefish without serious trauma playing a role? No we’re all like either like Rook — whole family dead, dedicated to saving others the same fate — or like me: saddled with unexpected, life-altering magical abilities and a full bucket of trauma to sort through.

Literally, it’s the kids who have worked their whole lives to get here, surrounded by the best schools and tutors — and the kids who paid a blood toll to get in.

Laying low? Staying safe? Making my own way? Like???? The Hawthorne’s influence is one of the few good things that’s happened to me in the last couple years dude and Lana’s making a whole scene about a stupid school prank? It’s such bullshit. Like sorry I don’t want to make my ability to raise to dead my entire personality Lana.

UGH anyways, sorry I’ll stop ranting lol first I’m whining about pajamas and now this.

I actually meant this post to be about something exciting before this rage blackout hahahaha.

Jasper’s lecture was really good.

Most people already knew who he was when Lily introduced him. Not just the rich kids either — apparently you can’t come from a different world without amassing a certain amount of infamy.

He sat cross-legged on a table

“I am not a real wizard,” he explained, “I have never been trained to use the full extent of my abilities, so they aren’t particularly powerful or sophisticated. Where I came from — and where Clementine came from — wizardry is another skill, like blacksmithing, or shepherding. Anyone can learn it, with enough enough dedication and determination.” He took a long slow breath, closed his eyes, and then snapped. A small flame appeared, hovering above the tip of his thumb.

“As I’m sure you’ve learned already,” he said, “when a magician uses magic, they must either draw it from an external source, or from an internal one. Psychics magic seems to be internal, like they were born with an extra sense. You must be born psychic. Witches draw magic from outside themselves, from their relationship to their land and tradition. You must be born into a coven to access the generations of work required to become a witch, or else be invited into a coven in order to access that magic. Wizards draw magic from an internal source that not everyone has.”

My head was reeling — he’d said something familiar, but I hadn’t consciously figured out yet what it was.

“No one born on this world was born with that internal source,” Jasper went on. “It took me a long time to understand that I had something inside me that other people didn’t have — a bit like the way someone colorblind doesn’t necessarily realize that other people see the world differently. I’ve tried to explain what it feels like before, without much success. Further, I believe wizardry feels different in different people. In my world, there is a whole process, which might take months, in order to discover what your magic feels like. I have very limited access to my magic, but if I make a focused effort, I can sometimes access feel it at the center of myself, like…” he trailed off, considering. “Some fleet, furred animal.” He smiled, somewhat bashfully. “I’m sorry, there’s not a better way to describe it.”

Marina, a few rows ahead of us, was leaning hungrily towards him, her hand in the air. When he called on her, she said, “How do you find that place?”

But I wasn’t listening to the answer because I’d figured out what he’d said that was so familiar.

Magic comes from a source within you or from without you, right?

And what does it say on the wall of Bird and company’s study nook?

LIFE DEATH FROM WITHIN FROM WITHOUT

Now, I don’t know why that was so important that they put it on their wall, or what they were studying. But that seems like something, right? Like they could totally be referencing different sources of magic? Idk. I brought it to Andie tonight while they were pouring over the pages, and they weren’t all that excited by it — but they were also super distracted, trying to decode some sigils.

Idk it feels like something and I’ve been like aimlessly scrabbling at the walls of this mystery for weeks, and this feels like a little nick that I can slip my fingers into, ya know??