“Are you trying to ruin his life?” Her blue eyes flash dangerously as she advances on me, drawing herself up to her full height. “You can’t just make accusations like this. Jeff is a good teacher. A really, really good teacher. He helps lots of people.”

“Jeff?” I repeat, but she continues over me like she can’t hear me.

“He writes letters of rec for, like, all the seniors, and he coaches people for their college auditions for free, and he got his dad to give the theater program all this extra money, even though his dad’s a total bastard. He even spent all that extra time on you. Why would you want to do this to him?”

“I’m not, like, targeting him,” I say. “I didn’t make this up. You know I’m not making this up.”

“Well, good luck convincing anybody of that,” she says nastily. “If you say anything, I’ll tell them just how full of shit you are.”

With that, she turns away from me. “Brittany,” I call, grabbing her wrist desperately. “Just—” Before I manage to say anything else, she throws out her other hand, generating sparks of electricity that shoot painfully through my bicep. “Ow!” I yelp, shaking out my arm. I can’t believe she would attack me. If a teacher saw her, she would get at least suspended for that.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she says, and the air above her hands lights up with flame. She swings at me, and I flinch away, grabbing her forearms to keep her flaming hands away from me.

I frantically reach for the crimson strands of magic in the fire, trying to put it out. She resists me. I know with a chilling certainty that I’m destined to lose this fight because she’s older and just slightly stronger than me. Still, I push on the magical threads with as much mental force as I can muster. My head starts to hurt with the pressure, and I clench my jaw against the pain.

“What are you doing?”

Brittany and I both flip to face this voice, and there’s Ana, running around the corner of the building.

“Whatever,” Brittany says, pulling her arms out of my grasp. The flames go out. “Stop spreading lies about me.” She points at me threateningly. With that, she hightails it into the cafeteria, leaving me to massage my tingling arm.

Ana’s eyes flick back and forth between me and where Brittany disappeared to before finally settling on me. “Are you okay?” she says, coming over to me. She grabs both my hands, examining me for any injuries.

“I’m fine,” I say.

She takes my face in her hands. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”