I jerk my eyes up, realizing I'd been staring at my disguised mark as the others talked, my thumb unconsciously rubbing over the altered skin. "Hm?" I say.

Mireen frowns, her red brows drawing together. "About the water trial. What do you think it's going to be?"

"Oh. I don't know. Maybe they'll see which of us can swim fastest." I try to keep my voice light, as though I haven't been calculating my odds of survival and finding them dismally low.

"Yeah, I wish," Beck says, wiping honey from his chin with the back of his hand. "I swim like a fish."

“And fuck like a bear, from what I hear,” Mireen adds with a wiggle of her brows.

They all laugh as the conversation drifts to who is sleeping with who—a regular topic here at Confluence. From what I can gather, most of the first-years here are sleeping around like every day could be their last day on this Earth. Even the occasional story of someone getting killed when they agreed to meet somewhere private for sex hasn't seemed to slow the practice.

Put people in life-or-death situations often enough, and I guess they have to blow off steam somehow.

I find my eyes scanning the room for Raith. He's not hard to find. He's at least half a head taller than the next tallest first-year, his broad back stretching the white uniform across shoulders that seem carved from stone. The other fires all eat quietly with him in the center, occasionally shooting him admiring glances.

My gaze drifts further, and I notice Bastian at the legacy table with the handful of other legacy airs. The legacies make up the smallest number of us, and there are only three other legacy airs in the first-years. Unlike the animated chatter at our table, his face is serious as he barely touches his food. Suddenly, his eyes lift and point straight at me across the large room with unsettling precision. I quickly look back at my plate, a shiver crawling up my spine.

Bastian knows more about me than anyone here, and yet I know next to nothing about him. And if the unbound book says I’m something so dangerous I shouldn’t be allowed to exist, what does it say about Bastian if he’s trying to protect me? Trying to help me?

I make excuses to go straight back to my room after dinner. Ambrose, Beck, and Mireen all insist on walking me to my room because it's not safe to be around campus by ourselves anymore.

As soon as I'm alone again, I pull the unbound book from beneath my bed and decide on a different tactic tonight. I'll decode the first few words of each chapter until I think I've found one that might give me some clues on how to use this affinity to channel better. History lessons and deeper truths can wait until after I survive the water trial.