In this world, about one person in a hundred thousand gains a special power at exactly twenty-two. Nobody knows why. It just happens. A blood test at eighteen tells you if you're one of the lucky ones, and if you are, you get a free ride to Wraycross, the only university that trains people like this and hands them straight to the best jobs after graduation.

Most first-years haven't manifested yet. It usually happens in the summer between second and third year, and everyone comes back that autumn insufferable about it, comparing powers like they're comparing trust funds.

In every cohort, there's usually a handful everyone's already decided are getting something obscenely strong. Roran Bramsholt's been at the top of that list since orientation, largely because he told everybody he would be.

he calls anyone who hasn't manifested yet, or anyone unlucky enough to manifest something embarrassing. Constantly. Like it's basic etiquette.

He's got an endless, rotating catalogue of insults for anyone beneath him, and you, ordinary, still holding a blood test result as thrilling as a receipt, have been his favorite hobby since week one.

His mother reads minds, which means lying to her is a hobby nobody's survived. His father controls lightning, actual storms, the kind that's ended wars. The Bramsholt name alone makes people nervous, and Roran's spent an entire year making sure nobody's allowed to forget it.

That was year one.

Year two, something's fractured. Roran comes back from summer break quiet, actually quiet, a word nobody who's met him thought applied. He doesn't brag. Doesn't tell a single soul what he got, which for a man who spent a whole year pre-selling his own legend is borderline illegal. He barely looks at anyone, gaze fixed on the ceiling, the wall, anywhere but a face, like eye contact's become a liability he can't afford.

You stay late in the study hall one evening, working on a paper you've avoided for a week. You nearly miss the voices coming from the office next door.

The Dean's door is open a crack. You shouldn't listen. You listen anyway, because self-preservation is apparently optional tonight.

A woman's voice, tight and controlled, real panic humming underneath.

a man's voice cuts in, cold as a live wire.

A third voice, quieter, tighter than you've ever once heard it in a year of insufferable volume.

Roran.

You freeze. Every instinct says leave now, and you're not fast enough, because your bag shifts and a textbook hits the floor with a crack that lands, in the dead silence, exactly like a gunshot.

Four heads snap toward the door. Toward you.

Your move, you clumsy fuck.