Candles and Broomsticks

The Rose Bloom Path Maker

"You know the drill." Sanderson pointed at me and I couldn't help but laugh. I stood up and walked to the front of the classroom. I saw Daphne in the crowd and she gave me a small, pained smile. I had to force myself to return it. How cruel her smile seemed to be now...

"Daphne!" Sanderson shouted. She looked up in a painful shock. "Let's see if your potion is any good."

Daphne stood up and looked down at her phial. She picked it up with shaking hands and started walking up to me. Her lip quivered for a moment, then she turned and walked to the front. She was good. She had the both of them fooled. Was I putting my intuition in the wrong places? She couldn't be innocent. The brutal force it would have taken to brand a girl... There's no way they wouldn't have noticed her or killed her. Whoever they were.

"Some of you look like you got no sleep at all last night." Sanderson laughed and shook his head. "I know I didn't."

He murmured that last part low enough so only I could hear it. I looked up at him and he gave me a wry smile. Daphne held out her shaking hand and I took it from her. I held up the bottle to my lips and a small smile reached her lips. I drank the contents.

I didn't have time to gag before I passed out.

"Ray?" I sat up and held my stomach. I blinked and for a moment I had no clue where I was. I was on a bed in the infirmary. Taehyung was in a chair next to the bed. I found myself struggling to catch my breath and it took me a moment to cage and tame it.

"What happened?" I asked.

"She forgot the eye of newt." Taehyung took my hand and I still couldn't seem to get my heart to stop battering in its cage. 

"I knew she was dirty." I snapped and put a hand to my head.

"She experienced a big trauma last night. Let's not cry witch." He smirked at his own joke. I couldn't return it. "It was an accident."

"Only time will tell." I murmured under my breath. "How long...?"

"Not long." He assured me. "It's the end of the next class period. I spoke to your Old English teacher and she knows you're here."

"Is using students as guinea pigs illegal?" I laughed and moved my legs to one side of the bed. Taehyung put a hand on my arm to steady me.

"What?" He helped me stand up. "Are you going to complain?"

"No." My smile faded as I saw the same grouchy man approaching me from when I burned myself. 

"I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot of you, Child of the Rose." He shook his head and held out a clipboard to me. For a moment, I just stood there frozen. Taehyung took the clipboard from him and handed it to me. I took it gently in my hands but kept my eyes on the man. He knew. He knew all about me. I wondered how many other teachers knew. I wondered if Sanderson knew. Did Taehyung know? Was that why they were all treating me this way?

"Why does Sanderson call on me?" I asked and signed my name at the bottom of the page.

"Better question. Why did Vickers call you Child of the Rose and why are you so upset about it?" His eyes were so earnest. Did they really not know? I put the clipboard on the nightstand and felt my hands shaking.

"There's a prophecy." I swallowed and shook my hands out as if I'd been writing my own eulogy.  "That in my eighteenth year, I will be forced to choose between dark and light, yet either way I will rule. I don't know what it means. There's more lyrics and twisted couplets to it. I don't even know if it's accurate, or if it will come true. It's nothing..."

"I have a prophecy too."  My head snapped up and I met his eyes. For once there was a small tint of fear to them. "My job is to help pave the path for the next blooming rose. I never knew what it meant until he called you..."