Consciousness returned to Finnian like a slow tide, bringing with it a pounding headache that felt like someone was using his skull as an anvil. His mouth tasted of copper and ash, and every muscle in his body ached as if he'd been trampled by horses. For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was or what had happened. Then the memories crashed back—the training chamber, the explosion of power that had torn through him like lightning.
He groaned softly and tried to sit up, his vision swimming as the room came into focus. He was lying on a narrow cot in what appeared to be seraphina's main living area, though it looked nothing like the cozy cottage parlor he remembered. Furniture was overturned, books scattered across the floor like fallen leaves. A large crack ran down one wall, and he could see daylight streaming through gaps where the roof had partially collapsed.
But it wasn't the destruction that caught his attention first—it was the sound of angry pacing.
*Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Turn. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Turn.*
Seraphina, was wearing a path in the wooden floor, her emerald robes swishing with each sharp movement. Her usually perfect composure had completely evaporated, replaced by a fury so intense it seemed to radiate from her like heat from a forge. Her violet eyes blazed with an anger that made her earlier coldness seem gentle by comparison, and her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides as if she were restraining herself from hexing something.
Her auburn hair, normally arranged in an elegant style, hung loose and disheveled around her shoulders. Soot streaked her face and clothes, and there was a small cut on her left cheek that had dried to a thin line of blood. She looked like she'd been through a war—which, Finnian realized with growing dread, she probably had.
*Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Turn.*
She hadn't noticed he was awake yet, too consumed by her pacing and whatever internal storm was raging through her mind. Under her breath, he could hear her muttering what sounded like a litany of curses in multiple languages.
"—bloody fool boy doesn't know his own strength—centuries of work—my grandmother's scrying bowl—irreplaceable—absolute disaster—"
Finnian tried to clear his throat to announce his consciousness, but what came out was more of a croak. The sound was enough to freeze Seraphina mid-step. She whirled toward him, and the look on her face made him instinctively try to shrink back into the cot.
If he'd thought she was angry before, it was nothing compared to the volcanic rage that now focused on him like a spotlight. Her violet eyes seemed to glow with their own inner fire, and when she spoke, her voice was deadly quiet—the kind of quiet that preceded earthquakes.
"Oh, you're awake." Each word was precisely enunciated, dripping with barely controlled fury. "How wonderful. How absolutely *marvelous*."
She began stalking toward him, and Finnian found himself pressing back against the headboard of the cot, suddenly very aware of how powerful this woman was and how little he actually knew about her true nature.
"Do you have any idea," she continued, her voice still in that terrifying whisper, "what you've done? Any comprehension whatsoever of the magnitude of the disaster you've just unleashed?"
"I—" Finnian started, but she cut him off with a gesture that made the air crack like a whip.
"Let me enlighten you," she snarled, her composure finally snapping completely. "That little tantrum of yours—because that's what it was, wasn't it? A child's tantrum—has destroyed equipment that took me *decades* to acquire. My grandmother's scrying bowl, passed down through seven generations of my family, is now nothing but crystal dust scattered across my cellar floor!"
She gestured wildly at the damaged room around them. "My home—my sanctuary that I've spent the better part of a century warding and protecting—is half destroyed! The eastern wall is completely gone, the roof has three holes in it, and don't even get me started on what's left of my laboratory!"
Her voice was rising now, the careful control she'd maintained during his training completely abandoned. "Rare ingredients worth more than most people see in a lifetime, reduced to ash and rubble. Books that were old when your grandfather was young, their knowledge lost forever. Artifacts that cannot be replaced, that took me years to track down and acquire, obliterated in seconds!"
Finnian opened his mouth to apologize, but she wasn't finished.
"And that's not even the worst of it!" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "The barriers, Finnian. The carefully constructed, multilayered protective barriers that kept this place hidden from prying eyes and hostile magic—they're gone. Completely gone. Blown apart by your little magical outburst like cobwebs in a hurricane!"
The implications of that hit him like a physical blow. "The barriers—"
"Yes, the barriers!" Her laugh was bitter and sharp. "The ones that kept us safe, that kept *you* hidden from every dark mage, demon hunter, and power-hungry noble who's been searching for the last Thornwick heir for the past eighteen years. Those barriers."
She began pacing again, but now her movements were sharp and agitated rather than measured. "Do you know what happens when barriers like that are destroyed, boy? When that much protective magic is suddenly ripped away? It sends out a signal. A beacon. A magical flare that screams 'Here! Here is something worth investigating!' to every sensitive within a hundred miles."
Finnian felt the blood drain from his face. "How long—"
"How long before they get here?" Seraphina's smile was sharp and humorless. "Oh, the really dangerous ones will still be traveling, thankfully. The ancient powers, the demon lords, the high nobles of the shadow courts—they'll take time to mobilize, to gather their forces. But the scouts? The bounty hunters? The opportunistic scavengers who make their living tracking down magical anomalies?"
She stopped pacing and fixed him with a stare that made his skin crawl. "They're probably already here."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Finnian struggled to sit up properly, his head still spinning but adrenaline beginning to cut through the lingering effects of magical exhaustion.
"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it. "I didn't know—I couldn't control—"
"Sorry?" Seraphina's voice cracked like a whip. "You're *sorry*? Do you think sorry will rebuild my laboratory? Will sorry restore my grandmother's scrying bowl? Will sorry put the barriers back up before the real hunters arrive?"
She whirled away from him, running her hands through her disheveled hair. "Twenty years, Finnian. All my life I've been preparing, building defenses, gathering resources, creating a place where I could awaken safely. And you've destroyed it all in a single moment of uncontrolled rage."
"Then teach me!" The words burst out of him with desperate intensity. "Help me learn control, help me—"
"There's no time!" she snapped, spinning back to face him. "Don't you understand? The damage is done. Every enemy your family ever made, every power-hungry fool who thinks they can claim your abilities for themselves, every dark entity that feeds on magical bloodlines—they all know where you are now. They're coming, and when they get here, they won't find a helpless boy hiding behind protective barriers. They'll find you exposed, untrained, and completely vulnerable."
She moved to a damaged bookshelf and began pulling down the few tomes that had survived his magical explosion, shoving them into a leather satchel with sharp, efficient movements.
"We have to leave. Now. Immediately. Before—"
The sound of heavy footsteps on the cottage's front porch cut through her words like a blade through silk. Both of them froze, the blood draining from Seraphina's face as her eyes went wide with alarm.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
The footsteps were deliberate and measured, the sound of someone who wasn't trying to be stealthy but also wasn't in any hurry. Someone confident. Someone who knew exactly what they were looking for and had finally found it.
Seraphina's hand went immediately to the wand at her belt, her other hand already weaving the beginning of what looked like a combat spell. Her earlier anger had been replaced by sharp, focused alertness—the kind of instant transition that spoke of someone who had survived more than their share of dangerous encounters.
"Get up," she hissed at Finnian, her voice barely above a whisper. "Now. Move slowly, don't make any sudden movements, and for the love of all that's sacred, do *not* let your emotions spike again."
The footsteps had reached the front door. There was a pause, then the sound of someone testing the handle. When it didn't give way immediately, they heard a soft chuckle—a sound that somehow managed to be both amused and deeply menacing.
"Too late," Seraphina breathed, her face pale but determined. "They're here."