Page 140 of Fractured Fate

“Are you serious?” Charlotte caught an odd note in Blaire’s tone. “How do you become a Vasirian?”

“A very risky process—Lukas and I have been forbidden to attempt it while the rogues are a problem. Failing means death, so I’m kinda motivated to obey.”

“Why you?”

“The magic.”

“You’re a witch?”

“The last one alive.”

“I’m dreaming. This has to be a dream.”

“I would say it’s not so bad, but if you’d been here over the last year…” Blaire shook her head. “That’s for another time. I promise to explain.”

Charlotte jumped when the headmistress clapped her hands.

Blaire laughed. “Don’t worry, she does that a lot.”

“Well, sometimes I must redirect wayward students,” the headmistress said with a slight smile. “Now, our kind is in danger, yes, but that’s not what is important right now. At least not for you and why you’re here. That information is what we need to focus on.”

Right. Why was she here? Why were they letting her in on all the secrets now? Were they going to kill her?

“Please don’t kill me,” she blurted.

Blaire looked at her in horror.

The headmistress frowned. “Why would we do that?”

“For knowing your secrets.”

“We’re choosing to share them. You’re in no danger of death. Relax.”

Blaire reached out and touched Charlotte’s arm. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought they’d kill you.”

Charlotte rubbed her eyes, and her fingertips came away black. She’d forgotten about her smokey makeup. She suspected she looked like a swamp monster.

“Aiden informed me he saw his Korrena mark on you,” the headmistress said.

She perked up at the use of Aiden’s name.

“A Korrena is what our kind calls a mate—a pair. The word Blaire used to best understand it was what humans call a soulmate.”

“Soulmate?” Charlotte glanced at Blaire.

She nodded. “Lukas saw his mark on me one day when I left work. Headmistress Velastra came to see me the next day, you remember?”

Charlotte thought the headmistress looked familiar. “Yeah, sort of. I thought she was a professor though.”

“My title has changed, but we have encountered one another before.”

“Anyway, the mark”—Blaire pointed at the tattoo on the side of her neck that matched the one Lukas had—“isn’t a tattoo. Apparently Korrena pairs have a unique marking to them only. Yours won’t look like this. It won’t even be in the same spot.”

“Where will it be? What does it look like?”

“I don’t know. Aiden didn’t describe it or say where it was.”

“I haven’t seen a mark anywhere.”