Skye
“It went fine,” I say on a breath, moving toward the back row of the empty observatory. It’s well past midnight, and if anyone is going to be awake in the odd hours of early morning, it’s Posey, whose soft, disbelieving chuckle rings through my ear.
“You sound like you hated it.”
I sink into a familiar chair covered with scratchy, well-worn fabric and prop my laptop on my knees. “I don’t hate lecturing. It just felt odd, I guess. My previous lectures were all at the undergraduate level… physics 101, you know? The definition of matter versus now having to explain to a room full of physicists who lean more toward experimental physics why we’ll never fully understand the physical confines of our own universe.”
“You could always come home. The temple in Moonrise would move mountains to have you within their ranks.”
I click a few buttons on a controller, and the ceiling erupts in a sea of distant stars. “You sound just like Mom.”
“No one would blame you for being unhappy, Skye. You’ve been living in the dark for years.”
“It’s not about the dark. I like the dark. It’s quiet here. Actually, you’re the only other person in our family who I think would thrive in this place.”
Aris’s laugh from the far side of whatever room they’re sharing in Veiled Valley creeps through the phone, and I frown. “Hi, Uncle Aris.”
“He’s barely listening. Juliette had a nightmare and is currently on his lap trying to manipulate her way into staying up with us tonight,” Posey says with an obvious smile.
I miss them. Everyone. My entire family. They’re all so settled down south and moving forward with their lives. I feel like I’m stuck in time here in Lunaria while the rest of the world continues without me.
But this is what I chose.
For a reason.
“Are you still joining the family for Solstice this year?” Posey asks.
I click a few more buttons to zoom in on a particular galaxy and tuck the remote between my thigh and the seat. “Planning on it. I’m getting a new place here. My own condo, it sounds like. I–”
The door to the observatory opens, spilling a ray of light across the thin, worn carpet. A shadow moves through the dark then stops in the halo of a floor-level sconce, body angled toward mine.
A flash of recognition tightens my throat. “I’ll call you later.”
“Send us pictures of your apartment!”
“I will.” I quickly hang up. I’ve always found it rude when people take phone calls or scroll on their phones in the observatory, and I also don’t want Alex overhearing any type of conversation with my family, regardless of how innocent the conversation is.
I’m a royal. I know there’re people who think I’ve gotten as far as I have in academia because of my social status, who my father is, and how far his wealth can stretch. But they’re wrong.
Alex slowly walks up the ramp to the back row and shuffles down the aisle. I tuck my laptop closer to my lap to try to look busy, but I’m not even logged in yet, and when the blue-hued laptop light reflects against his eyes, I know I’m caught.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“One in the morning.”
He hums to himself as he sits beside me, a single empty seat between us, and slouches, closing his eyes for a moment. He’s dressed in his heavy snow pants and a dark thermal top like he just left the lab, and his hair is slightly damp, dark curls clinging to his temples.
I wait for him to say something, anything, but he simply… sits there. Silent.
“Were you looking for me?”
“No.”
“Why are you here?”
He opens one eye to a slit to meet my gaze. “I come here often. It’s quiet. A nice warm place to decompress after an entire day under the ice.” He shifts his weight to get more comfortable and practically folds in on himself like he’s planning on sleeping here.
“Don’t you have a condo in The Pillars where you can decompress?”
“Are you always this territorial over what you believe is your space, or is this about me?”
“You,” I answer honestly, looking away from his face to punch my credentials into the university interface. Pages full of live images from the telescope across campus pop into view, and Alex leans in, the stars reflected on his irises.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot,” he replies, still fixated on the slowly rotating images.
“Why does everyone else in the biology department wear those ugly yellow thermals and you get dark ones?”
The corner of his mouth ticks into a wry smile before falling flat again. “They serve a purpose. Safety. Yellow is easy to see under the ice. If anyone gets trapped, we can find them quicker, at least in theory.”
“Morbid.”
“Entirely.”
“But you wear black?”
“Technically, mine are dark navy.”
My eyes roll to the ceiling, and I take a breath to stop myself from snapping at him. “So you don’t care about whether anyone can see you under the ice?”
He leans his head back against the top of the chair, his eyes on the ceiling, on the depictions of the same stars dancing across my laptop. “I’m the director of the ice lab. It doesn’t matter if anyone can see me. If someone needs to be rescued, I’ll be the one going into whatever hell swallowed them first.” His tone is level, without so much as a teasing glint to his words. He’s serious. Based on his tone, this is something he’s thought about often.
I… might have been very wrong about him.
“You feel responsible for everyone who works in your lab.”
“Of course. I am.” He meets my eyes.
“But they choose to be there.”
“It’s different for you, Skye. This is your lab. The observatory, the telescope, the physics research center with its whiteboard and electronics. You don’t dig beneath the ice. It’s different down there. It’s not even just the ice that can kill you. The elements, the darkness, the lack of sound… it drives people insane.”
I lean toward him. “Are you insane?”
“Anyone who chooses to remain here on tenure is insane. I believe the psychology department recently published a study about it.”
Now, the corner of my mouth ticks up into a smile. He searches my gaze for a moment, really looking at me. “Why are your eyes that color?”
“Violet? It’s a family trait.”
“It’s not a naturally occurring color in any species.”
“Well, tell that to my father and grandmother.”
I lean in again, deciding to give him a taste of his own medicine. He narrows his eyes in suspicion, his lips parted in a weak smile.
“You have rather pronounced cuspids for someone who says they aren’t a shifter.”
He arches a brow. “It’s a family trait.”
“Mhmm…”
He leans closer, his arms folded over his chest. “Are we doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Arguing. Seeing how far we can get under each other's skin?”
“I wouldn’t call it arguing. I don’t know you very well, but I’m sure if you continue stalking me and taking up space in my territory, I’ll find reasons to argue with you, sure.”
His thorough inspection of my face, like he’s trying to decipher every emotion and fleeting feeling shining behind my eyes, ends when he hooks his foot around one of the folding tables fixed to the back of each chair in the row in front of us and drags it toward him. He makes quick work of setting it up and pivoting it between us–a little desk, so to speak–and motions for me to set my laptop on it.
“I don’t need a surface–”
“I want to know what you’re working on.”
“Why?”
“Everyone with tenure has a passion project. Otherwise, they would have never agreed to stay.”
“Oh? And what’s yours?”
“The Goddess Particle, but you already knew that.”
I clutch the sides of my laptop. “You know it doesn’t exist, right? Not in one singular way.”
“Nothing exists unless it’s proven.”
I set my laptop down and turn in my chair to face him with a sigh. “This is why you need a physicist to consult on your research, isn’t it? What exactly have you found down there in the ice? What are you really looking for?”
He eyes me for a moment before he shrugs a shoulder, turning his attention back to the ceiling, where the stars continue to shine. “We find a lot down there, actually. Every new layer we drill opens up an entirely new world that often forces us to scrap what we thought we knew about time, ancient kingdoms, and animals…. Things like you and me. I’m looking for pieces of DNA specifically. LU is one of the only institutes with access to a sample of Queen Isla’s tears–her magic. It was sequenced and studied long before I came here, and since I’ve been in Lunaria, I’ve been looking for what, if anything, gave her that kind of magic. That power. We can’t find any traces of it in the falls where she supposedly emerged able to heal. Her powers weren’t embedded in her DNA, either. But, you likely already know that, seeing as you’re directly related to her.”
“She was my father’s great-grandmother. It’s not like I ever knew her.” I feel suddenly uneasy under his direct attention. While it’s common knowledge that I’m related to the royal family, I’ve never been open about my direct line. I find it easier to keep it that way–fewer questions, less concern over my privileges here at Lunaria U.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” he teases, but I bristle.
“It’s not a secret. It never has been. Are you going to ask me for a blood sample, or something, to test against what you already have?”
“No. It wouldn’t be necessary. There’s nothing in her DNA that would even remotely help me find what I’m looking for–nor yours, I assume.”
“What exactly are you looking for, then?”
He thinks about it for a moment and then replies, “Most of my funding comes from territories and cities looking for better healing options. Some are worried magic is waning, especially with witches and shifters living so comfortably together and interbreeding. Even our modern healing and witch magic isn’t what it could be, or what people think it used to be like, which is why I have the money to drill into the ice. I’m looking for ancient DNA, diseases, and power markers. For the magic that once existed, so we can somehow replicate it again.”
A flicker of memory drifts through my head. Me, here, in the very observatory, but in a vision. I was just a little girl when I first had dreams about this place, and for whatever reason, Alex’s words threaten to pull me back into the dreamworld. My bracelet warms in warning that a vision is close at hand, but I ignore it, tucking my hands between my thighs.
“Meanwhile,” he says on a breath, “you physicists are more interested in far-off places that have no bearing on what’s happening here, now, in our world.”
“That’s not true!”
“Then what, exactly, are you researching right now, Skye?”
“I study the origin of magic.” He rolls his eyes. I scoff. “How is that any different than what you’re doing?”
“The origin of magic is going to be found here–buried.”
“I don’t think that’s correct. Look.” I press the remote, and the ceiling of the observatory shifts, stars blurring at the speed of light, replaced by the far off galaxy I’ve been studying for the past… oh, gods, four years? “This is the Cerridwen Galaxy. My… life’s work.” I don’t mean to choke on the words, but I look up, and even though I’ve seen this same map of the stars hundreds of times before, it always takes my breath away. “We didn’t have the technology to look this far into space until very recently–within the last decade. It’s a marvel, honestly, and even then, it took an incredible amount of research and theorizing to put this map of that galaxy together.”
I press the remote again, zooming in to a bundle of stars like nerves settled in a body–a soul. “These stars are incredibly important to witches in particular. This nest of light? That’s the Cauldron constellation. The witches believe their ancestors, the first witches, used this cauldron to spread magic all over our world. Before, it was just a faint tangle of starlight only visible in certain places during certain times of the year, but now I found it for them.”
Alex looks up in silence. I glance at him, trying to catch any glimmer of emotion behind his eyes.
“These stars are the Moon Lake, which is exactly what it sounds like. Four of the seven planetary structures are, in fact, moons. Big ones. I believe they used to orbit around something here, but now they’re freely orbiting objects locked in place by this star, and that star, and they dance, reflecting light like lanterns on a lake.”
“And what do the witches use that for?”
“Well, it’s hard to explain, and I haven’t figured out why yet, but the only time this constellation in particular is visible is in the weeks leading up to the sacred lunar eclipse. It’s a massive deal in Moonrise, trust me.” I click the remote three more times, zooming in and out. “During the lead up to the lunar eclipse, witch magic wanes severely. Some believe it’s directly tied to the moon, but I can’t find a rational reason for that to be true… so far. So I’m studying it.”
“You made this?”
I take a much-needed breath. “I did. It’s rendered images. The real images we have from our telescope still don’t reach this far, but based on what I have seen, this is what this galaxy would look like. I’ve done the math. It’s a large place. Several life-giving stars, for sure. Hundreds of planets and thousands of moons, but–this is where it all comes from. I’m certain.”
“Where what comes from?”
“The magic. The visions. Think of it this way.” I click off the simulation, and the ceiling turns black, the only light coming from the sconces that line the outer shell of the room. I turn my laptop to face him, to show him the equations and alphanumerical sentences I know he won’t understand, but in my brain, it’s a novel. It’s poetry. An ancient language I’m trying to crack.
“Witches and mystics use the stars to strengthen their magic. Mystics use them to read prophecies and decipher visions and dreams. Witches who have lunar magic, or their magic favors specific cycles of the moon and the seasons, can strengthen spells based on the position of the constellations in our skies. Before, it was tricky. It didn’t always work. Spells fell flat. Visions tangled. I’m giving them something better, something concrete. Science is the backbone of magic. Magic isn’t something tangible. At least, not in a way that we can understand–yet.”
“There are many who would disagree with you.”
“So be it. They can’t prove me wrong.” I hold his gaze, waiting for him to argue otherwise.
But he leans in, his hands braced on the table between us, his words ghosting through my hair. “What are you actually looking for, Skye?”
“Exotic matter,” I reply pointedly. He stares at me for several seconds and then sighs. “Magic. It’s one and the same.”
“I want you to come see my lab tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“So I can prove you wrong.”