"Magic is emotion," Witch Aimes stated, one finger pointed towards the hovering screen of smoke that served as a blackboard. "We can divide the schools of magic by the emotion they are powered by. A witch who wields happiness creates light; a witch who wields passion creates heat; a witch who wields sorrow creates cold."

As she spoke, she cast a spell from each school respectively. An orb of light, a shimmer of heat, and a glaze of frost coalesced on the smokescreen.

"Witch Aimes?" I asked, raising a hand.

She arched an eyebrow at me. "Yes, Cienne?"

"What about the darker emotions? Grief, agony, fear, despair... we haven't learned about any of them yet."

Witch Aimes' lips tightened. "There is a reason for that. The primary schools of magic that you will learn at the Academy are what we call constructive emotions. Since emotions are a witch's power source, all witches are incentivized to create more of the emotion they wield—which is why in civilized parts of the world, witches of happiness, calm, and empathy are amongst the most valued members of our society."

Most valued. As if witches who dabbled in the darker emotions didn't have their uses. I carefully kept the scorn off my face, but it was useless against a witch—Witch Aimes read souls the way others read faces. She could feel the disdain and anger in my heart as easily as I could.

It was why they'd taken me in, after all. To "guide me on the right path."

I could tell Witch Aimes could glimpse the emotions swimming beneath my calm expression, but she simply moved on. "On the other hand, witches of pain and loss are incentivized to harm others in order to gain power. This is why the lawless wastes outside the Silent Peaks have so much trouble building up anything that lasts: a dark witch can always storm through, gaining momentum with every heart they break, and bring ruin to everything they've built." Witch Aimes' eyes pierced mine, as if daring me to object, but I knew that was the truth.

My hometown was a smoking ruin thanks to one of those dark witches.

"There are other emotions, too," I pointed out. "Ones that are neither intrinsically constructive nor destructive."

"And those would be?" Witch Aimes asked, folding her arms.

"Lust. Arousal." Some immature part of me was amused to see that Aimes actually blushed at that. "Or, what, are we just going to pretend that those don't exist?"

Witch Aimes coughed. "No, no, lust and arousal... exist. You, er... you're a little young to be visiting those parts of town, aren't you?"

I'd seen a lot for my age, admittedly, but to be honest I was purely curious from academic interest. Although now that I thought about it, if I expressed 'academic interest' in the magics of lust, I was pretty sure I'd be the laughingstock of the academy within days. Secrets moved fast in a society of empaths-in-training. "I am," I said neutrally. It was better than 'I've been constantly watched to make sure I don't go darkwitch on the academy ever since your people brought me here.'

"Well." Witch Aimes cleared up her blush—witches had remarkable emotional control—and said, "Yes, those witches do exist. I highly recommend you stay away from them. Their magics are not... well, let us say that they are somewhat vile, and leave it at that."

I hid my annoyance as best I could as Aimes moved on to talk about the fundamental elements. Oh, sure, we could talk about the evils of 'dark' magic all day, but as soon as we got to the squishy parts of being a witch, it was too embarrassing to be talked about in polite company?

I narrowed my eyes in thought. Perhaps that was my issue. I hadn't gotten where I was by hanging around in polite company, after all, even if that was how the Silent Academy wanted me to move forwards.

Maybe it was time to find some impolite company.

As class drew to a close, my mind made up.

It was time to find a witch of lust.

###

I'd been at the academy long enough to know I had a shadow. It wasn't obvious—the way crows turned their heads when I drew near, the extra attention stray cats paid me, the way moths and flies seemed to think I was a candle instead of a gutter—but anyone who lived in the Redlands knew how to tell when a witch of empathy was stalking them.

I didn't know much about the mind-transfer-nonsense that witches of empathy used. I was no stellar student, when it came down to it. I didn't have the raw material to make it as a witch of happiness, I was too perpetually angry to tap into the witchcraft of sadness, and I hadn't dared ask for help using the one emotion I could control.

But if there was one thing I knew about witchcraft, it was this:

Self-hatred made you feel small.

I didn't bother stripping off my clothes as I walked into the showers. They had hot water and divided stalls and all the things a mountain-city of good little witches thought were more necessary than doing something about the constant bloodbath that gave the Redlands their name. I simply reached into my soul as I turned the water on and threw the thorny, sticky vines of self-hatred out around me, bracing myself for the spell to hit.

Once I felt myself begin to shrink, I hopped onto a nearby ledge—probably for conditioner or essential oils or some other city-boy invention—so that I didn't get hit by any of the falling water droplets. Water got weird when I got small; something about the magic made it much harder for me to escape if I got trapped in a water droplet than normal. My breathing quickened and the air felt syrupy and thick—but I'd survived shrinking to nothing before.

I survived. It was what I did.

Once the spell was complete, I snuck underneath the dividing stall and made for the nearest window. I had to route through a nearby stall to get there, but the massive city boy didn't even bother looking down at little ol' me as I scampered by. They never did. By the time I reached the window—it was at ankle height, which just meant an unpleasant climb at my size—it had already begun to snow.

The year-round snow cover was what gave the Silent Peaks their name. The city boys said it made life peaceful and tranquil, the way the snow ate sound; privately, I just thought it meant that if someone jumped out a window, you'd never hear them scream. I landed in a snow poff, spluttering, then regained my original size before I suffocated in the snow. Some passerby gave me a surprised glance, but there were no suspicious animals around, so I deemed myself safe. It wasn't hard to deduce where the witches of lust would live—all I had to do was remember all the places they'd shown me on the grand tour of the city, then go to the places they hadn't shown me. The nearest such cluster of buildings didn't seem like anything special when I walked up to it—

"Can I help you?" A voice rang out from behind me.

—or not. I let myself flinch. If I was dealing with a witch, showing an honest burst of surprise would probably make them think I wasn't a twisted mess of lies and masks. "Er, yeah. I'm trying to find a witch of lust."

"You're talking to one!" The voice from behind me cheerfully said.

I paused, turning around. To my surprise, I wasn't talking to a filmy-clad succubus or whatever nonsense the Academy had primed me for—just a wrinkled-looking old man.

"How'd you, uh... sneak up on me?" I asked. "Magic?"

He laughed. "No. Just snowshoes and habit!" He raised an oddly wide boot, shaking some snow off it, and my esteem for him raised a notch. Anyone who had a habit of going around quietly was a friend of mine.

"Fair enough. So... if I can ask... what is your magic?"

He raised an eyebrow, then mimed holding something out and tossing it to me. By reflex, I moved to catch it—it was an invisible rod, about the size of my fist, and... strangely light. Was that... was that solid air?

"The witchcraft of lust," the old man said, an amused twinkle in his eye. "Temporarily makes things hard."

I eyed the rock-hard rod in my hand. "Lovely," I deadpanned.

He snorted. "Well, you didn't start moralizing at me, so you're not one of the Academy's boys." My esteem rose another two notches for the man. "I'm Jiaola. What's a fellow like you seeking out a witch of lust for?"

I grimaced. "The people at the academy... they don't talk about the orphans of the Redlands, or the rifts in the sky, or anything important. And... they don't talk about you, either."

Jiaola laughed. "Me? That's because my kind is an embarrassment." He nodded towards a nearby house. "See that?"

I nodded.

"Me and my husband own that place."

And I understood.

"Built it ourselves with our hands and our craft," Jiaola continued. "The craft that the Academy likes to say is a perversion, a way to spread our deviance. But you wanna know the first rule of witchcraft? Magic is powered by emotions. Magic drains emotions. Me? I became a witch because any hint of my sexuality was verboten—so I sealed it off and channeled it into my craft instead." Jiaola's gaze grew distant. "I became a witch to hide who I was."

And suddenly, my throat tightened.

"I became a witch to hide who I am, too," I blurted before I could stop myself.

Jiaola raised an eyebrow, possibly seeing something in my soul, but I shook my head. "I... I'm sorry. I have to go."

"Wait." Jiaola held out a hand, and something formed in it. I took it—another slice of hardened air, but this time, with... letters. Invisible letters I couldn't read, but letters nonetheless. "If you ever need me... my door is open."

I nodded once. Something writhed within my soul.

Then I sprinted away, not trusting myself to speak.

The words Jiaola gave me burned against my palm.