It isn’t a sunny day, nor is it a gloomy one, when all the village boys leave for the Academy. Indigo watches them march up the hill holding promises of dreams he’s fantasized over since he was a child. One by one, they walk in lines with dark leather sacks thrown over their shoulders, donning magnificent color-coded robes they’d each received earlier this year—congratulatory gifts on their admissions from the Academy’s director himself.

Indigo remembers the times when he, too, believed acquiring one was still a possibility for himself. When he believed he’d grow up and be told there’s been a mistake, that he wasn’t made for the healing arts after all.

Lydia groans. “Aren’t you bored of watching them every year?” She kicks the air and turns another one of her book’s pages from the opposite end of the couch.

Indigo can only shake his head. As he rests his elbows against the windowsill, he lets his face sink into his arms—his silent tears into his skin, who slowly wash away dreams of ashes and gold. “I’m going to take a bath,” he mumbles, before standing and stomping over to the bathroom.

He thinks it a joy that his parents are present elsewhere today. I’m sick of pretending. Last year, two years ago, and every moment they mentioned the Academy, I’ve been sick of pretending I was happy.

With ease, Indigo lifts the cover to the bathroom’s water system. He pulls on thick strings until sounds of creaks bounce off tiled walls and drops of aqua cover his fingertips. From the depths of his right pocket, Indigo makes a tiny vial appear. He bends over and sprinkles its contents into the bath. The water’s temperature soon rises from freezing to the perfect warmth.

Trails of fog and smoke come to caress his face, accompanied by the thought that his grandmother would kill him for wasting her time if she ever saw him use such advanced recipes.

With a giggle, he slips out of his clothes and into the stone tub. As he stares down at his reflection, Indigo imagines a face with sharper edges, features belonging to the man who lives in his dreams—the man allowed to enter the Academy.

He lashes out at the water. A ball of nerves, of angry, saddened nerves, builds in his throat. He wants to scream, to ask the world if it knows how much more of this he can take. But he doesn’t. He pulls the plug, rises from the bathtub, and wraps a towel around a body he despises.

When Indigo walks out of the bathroom, he is silent, calm, and on the verge of heading up to his room. With one foot pressed against the steps leading there, he pauses.

Shouts erupt from the outside world. He traces his shadow until he is back in the living room, his eyes fixated on Lydia, who plays with her dolls as if nothing is amiss. “What’s going on?” he asks her.

Lydia lifts her pretty little head. She gasps. “You mean you didn’t hear?”

“I…” Indigo shifts his weight from one of his feet to the other. “I don’t think so?” he says. “What’s there to hear?”

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“The heretic girl!” his sister cries. “You know, the one who was practicing the dark arts in secret!”

“O-oh.” The yelling of the villagers grows louder. An uneasy laugh escapes past Indigo’s lips. “What about her?”

Lydia shoots him a disgusted glare before groaning and pressing a palm to her brow. “I can’t believe you! Seriously, Indigo…” She shakes her head; this time, Indigo is reminded of his mother. “It’s execution day today! That’s why they’re making such a ruckus.” Lydia sighs. She glances down to her puppets, now abandoned by her feet. “I just wish they would do it somewhere else, somewhere where being loud wouldn’t be an issue. It’s so annoying.”

Indigo yearns to ask his sister why the wrong she finds in their actions are related to disturbing the usual peace and quiet of their village, and not the act of slaughtering beings he considers innocent. He wishes he could say, Don’t you see something is wrong here? But he can’t, he won’t—for then it would be him burning at that stake.

His nails dig into the small of his palms. They turn his lovely pink skin to ghostly whites. With a tilt of his head and a perfectly practiced smile, he says, “Right? It’s also a bit gross, the smell and all.”

“I know!” Lydia huffs. Her shoulders deflate. “I get that they want to teach us a lesson and all, but come on, we’re not idiots. What woman in her right mind would even try to use the dark arts or that alchemy stuff anyway? I mean, let’s be honest here, healing is much cooler.”

“Right…” Indigo’s attention is glued to his own feet. A trail of water falls from his long, dark hair, and traces invisible paths soon to be forgotten along his shoulders. He doesn’t know how to break it to his sister—what he saw in those archives he stole long ago—that these rules aren’t in place because they’re meant for the healing arts, but because their species is on the verge of extinction.

Because the Council needs people who can bear children to stay safe, alive.

But she’s too young, he thinks. I couldn’t, shouldn’t tell her. And in a sense, I suppose it’s best if she doesn’t figure it out.

“Indigo?” Lydia’s voice is a tad softer than before. “Are you okay?”

Indigo gives her a silent nod. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he says. “Just a little cold. I’ll go get dressed now, all right? Have fun with your dolls.”

His sister immediately beams. “Thanks!”

Lydia’s gentle humming echoes throughout the hallway as he walks up the steps to his bedroom. Indigo finds it unsettling, the unusual contrast between the soft lullaby sung by a child’s voice, and the hoarse screams of the girl outside begging to be spared. As he slides into a dress gifted to him by his mother last summer, one not made with the Craft’s help this time, Indigo pauses by his window.

Outside, the village idiots chant around a large wooden stake where a little girl who is about Lydia’s size fights for her life. As she tugs on the restraints that bind her wrists together, Indigo wonders if the girl is like him, too, or if she only wished to practice the Craft in peace without ever being untrue to herself.

He squints, but no matter how hard he tries, he cannot recognize her, for all her tell-tale features have already been scraped off by the executioner. How they tease and threaten her without ever lighting the damned thing: Indigo finds it horrid, barbaric and cruel; and despite his sister’s words, he knows there are still some, if not many, who are eager to learn the Craft—himself included.

But I won’t be as silly as them, he tells himself.

I’ll never get caught.

By the time dusk rises, clouds of gray smoke have filled the sky above the village.

The crowd is gone, and so is the girl.

Indigo bids good night to his mother, his sister, and his father, to whom he makes promises of learning the healing arts first thing in the morning.

He shuts his door.

Despite the fire burning outside, Indigo’s flame has yet to be extinguished. It is only getting stronger—pushing, pulling, and pushing inside him, until the furnace holding the key to an imminent storm may crack and break forever.