Nobody else in the stands looked surprised at the ice that had formed all over Jacqueline’s target. However, the girls around them did start talking about how impressive Jacqueline was and debating how well they thought she might perform in the competition.

  Blythe snapped her mouth shut and whispered again to Sophie, “Remind me again—if there’re ice-enhanced bows, are there fire-enhanced bows?”

  “Those are prohibited in Novalbus,” Sophie replied, her eyes widening at Blythe’s question. “They can cause a forest fire. Use of them in the Hunting Race results in automatic disqualification. Obviously, you can’t use any of the bows outside of staff supervision, but fire bows aren’t even allowed on school grounds.”

  “Right.”

  A few seconds later, the ice around the target shattered. Its pieces fell on the grass surrounding it. Blythe frowned. The effect wasn’t as powerful as it had initially appeared.

  Upon noticing her expression, Sophie leaned in and explained, “The targets are enhanced with rare nullification gems. Otherwise, they’ll only be able to use the targets once with a power bow.”

  Blythe nodded. That made sense.

  Sophie peered into her face, startling her.

  “What?”

  “Are you okay?” Sophie spoke quietly. “I know you’ve, um, forgotten some things, but I didn’t think you’d have forgotten how the gems work. That’s almost like forgetting what trees are.”

  It took everything she had in her not to flinch.

  “I’m fine,” Blythe said, mustering what she hoped came across as a reassuring smile. “I remember who you and Jessica are, don’t I?”

  It was kind of a stupid thing to use as proof, but she couldn’t think of what else to say at the moment.

  Sophie didn’t look very convinced, but she dropped the subject.

  Magnus released an arrow that flew through the air at top-speed, and the target it hit was forced back several feet. The crowd squealed.

  The rest of the participants began practicing with their chosen bow on their own, and all kinds of flashy effects began to appear on the field. Seeing electricity crackle over a target felt surreal in the coolest way. The wind bows added an incredibly strong force to the arrows drawn with them. A couple of the contestants shot arrows that literally turned the targets to stone.

  Blythe hadn’t even realized she was watching intently until the staff member wheeled the cart out again and the contestants returned their bows. She hadn’t done any reading like she’d intended. Now that the power bows were gone, girls began streaming out from the stands to talk to the contestants. Some of the girls in the row behind and before theirs stood up.

  “I said hi to Clyde during lunch,” Jessica said. “Would it be too much to do it again now?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said. “You should wait until tomorrow.”

  Blythe honestly didn’t know the answer, but she nodded and agreed with Sophie.

  While Jessica and Sophie debated the best course of action to take, Blythe kept her gaze on the field. Jacqueline was all by herself as she practiced with her regular bow. There were a couple of girls who greeted her after they were done talking to the boys, but that was it.

  After a while, a few of the boys headed towards the wooden benches along the sides of the field. They plopped themselves down and rested. Some of them had their own water bottles already placed there, but others received water bottles from eager admirers. Jacqueline left the field to sit on a bench by herself.

  “I’ll go say hi to Jacqueline,” she said.

  It probably sucked seeing so many supporters for all the competitors except for herself, even if most of them were supporters only because they were interested in a particular contestant.

  Her friends wore the most baffled expressions on their faces as they watched Blythe get to her feet.

  “Not His Highness?”

  Blythe glanced over. Not a single girl was approaching Magnus; the original Blythe had apparently done an excellent job of warning them off. Come to think of it, this was likely one of the reasons why Jessica and Sophie detested Daisy so much. The other girls in school all greeted Magnus when they crossed paths with him, but they never lingered around enough for a conversation. Daisy was the only girl in school who dared to treat him like a regular classmate.

  “Sure,” she said. “Him too.”

  Owing to the massive crowd, she brought her bag with her instead of leaving it on the chair. She didn’t think anyone would dare to steal it while Jessica or Sophie was watching over it, but anything could happen with that many people squeezed in the area.

  Most girls caught sight of her and stepped aside, making it easy for her to go down the steps towards the field. She didn’t know what to feel about how the faces of the few girls who accidentally bumped into her morphed into horror once they saw it was her. Those girls stammered out some hasty apologies and backed away instantly.

  As she saw the group of girls crowding behind Cole while he shot his arrows, the corners of her lips twitched in amusement. There were far more of them now than there were at lunch.

  Now that she was paying attention to the actual people instead of the showy bow effects zapping around on the field, she spotted Jude’s presence. Titus was standing relatively close to Jude in comparison to many contestants who had put a significant chunk of distance between themselves and others. Behind them were their fair share of fangirls as well, although theirs seemed to be a combined group and wasn’t as large as Cole’s.

  The only love interests that weren’t here were Giovanni and Noel. Could that be why the game skimmed over the Hunting Race as an event?

  She crossed the field, passing by Magnus. The soft, grassy ground felt pleasant under her shoes. Even though it wasn’t actually her fault, she felt bad for Magnus who literally didn’t have a single girl approach him. Or maybe he liked not being swarmed by admirers; Blythe wouldn’t know. The original Blythe must have been seriously feral when it came to defending her ’territory’.

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  She’d have to say hi to him later, after speaking to Jacqueline. Otherwise, Jessica and Sophie might notice and wonder why she hadn’t greeted her own fiancé.

  As if he could tell she was thinking about him, Magnus whipped around and stared at Blythe. She almost put her hands up as a sign that she meant no harm.

  Instead, she gave him an awkward wave. A quick glance around told her that a few girls nearby were eyeing her curiously. With great reluctance, Blythe closed some of the large distance between her and Magnus. They’d probably have much more to gossip about if she ignored him than if she sought out interaction with him.

  She’d just greet him quickly and then move on.

  “Good afternoon, Magnus,” she said.

  “Afternoon, Blythe.” Lowering the bow in his hand to his side, Magnus watched her with wary eyes.

  For lack of something better to say, she blurted out, “You were great with the wind bow earlier.”

  “Thank you.”

  It took her a while to decipher the strange expression on his face, but she finally realized it was uncertainty. He was looking at her like he didn’t know what she was going to do or say next.

  “So … I’ll see you around.”

  She plastered a bright smile onto her face.

  Right as she made to turn around, he said, “That’s it?”

  Her eyes searched his face, but it gave her no clue on what to say next. “Uh …”

  Was there something else she was supposed to say? She understood that it was a little brief, but she didn’t have anything else to say to him. Besides, he knew she wanted to break off the engagement, so it wasn’t like he was under the impression she was still infatuated with him … was he?

  “Is there something else I should do?”

  “It’s not that you should do something,” he said, his voice containing a trace of frustration. “You …”

  She stood there patiently, waiting for him to find the appropriate words to continue his sentence.

  He never did.

  Instead, his eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown, and he pulled an arrow out of the quiver hanging by his belt.

  “Never mind,” he said. “Did you come here just to say that?”

  Blythe hesitated. It probably wasn’t a good idea to admit she mainly wanted to talk to Jacqueline.

  “I also wanted to talk to Jacqueline and offer her some encouragement. There hasn’t been a female participant for a long time.”

  His frown vanished.

  Green light.

  She tried to keep herself from frowning in confusion. Maybe he liked that she wanted to be supportive of another girl.

  “That’s nice of you,” he said slowly, his gaze wandering around the area.

  “She’s over there,” Blythe said, waving in the general direction of the bench Jacqueline was seated on.

  Jacqueline was quite some distance away, closer to Titus and Jude than she was to Magnus, but still easily seen from here. Blythe could see her moving quickly and then drawing her bow.

  She turned back to Magnus. “I just think it’s cool she’s going for what she wants. Plus, she really looks like she knows what she’s doing. She might be happy to hear that.”

  He squinted at her. “But I don’t look like I know what I’m doing?”

  Incredulous, she stared at him. “I never said that. You’ve been participating in the Hunting Race for the past couple of years. Everybody knows you know what you’re doing.”

  Thanks to Sophie and Jessica, she’d learned that only students in their second year or above were allowed to apply to participate in the event. Magnus and Titus were among the few talented second year students whose applications got approved.

  He frowned again. For some bizarre reason, she saw green light again.

  “Look,” she said, wondering why this felt like she was pacifying him for something that didn’t even matter. “It’s as clear as day that you know what you’re doing. I didn’t think I needed to say that. Haven’t I said it to you before, anyway?”

  Magnus’ eyebrows rose. “No, you haven’t. I’d have remembered if you had.”

  Shot herself in her foot again. Why did she always do this? Why did she always assume something only to discover it wasn’t true?

  It had seemed so logical to assume the original Blythe had said something like this to Magnus because it would fit with how complimentary she had been towards him.

  What do you mean, she never said that to you?!

  Blythe dearly wished she could ask Magnus that. What exactly did the original Blythe use to say to Magnus, if it was such an expected thing for her to come down to the field to talk to him? She had to have talked about his archery skills at some point, didn’t she? How could she have spent all that time chatting at him and not have complimented his skills even once?

  “Why do you look so shocked? Do you somehow think you had?”

  “I mean … yeah?” She shook her head. “I must have thought it was so obvious that I didn’t even think it needed to be said. How else would you have been able to participate in the Hunting Race in the previous years? They don’t just let incompetent people join. You handled that wind bow fine even with the recoil it has.”

  One of the other guys had stumbled backwards when he attempted using a wind bow. According to Sophie, it was a common struggle people had with wind bows.

  Seriously, what sort of praises did the original Blythe lavish on him if something as simple as acknowledging his abilities was enough to get his points up? She wasn’t even trying to suck up to him.

  A conflicted expression crossed his face as he stood there, one hand grasping his bow and the other holding an arrow. “Well, I’m sure Jacqueline will appreciate your encouragement.”

  Hearing the dismissal for what it was, Blythe seized her opportunity to leave. “Yeah. See you. Um, I hope your practice goes well.”

  Magnus smiled a little at that, his eyes glinting as he swept his gaze around their surroundings. “It should, because I don’t have any distractions.”

  Unlike the others, was the implication he’d left unspoken. All the guys on the field were physically fit, and even the least popular one still had two or three girls talking to him.

  As Blythe returned his smile with a perfunctory one of her own, an idea occurred to her.

  She’d lifted off the obligatory chocolates ban from the other girls in school. She should lift this general proximity ban too. Because if she left it in place, he might think that was proof she wanted to stay engaged to him.

  She strode across the field, past the other contestants towards Jacqueline’s bench at the other end.

  It was time to declare open season on Magnus. Some of these contestants were already betrothed, but that didn’t stop girls from approaching them. Jessica and Sophie had been discussing this in the stands earlier, making snide comments about those particular girls.

  Blythe only noticed she was wearing a gigantic grin on her face when Jacqueline gave her a strange look.

  She toned it down before greeting her.

  She used to always gush over my appearance, never caring about my actual skills or achievements other than they were better than others. Why is she suddenly paying attention to them now?