The Jade Palace, gleaming atop the volcano, looked from down here like a mocking taunt. Up there, among the clouds, reigned refined manners, tea ceremonies and robes that shifted from gold to white. Down here, in the Sulphur Rift, there was only black volcanic sand and the stench of rotten eggs that made your eyes water.
This narrow strip of beach, hidden by perpetual mist, was never visited by ‘decent’ students. It was the place for outcasts. For those the school system had spat out but not bothered to expel.
‘Shiro! Stop daydreaming!’ a rough voice barked, and the world exploded into pain.
Kieran hadn’t been quick enough. He had seen Kenji’s wand move, had begun to form the Protego formula in his mind, but the threat hadn’t come from magic.
Kenji’s heavy boot slammed into his shin, bringing sharp pain followed by numbness. His leg buckled. Kieran gasped; the shield spell shattered into sparks in his mind, and a fist followed — short, hard, straight to the cheekbone, then to the solar plexus.
The air was driven from his lungs as he fell onto the sand. Kieran doubled over, gulping salty mist. His wand slipped from slack fingers.
‘You’re watching the hands,’ Kenji spat into the sand and wiped his nose on his sleeve, then habitually rolled it up. His forearms were criss-crossed with old burns — memories of his father’s failed experiments with the yakuza. ‘You’re watching the wand, Shiro. You need to watch the enemy.’
Kieran dragged in a rasping breath. Pain throbbed in his leg and cheek, but he forced himself to lift his head.
‘I almost… made it,’ he croaked.
‘“Almost” is for poets up top,’ Kenji sneered, kicking Kieran’s wand further into the sand. ‘In a real fight “almost” means you’re dead. Magic needs breath. Take a wizard’s air — you kill his magic. Get up.’
Kenji was stocky, buzz-cut, with a face like a punching bag. He was the son of a disgraced house, and his magic was like him — crude, dirty, but effective.
A little way off, perched on a large boulder, Yumi watched the bout. She lazily smoked a thin Muggle cigarette, exhaling through her nose. She had dropped her glamour; a lock of her hair burned acid-purple against the grey sky. What could not be permitted in the palace became normal down here, at the bottom.
‘He still thinks like an aristocrat,’ she remarked in a bored drawl, flicking ash onto the black sand. ‘Tries to win prettily. Shiro, you’re European, but you act like our prissy upper-floor lot. Hit him in the groin. Throw sand in his eyes. Bite.’
‘I’m trying… to use spells,’ Kieran managed, struggling to his feet and brushing sticky black grit from his knees. The nickname ‘Shiro’ — White — grated on his ears. It referred not only to his skin but to the fact that he was a blank, a ghost, an empty page. A stray dog’s name.
But he answered to it. Because a dog needs a pack.
‘Spells are tools,’ Kenji said, settling back into a stance more like a boxer’s than a duellist’s. ‘Hands and feet are tools too. If you rely only on your Latin, I’ll break your jaw before you finish the incantation. Again.’
In the background came a dull thud. Hiro — huge and silent as a rock — was practising shield charms. Two tiny outcasts, barely ten years old, were furiously hurling fist-sized stones. Hiro didn’t move, only winced when Protego let a stray hit through.
Kieran retrieved his wand. His hands shook, but there was no fear or self-pity. Only cold, angry resolve. Down here no one would pity you for being an outsider. You either learned to tear throats or you stayed lying in the sulphur.
‘Come on,’ he breathed.
Kenji grinned, showing a chipped tooth.
‘Stupe—’ Kieran began, but cut himself off.
Kenji lunged, aiming a left hook at his head. Kieran didn’t raise a shield. He shifted back in a classic boxer’s retreat, hooking Kenji’s lead leg with a quick kick.
Kenji staggered but stayed upright. That second was enough.
‘Depulso!’ Kieran barked, knowing the gained instant was all he needed.
The spell struck Kenji in the chest, hurling him backwards. He landed on his backside, ploughing a furrow through the black sand.
Silence. Only the crash of waves and heavy breathing.
Yumi clapped slowly, cigarette still between her lips.
‘There. Already less like ballet.’
Kenji rose, rubbing his bruised chest. There was no anger in his eyes — only grim approval.
‘Dirty,’ he stated. ‘I like it.’
Half an hour later they sat by the water’s edge, watching leaden waves lap the black shore. Training was over; adrenaline had given way to dull exhaustion.
Yumi offered Kieran her pack of cigarettes. He shook his head.
‘Pity,’ she murmured, lighting another. ‘Helps with the sulphur taste.’
‘I’m saving my lungs,’ he replied, spitting; his split lip still bled.
‘For what?’ Kenji lay on his back, staring at the grey sky. ‘Think they’ll call you up for the Quidditch team? Or invite you to tea with the headmaster? We’re ronin, Shiro. We don’t need to preserve ourselves for the future. Just survive till graduation.’
Kieran looked at his hands. Knuckles raw, nails edged with black mourning. He was the son of an ancient British house, heir to the Morgans, yet here he sat in the dirt with a gangster’s son and a rebel outcast.
Humiliating. Wrong.
But when Hiro silently passed him a flask, Kieran felt a strange, painful warmth in his chest.
They weren’t friends in the storybook sense. They didn’t share secrets or laugh at jokes. They were a pack of beaten dogs huddled together to keep from freezing. And Kieran knew: without them he would break. Become just another stone in the waves.
‘I’ll get stronger,’ he said quietly, gripping the flask. ‘And so will you.’
‘Shut it, Shiro,’ Kenji muttered without malice, closing his eyes. ‘You talk too much.’
Kieran fell silent. He knew this was their way of saying: *You’re one of us.* And now, wiping blood from his chin, he understood that this dirty, brutal camaraderie was the only real thing he had in this jade hell.