The thing is:

The magic in this world is weird and lackadaisical,¹ Natter very clearly and obviously did not bother to put together a real magic system. It was all very “sword and sorcery, whee!” vibes. He just said stuff about magic and how they worked when he wanted to. (Like when Natter had Alex find out in the heat of battle that he’s a fire Elemental—a mage that can control fire—and then spend the rest of the novels setting people on fire with flamethrower hands. Except when Natter needed a flashier fight. Then Alex fought with a flaming sword, like he’s some sort of avenging angel.) I’d made fun of the nonexistent magical system when I’d been reading. But now that I’m here, maybe it being so ‘vibey’ will actually be helpful to me.  but I do know born seers exist here.

Of course, most of them are either in the King’s employ or dead, thanks to the King’s iron-clad grip on all magic here. But some are alive, either hiding their powers or even as yet unaware of their powers. That was a whole subplot in the second book in the series: Alex discovering his latent magic and seeking out some hedge witch seer, who tells him that he’ll be the first Mage-King.

Granted, telling them I'm magic is a bit of a risky move. Maybe there are ways for them to verify I'm a seer. Even if they believe me, they'll technically have to turn me over to the King to comply with the magic ban.

But as long as I can convince them the King and Queen are out for their family, that should stop their need to hand over magic users. And also hopefully be enough to distract them from confirming my claim.

And I mean, it might not be a lie. Those extremely weird and vivid images in the Morrells’ cabin had to have been a seer’s vision, my imagination’s not that good.

Sure, the books hadn’t mentioned anything about Aurelia having magic. But she was apparently friendly with the rebels and the books hadn’t mentioned that either.

Anyway, it’s the only scheme I’m able to think up under duress. I’m a high school senior, not a master strategist. We can’t all be Livinia.² Have I not mentioned Livinia yet? She’s like, the best female character in the series, by like, a mile. Of course, Alex Prime hadn’t appreciated her any, the idiot. Livinia’s not shown up in the story yet, but she will. Or at least, I hope so, because she’s the one character I actually want to meet.

There’s a really long silence after my “I’m a seer” proclamation.

“That’s impossible! If it were true, you would’ve told me!” Alex burst out first. “Why are you saying this? Didn’t I tell you to tell the truth?”

He genuinely looks so hurt and confused, I almost feel bad.

Almost. Survival before boys.

“I mean. Uhm. I just didn’t?”

Alex audibly grinds his teeth. “Nothing about this makes any sense. You’re not making any sense. You’re not acting like yourself. Not since yesterday. Hiding with the women and children, forgetting things you should know, even the way you speak, it isn’t…”

Again, he notices? Why is Alex so obsessed with Aurelia?

“Well, Keeps don’t get invaded everyday,” I rush out. And deploy another block and swerve for good measure. “What's your alternative? Why would I work with rebels and then change my mind at the last moment?”

“I don’t know! You were the one who said you couldn’t harm me or my family but refused to cut ties with them. Why don’t you tell me what you meant?”

“See!” I say, like I’ve known that all along and not like I learned that when Alex mentioned it earlier. “So I’ve never told you everything. Why would you think I’d have told you about this?”

“Because you trust me, like I trust you! Or you did, before those rebel bastards got into your head—“

“You do realize you’re trying to squirrel out of a crime by admitting to another crime, Aurelia?” The Duchess cuts in. Wow, this family sure has a way of side-stepping what Alex says. “A capital crime, for stealing from his Majesty?”

Honestly, why the hell is it so hard to get Aurelia away from any threat of imprisonment or murder? I mean, I successfully avoided any attempts on my life and liberty for eighteen years without even trying.

This stupid book series has it out for her, it’s the only explanation.

“I’m just saying I have magic, to be clear. Not that I was purposely using it, because I wasn’t,” I say quickly.

Hiding that you had magic after your ‘awakening’, so to speak, was illegal, but apparently you mostly got reprimanded for that and then get shipped out to the capital and put to work for the King.

Actively using magic, on the other hand, got you killed. All magic by law belongs to the King, so you were, as Valeria phrased it, technically “stealing” from the Crown.

“I don’t have any control over my visions. And I don’t know any fancy ceremonies to evoke one. So what I saw with the Keep was one-hundred-and-one percent accidental. I wasn’t even really sure sure I was a seer before the Keep vision. My life’s so mundane that my visions were too. So I just thought that I had, uh, a very vivid imagination and really good hunches,”³ I am indeed shamelessly stealing from the hedge witch seer’s “backstory” (info dump, really) when she met Alex. I’m just lightly editing the end bit. For once in my life, I’m grateful to my parents for giving me a memory that can’t remember names or deadlines but will always store away the most mundane, borderline useless trivia from books. I continue. “And sometimes they were even wrong!⁴I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, these seers sound pretty useless. What’s the point if they one, mostly can’t control what they see, and two, can even be wrong?” And well. You’re absolutely right and this universe agrees. That’s why the King tries so hard to control the other types of magic but basically turns a blind eye to rogue seers, and also why Alex Prime was super judgmental about the hedge witch seer before they actually met. That’s how hedge witch seer got to live her best life in her secret coven, before she sexily gave Alex some information and then sexily seduced him. But then I got the Keep vision and couldn’t risk it coming true.”

Luke crosses his arms, looking stoic and thoughtful.

“That’s… what our books say about the abilities of untrained seers,” he says. “But Aurelia couldn’t have known that unless it came from experience. Books on magic are too strictly controlled. Even ours are closely guarded.”

Of course it’d be Luke who’d believe me first. Oh, I could kiss him!

“Of course! You’re absolutely right Luke, I can’t possibly know otherwise!” I say, trying not to sound too enthused.

The Duke scoffs at the same time.

“Luke, can’t you tell this troublemaker is just trying to distract us?” He folds his arms. “She was in communications with the rebels. She could’ve learned all sorts of things from those pro-magic lunatics.”

Luke… slowly shakes his head.

“Perhaps. But don’t you think we would be remiss not to hear her story in its entirety and then make our judgment, Father? Aurelia’s allegations are serious. If she is telling the truth and the King and Queen see us as a threat, then the people of the Keep are in grave danger,” he says.

I’m honestly impressed that he remembered I said that about the King and Queen, and that his first impulse was to worry about the people under his family’s protection. Alex Prime really wasn’t exaggerating, Luke is everything he—

“Aurelia,” Luke says. I jolt, and snatch my mind back from where it’d flown.

Focus, Aurelia, you’re in a serious situation here.

“Could you tell us more about what you saw in your vision?” He asks. “Are you sure that the attackers came under the orders of the King and Queen?”

“I—Yes, I am. I saw—Well,“ I hesitate.

I know I wouldn’t want to know more about my would-be death. Remembering what I did before I blacked out is already traumatic enough, I don’t particularly need someone to also paint me a picture of how I’d looked under the car’s tires.

But maybe telling them the details of the gruesome fates they dodged will make them take me more seriously. And underscore how carefully they should now act.

I close my eyes, and pull from the back of my memories the most vivid images of the series’s opening. For as much as I complained about these books, that part had been done very well. After all, it had been that hook that had propelled me through the thousands of pages that followed.

“I remember… The Keep burning. Dead men and women, piled one upon the other. Luke, sword still in hand, speared through and thrown on top of the bodies of cowering children. The Duke and Duchess in the Great Hall, lifeless after a double suicide. Me, my body burned and disfigured I have to be identified by my hair.” I swallow. “Alex—Alex alive, mistakenly left for dead, shambling towards the ruins of the Keep. But he’s not… not the same.”

And that was true too.

I’ve only known my Alex all of two days, but this I know for sure. This Alex may be spoiled and brash, with a temper that made me uneasy. But he clearly felt every emotion. He’s not someone I can imagine… doing the things Alex Prime did in the books.

I blink open my eyes, and the images of mundane lives destroyed and Alex’s grief and despair and rage and slow descent into madness disappear.

“I saw the attackers report to the King and Queen. The King thinks you were about to turn against him—but alone by herself afterwards, the Queen celebrates your death, because a major obstacle to her consolidating power has been eliminated. She wants to usurp the throne,” I finish.

After I finish answering Luke’s question, there’s again silence. But unlike the silence that followed my last mic drop, this one is much less incredulous—and much more tense.

As it should be. For the first time since I arrived here, I’m telling the truth. The whole, unvarnished truth.

I look around, trying to gauge each of their reactions.

Hopefully by doing so, I won’t end in a, like, Cassandra of Troy situation.⁵If you don't know her, long story short: Cassandra of Troy accurately predicts the future, no one believes her, she gets kidnapped by the enemy and then brutally murdered. The end.

The Duke speaks first.

“The action we must take here is clear,” he says. His voice is doing that booming, authoritative thing again. I’m sure in his head he calls it like, his ‘orders’ mode.

All eyes—including mine—turn from wherever they were looking in thought towards him.

Oh God, it is going to turn into a Cassandra situation.

“We will do as we should with all discovered mages and send her to the King,” the Duke—no no, hold up, I’m not going to politely call him and his wife by their titles anymore. People this mean and rude deserve to be called by their first names—Magnus says. “If she is lying, those in the King’s employ will discover it and she will be duly punished. If she is telling the truth, then she and our delegates can rectify the King’s misapprehensions—and protect him before the worst can happen, as is our duty.”

Seriously, I just don’t want to die again slash still, what is so difficult to understand about this.