by Eva Chase
Oh. I hadn’t thought about that angle—I’d barely accepted the idea that I wanted to kiss Jude, so I sure as hell hadn’t been considering future marriage plans. It’d actually been kind of a relief to know that he wasn’t making some kind of play because of my status, since he had the exact same clout.
He had sounded awfully serious when he’d talked about what he admired about me, about being willing to wait for me, for a guy who only expected this to be something temporary, though.
“I didn’t realize that,” I said. “I guess that’s something I should talk to him about.”
“Yes. Talk to him.” Declan let out a dry laugh. “It isn’t my business, and I’ve no claim here, but… I don’t want to see you get hurt. Not like that.” He paused. “How do you feel about him?”
“I—” I brought my hand to my mouth, inadvertently stirring up kissing memories again. We hadn’t gone much farther than that, but just the kissing had been thrilling enough to burn into my mind.
With Jude. Jude Killbrook. Another part of me still balked at the idea.
“Confused,” I settled on. “Very, very confused.”
Declan’s mouth shifted into a pained smile. “None of us has made it very easy for you, have we?”
“Well, at least I know for sure Malcolm hates my guts. That’s pretty straight-forward.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Declan muttered. I guessed Malcolm’s maliciousness could be plenty complicated.
Being the guy in charge obviously mattered a lot to the Nightwood scion, and I wasn’t surprised that Jude might enjoy that kind of authority, but…
The question tumbled out. “Why is it so important to you? Being baron—ruling over people? Or are you just worried about causing chaos too?”
Declan stiffened. “It’s not that. It’s—” He paused, his gaze sliding across the room. “I have a little brother. He’s seventeen now—he was practically a newborn when our mother died.”
I didn’t need to ask to know how much his brother meant to him. It was written all over his face. “He could take the barony, then, couldn’t he?”
“Maybe. I haven’t put him in a position where he had to consider it.” Declan looked at me again. “My aunt—my mother’s sister—took over as regent baron when I was younger. She wants the position for herself and her family.”
I cringed, remembering Imogen’s story about Connar’s parents. “Has she tried to attack you?”
“So far she’s stuck to undermining me in ways my father and I have been able to overcome, and she hasn’t risked making too big a move out of fear of being caught, but the older we get… As long as my brother and I are alive, we’re the primary heirs. We’re a threat to her goals. As long as I’m holding onto the barony, I’ll be her main target. She’ll leave Noah alone. I’ve put everything I have into making sure I hold onto my position so she never has any reason to set her sights on him.”
Something he’d said in our tense moment in the library came back to me. Everything I have, I had to fight for. I’d accused him of taking the easy route, of not caring enough to put in a real effort. No wonder he’d been angry.
He’d made himself a shield to protect his brother. Anything I asked from him beyond the requirements of a job might as well be an attempt to crack that shield.
A deeper emotion stirring beneath the constant flickering of attraction. The fearmancer world must feel as much like a war zone to him as it did to me. All the strictness and the attention to rules that had frustrated me weren’t just for his own gain but a set of defenses he no doubt needed to survive.
And he’d done it. He’d kept his position and shielded his brother for how long, without an elder baron to really guide him?
Because the joymancers had killed the baron who should have been there for him, to shield him from his aunt’s machinations.
“When did you take over the barony?” I had to ask.
“Six years ago,” he said, which in my quick mental calculation put him at fifteen. At that age, all I’d had to worry about was finishing my latest homeschool assignments. “I started insisting on sitting in on meetings a few years before that. I’m still not full baron, though. My aunt has the right to stay on as my ‘advisor’ until I finish my education here.”
“So this has basically been your whole life.” Had he ever gotten to really be a kid?
“It’s what I was born for. I’m doing my best with it.” His smile came back, small but genuine. “You don’t need to worry about me, Rory. I’m happy with my choices.”
He just hadn’t had very many. I dropped my gaze and rubbed my mouth, abruptly lost for words. “Are we okay to keep going with the tutoring?”
Declan blinked, startled. “Of course. I’m sorry I let my concerns about Jude interfere with our work. I’m not allowed to be jealous—can’t get much more straight-forward than that.”
It didn’t sound easy to me, but I wasn’t going to try to argue him out of helping me. Especially not when there was a specific way I’d been hoping he could help me deal with whatever crap Malcolm had brewing.
“Good,” I said. “There’s something else I’d like to focus on for the rest of our time today. We went over some techniques before for basic defenses during sleep, but I’m… not sure they’re totally doing the job. Any more intensive strategies you know, let me at them.”
Chapter Eighteen
Rory
I glanced up and down the hall of wooden doors and murmured as quietly as I could, “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
Deborah adjusted her position in the loose sleeve of my blouse. Her fur tickled against my wrist. It feels good to be getting out of that dorm building for once. If I can help you more than I’ve been able to so far—this is what I’m here for.
“Okay.” I pushed down the twinge of guilt. I wasn’t putting her in that much danger. The health center mage who was coming by a few times a day to check on Professor Banefield had left ten minutes ago. I’d watched him exit the building. No one else should be in Banefield’s quarters except the professor himself, who I didn’t think was alert enough right now to notice one little mouse.
I curled my fingers so my familiar could drop down into them and peek around the hall herself. “Do you see any gaps you could squeeze through? That’s his door, the next one on the right.”
There’s a gap at the bottom of the frame I should be able to manage. I’m discovering the best thing about old buildings is they’ve had lots of time to warp. Her dry chuckle tingled through my head. Let’s do this, Lorelei.
I stopped just outside Banefield’s office door and knelt as if to adjust the strap on my shoe. Deborah darted from my hand and squirmed through the gap under the door in two seconds flat. My pulse hiccupped as I straightened up again, but I couldn’t linger there. I had to give her time to make her investigations and then pass by again when she’d be waiting.
Thankfully, I had a perfectly good excuse to go calling on the headmistress. I hadn’t talked to Ms. Grimsworth since Banefield’s second collapse, other than briefly right after I’d called for help. She couldn’t blame me for having questions now that he’d been sick for more than a week.
I’d made an appointment, so the headmistress was expecting me. To my surprise, she answered the door and immediately ushered me out into the hall instead of welcoming me into her office.
“You’re coming by with excellent timing, Miss Bloodstone,” she said. “I would have requested your presence later today if you hadn’t gotten in touch. Given the uncertain state of your mentor’s health and how new you still are to the school, I’ve decided it’s best if I assign you a temporary substitute mentor while Professor Banefield continues to recover.”
He was that bad, then, that she didn’t think he’d be able to offer me guidance again any time soon? I swallowed hard. “Is he recovering? That was actually why I wanted to see you—I know the health center let him return to his apartment here…”
“He has shown progress,�
�� Ms. Grimsworth said with a grim expression that suggested it hadn’t been much. “They don’t feel he’s in critical condition at the moment, and he’s more comfortable in his own space.” She motioned me down the hall.
“Do they know what exactly he’s sick from?” I ventured. I wasn’t sure it was safe to outright ask about the possibility of malicious magic being involved, but it made sense for me to worry in general. “I saw him in between the two episodes—is it something contagious?”
“From what they’ve told me, there’s no apparent threat to the rest of us. If there was, we’d have him taken to his home off campus.” She stopped in front of one of the doors down the hall and rapped her knuckles against it.
I hadn’t had a chance to ask her who she was assigning as my new mentor, but the plaque on the door told me in an instant. Prof. Isla Viceport.
Oh, shit. The Physicality professor had been chilly with me from my first seminar with her, for no reason I could figure out. When I’d asked her if there was anything wrong with my performance in class, she’d brushed me off with a cutting remark. And since I’d started my new schedule with two Physicality seminars a week, I’d been struggling to keep up. My conjurings and transformations kept falling apart even as I tried to build them up.
Professor Viceport had not been impressed. Her cold disapproval hadn’t exactly helped my concentration or confidence.
“I—” I started, fumbling for a protest that wouldn’t sound pathetic, but it was too late. Viceport opened the door and peered at us through her rectangular glasses. Stick-thin, her tall frame looked as if it’d been made out of sinew and wire, but she managed to hold it with a certain elegance that made me feel small under her gaze.
“You’re already familiar with each other,” Ms. Grimsworth said briskly. “I’ll let you two discuss how you’ll proceed with Miss Bloodstone’s mentorship until such time as Professor Banefield can return to his post.”
She nodded to Viceport and headed back down the hall, leaving me stranded there with the teacher whose gaze had only gotten icier as she’d studied me.
“Well, come in,” Viceport said in a clipped voice, and spun so quickly her ash-blond pixie cut fluttered around her head.
Her office looked a lot like her: sleek, pale, and elegant. She had the same built-in mahogany bookshelves as the other staff offices I’d been in, but her chairs were modern white leather, her desk glass-topped. A light peach rug covered most of the hardwood floor.
I sank into one of the chairs opposite the desk automatically, my hands coming to rest on the cool leather arms, but Professor Viceport stayed standing, her lips pressed into a pinched frown.
“I will assist with any issues you have beyond your classwork as need be. I trust you are mostly up to speed and settled in at this point.” She lifted her phone from the desk. “Let’s determine the best time for our weekly meetings, and that should cover it for today. Will Tuesdays at four work for you?”
“Um, I have a seminar then. I was seeing Professor Banefield in the morning on—”
“I can’t keep to your original session time. Five on Tuesdays or three on Thursday?”
“Three on Thursday should be okay.” I reached into my purse to make a note for myself, and Viceport stepped back to the door. She really didn’t want to spend any more time with me than she absolutely had to, did she.
I got up as she rested her hand on the doorknob, but my nerves jittered. I’d expected to be able to maintain a decent conversation with Ms. Grimsworth to give Deborah the time she needed. I didn’t think she’d have finished her investigations yet. I couldn’t just stand around in the staff hallway for minutes on end waiting for her to emerge.
There had to be ways I could stall. I fumbled for another topic—the one I’d brought up with the headmistress should work. Viceport specialized in Physicality, after all, which was the domain any health-related magic fell under among the fearmancers.
“Have you seen Professor Banefield since he got sick?” I asked. “I don’t know if you’ve done much work on the medical side of Physicality…”
Viceport gave me a flat look. “I haven’t seen your former mentor. What exactly do you think I could tell you if I had?”
“I just wondered if you had any idea what’s wrong. He does seem to be pretty sick—it’s hard not to worry.”
The professor sighed. Her voice came out not just chilly but frigid now. “Miss Bloodstone, I realize you’ve gotten much fanfare for your return and your assessment, but regardless of your family, the world does not revolve around your desires. The health center staff are looking after Professor Banefield. He will recover on his own time regardless of how much you’d prefer to continue consulting with him rather than me. His needs come before your own at this particular moment.”
My face flushed. “That’s not—that wasn’t what I meant.” Why did she have to take a totally normal expression of concern and turn it into something horribly selfish?
“If you insist.” She turned the knob to open the door.
She might have been a professor, but there was only so much of that cool, cutting tone I could take before my temper flared.
“What exactly is your problem with me?” I said. “We’re going to have to see each other even more than usual now. Whatever it is, you might as well tell me so I can at least try to do something about it.”
Viceport stared down at me, just a hair shy of a glare. “I know Bloodstones well,” she said. “The apple rarely falls far from the tree, and I haven’t seen any reason to believe it did this time. I will teach you. I will not be your friend.”
She tugged the door wide. I wavered for a second and then walked out with no idea how I could answer that. She’d known Bloodstones? Great. I hadn’t known any of them. I couldn’t even be totally sure whether being like my mother and whatever other relatives I had on that side was a good thing or a bad one by my definition.
I ambled down the hall as slowly as I could without my hesitation being obvious. To my relief, as Professor Viceport’s door clicked shut behind me, I caught a glimpse of a tiny nose peeking from beneath Banefield’s door.
The hall was empty, but I bent down like before to collect Deborah, making a show of adjusting my other shoe. She scrambled up my sleeve to nestle at the crook of my elbow. The billowing of the blouse hid her small shape completely.
I didn’t dare say anything knowing Viceport might come back out at any moment, but my familiar didn’t need prompting.
He was in his bed. His breathing sounded hoarse. He tossed and turned a few times, but he seemed to be asleep. I went through the whole apartment and didn’t sense any harmful magic. No sign of a new familiar either. She paused. Every time he turned over, he scratched at his knee. I’m not sure if that’s a sign of anything.
I didn’t remember anything in my reading specifically about knees. Maybe Imogen would have some idea, if she was willing to entertain more of my increasingly odd questions about magical illnesses.
At least Declan’s latest tips had seemed to work to keep my mind shielded last night. I’d had a nightmare, but only the regular one about the morning my parents died. I’d woken up sweating but with my possessions intact and my throat feeling normal. I didn’t think I’d done any shouting this time.
We’d see how long it took my dormmates to forget how ill I’d started to appear to be.
As I came up on the dorm building, I spotted my least favorite of those dormmates. Victory Blighthaven’s auburn hair gleamed a little even in the shadow around the side of the building, where she was saying something to a guy I’d seen around. From the wave of her hand and her fierce expression, I got the impression they were arguing. As I slowed to watch, she gave him a little shove and disappeared around the back. The guy headed my way.
I wouldn’t have given the moment much thought except when the guy saw me, he sped up. He caught up with me before I’d reached the doors and held out a hand for me to wait. I stopped, all my senses going on high alert.
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“Rory,” the guy said with a smile that was probably supposed to be smooth. “I hear you’re a hard one to impress.”
“Are you planning on trying? Because really, I haven’t asked anyone to, and you should probably save yourself the trouble.”
His mouth tightened, and then he barreled onward. “If you saw what I’m thinking about, you might not say that. I also hear you’re quite the pro at Insight.”
Was he daring me to try to delve into his mind? A wary prickle ran up my back. I didn’t like this at all.
“All right, I’ll take a peek then,” I said, but I kept my mental shields tightly in place.
Either the guy didn’t have enough insight skill to tell whether I was prodding his mind, or he was too focused on his scheme to pay attention. “You want to go on a date with me,” he said, in a raspier version of the sort of tone Malcolm took on when he was working a persuasion spell. “You’re going to walk with me over to my car right now.”
His effort pinged right off my defenses, but that didn’t make me any happier about the attempt. I drew my posture straighter, ready to tell him off, when a brawny form jumped in, grabbing the guy by the arm.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing to her?” Connar demanded, his fingers squeezing the guy’s bicep so hard the guy winced.
My stomach lurched. I’d been pissed off at the guy, but I was even more pissed off at the scion who’d intervened.
“I’m fine,” I said. “He didn’t manage to do anything. Let him go.”
Connar frowned, but he released the other guy’s arm. I glared at my supposed suitor. Had Victory put him up to using that spell on me? “Get the hell out of here. You try something like that again, and I will dive into your head, and I’m sure I can find all kinds of things in there you wouldn’t want anyone finding out.”
Being caught between two scions had obviously rattled the guy pretty badly. He hustled away without a backward glance—or an apology. I guessed that would have been too much to ask.
