Apprentice (Into the After Book 1)

by Patricia Thomas

  “I could never hate you,” Tommen answered, finally. “And we’re both adults. If it isn’t working, then it isn’t working. But I think I know you well enough to know that this is at least worth a shot. And you haven't said no." Tommen pointed out the obvious. "So that's promising."

  "I haven't. But I'm a little surprised. I'm all for the teamwork thing, I think we can cheer one another on to do even better than we could alone. That makes sense."

  "And the dating thing?"

  "I still don't think it's a good idea for me to get involved in something serious while I'm an apprentice.” I took a breath, bracing myself for what I wanted to say next. “If I got a chance to be with you, I'd want to give it, you, everything I could. My whole self. And I can't do that right now, maybe not ever. This position is all I've ever wanted, and I'm so close. What if this starts to be too much of a distraction? Or we both get assigned outside of Sanctum once we graduate? I’d be risking too much.”

  "Would it help if I pointed out that by not giving this a shot, you could be risking a lot more than your career? You deserve to be happy as well as successful.” I pursed my lips together, considering all the options, but Tommen wasn’t finished. “Or that I’m willing to enjoy as much of you as you're able to share, and wouldn't ask for anything more?"

  "You can't mean that. Maybe now, but not for long."

  "I'm willing to try. That does not count for something?"

  Willing to try. I turned his phrasing over in my head, seeing it for the challenge that it was. If I said no now to something I really wanted what did I really stand to gain?

  I hadn't set out to start this new life in Sanctum as an apprentice, intending never to date again. Just that there would always be part of my past I couldn't share.

  It still felt dishonest agreeing to even attempt a relationship with Tommen, knowing I'd never be as honest as he would be with me. But he had said he was willing to take only as much as I wanted to give, and while he couldn't know what it was he was agreeing to I could still believe he meant every word he said.

  I nodded. Tommen’s face lit up in an instant, and even my weary body perked up with excitement, my breath quickening and my pulse fluttering even more than it had been as we neared the end of the first half of our run. "Let's do dinner, and see how it goes. At the first sign of trouble, we’ll call it off and go back to just being friends."

  "How about the second sign of trouble?" Tommen negotiated.

  "Don't push your luck."

  Of course, it was right then, as Tommen started to lean in toward me, that Gennie came back holding three brown bags that I could only assume held our lunches.

  Panicked, my gaze darted back toward Gennie but her eyes were already flashing with recognition at what was going on in front of her. Eyes wide, she spun back around, pretending not to see what was about to happen.

  Not even embarrassed, I shifted my weight toward Tommen, and the two of us met in the middle as our lips touched and my eyes fluttered shut.

  Chapter 14

  By the end of my third year as an apprentice librarian I felt more like a walking, talking blend of caffeine, anxiety and obscure, bookish knowledge than an actual human.

  But even though I was barely sleeping, I would be the first one to admit that by my third year in Sanctum, things were going better than I ever would've guessed.

  Writing down the very last question on my exam as the final minute of our allotted hour ticked to a close, I put down the pen I'd been clenching in my hand and looked around at the rest my class. They all looked to be waking up at the same time from the same exam-induced stupor that I was going through.

  Year three was finished. All my assignments were handed in, tests were written and there was officially nothing else I could do to affect my ranking for the year.

  A ranking I would find out in the next few minutes.

  I waited for Tommen and the others just outside the door as the rest of the class filed out , one by one. But surprisingly, that time, we weren't all heading in the same direction.

  Against all odds, there are still forty-two of us in our year, something most of our class usually noted as a point of pride, but it was looking like fewer and fewer of us cared about where we ranked by the end of the year.

  When I made it to the third level stairwell of the academy, less than half the class was there.

  Steph was already looking around, impatient. "Do you guys mind if I skip all this and just meet you downstairs whenever you're finished here?" Though she asked the question to the group, her eyes found Gennie’s right away. The two of them had broken up for almost two months not long before, and had only been back together a few weeks.

  Things were still unsteady, but they both seemed cautiously optimistic. And happy for an excuse to be around one another again. The rest of us were just happy not to have to play referee between our friends any longer.

  Tommen and I had a much less tumultuous year. In fact, being in a relationship was a lot easier than I remembered. Everything about being with Tommen seemed to come naturally to me. I couldn’t say when we’d officially started dating, and we’d certainly never had a conversation about whether or not we were exclusive to one another. Instead, through a mix of personal choice and the decisions of whichever librarians were in charge of class schedules, we ended up together all the time. All the relationship stuff just fell into place around what we already had, and possibly, made it even better.

  I glanced over to the still empty wall, awaiting the arrival of the rankings for the year.

  "Breathe," Tommen reminded me. I inhaled sharply, my body grateful for the oxygen. Right, breathing. That was important. It was basically medic training one-oh-one.

  Just gotta keep breathing.

  "Whatever happens, it's all going to be fine," Tommen said. "You know you did great this year. You'll be in the top five, no question." He wiggled his eyebrows at me, our secret code.

  I had confessed to him, back during our third year midterms that it was a little embarrassing for me to admit to my friends how badly I wanted that top spot. So whenever other people were around, the two of us pretended that all either one of us really cared about was getting into the top five.

  We both knew that what we actually wanted was the top two spots.

  And the really funny thing was that I genuinely didn't care whether I ended up at number one or number two, so long as Tommen held the other position. His success had become my success, and a big part of me was rooting for him to have come out above me.

  A big part. But not the whole part.

  As silently as a new title arriving in the Archive’s warehouses, down below the library, our rankings were posted on the wall only a few feet away.

  I forgot to breathe all over again.

  Hours later and our final end-of-year party was in full swing. We were all well aware that by this time next year, we'd be far too preoccupied to get drunk down in the basement of the Archive. Instead, we would be preparing to dedicate our lives to it.

  So we all intended to make the most of our very last end of year party.

  And I couldn't wait. I was more sure than ever that becoming a keeper was the right path for me but I also intended to take full advantage of my final year as an apprentice to explore every possible facet of being a librarian of the Archive. It felt important that as a Keeper I would have a thorough understanding of everything that went into making the Archive run as it did.

  Tommen was a little less certain about what he wanted to do after he graduated but since our fourth year would mainly consist of working as junior members of the orders, he still had a chance to get a genuine feel for what working with each group might be like.

  But that could all wait another week until we were back from a very well-deserved vacation. And for that night, I still had a whole lot of celebrating to do.

  "To the highest ranked apprentice in our class," Tommen said, holding up his glass and eliciting the same motion from everyone who was sta
nding around us. "Who also happens to be the most incredible woman I've ever met. To Tari."

  "To Tari," everyone else echoed back, leaving me grinning like a moron and the happiest I'd ever been.

  I woke up the next morning happy, and unexpectedly, not hung over.

  Almost like she could sense that I was awake, moments after I opened my eyes I heard the sound of Steph pounding on the door to my bedroom. "Up, up, up."

  "We're supposed to be relaxing this week, remember?"

  "Not anymore. Seriously, get out of bed. I have news!"

  "You're moving," Steph said as soon as I opened the door, shoving an envelope with my name on it in front of my face.

  I snatched it away from her but she had already started talking again. "I've been waiting for you to get up for an hour. When I got out of bed this morning there were two envelopes sitting on the counter, one with each of our names on it. Everyone else got them too. New room assignments. New roommates."

  I opened my own envelope and read its contents.

  You have been assigned a new residence, effective immediately. From this point on, you will reside in James House, room 127.

  New roommate assignment: Tommen Lewis.

  "Is this real?" I asked, looking up at Steph, worrying that the joy I could hear in her voice was actually the result of a poorly concealed prank.

  Steph shook her head enthusiastically, and I knew she wasn’t messing with me. She turned her own letter around so I could read it. She was staying here, but Gennie would be moving into our apartment with her. "Everyone else is coming over now."

  "What, did they all get a notification when I finally woke up?"

  "Hey, you're lucky we all waited and let you sleep in. Tommen insisted. But I'm sure if it weren't for the fact that it would have woken you up, up he would've been over here an hour ago forcibly moving your stuff into his apartment. He’s damn excited!"

  As Steph paused to catch her breath, I heard the familiar sound of the front door opening. Three distinct sets of footsteps clambered into our kitchen. A moment later, Steph and I had joined our friends, most of them looked as happy as I felt.

  Jericho, not so much.

  Seeing both Gennie’s and Tommen’s new assignment cards was enough to finally let me believe this was really happening. Somehow, after the best day of my life the day before, it looked like things were going to get even better.

  "So how did this happen?" I asked as I put on the coffee maker for everyone. "Somehow, I don't see the librarians caring all that much about who everyone wants to live with. Or who we're dating. Did everyone in our year get reassigned?"

  Tommen shook his head to say he didn't know, but Gennie was already answering. "Not everyone. Probably a little more than half of us.

  "Maybe this is the Archive's way of giving all us our best shot at making it through to graduation by letting us live with our first choice," I suggested before looking apologetically over at Steph. "No offence."

  "Yeah, yeah. absolutely none taken. I’m getting a roommate upgrade too. I didn't even know this was a possibility," she said, turning to look at Gennie. "But I'm thrilled." She reached over and gave her girlfriend's hand a squeeze, a gesture which was quickly returned before the two leaned into one another.

  "Speak for yourself," Jericho added in, waving his own reassignment cart around. "I got stuck with Marybeth Yessen. And why? Just because she was Gennie’s old roommate, so this was the easiest reassignment. I don’t want to live with a girl! I'm going to have to start cleaning up after myself."

  "Believe me, Marybeth has never cleaned up after herself a day in her life." At Jericho's disgruntled frown she added, "but she really is super nice. I'm sure you guys will get along fine."

  Everyone else laughed, but Jericho still mostly looked pissed. I couldn't blame him. All his friends were getting the very thing they hadn’t even hoped to wish for, and he was stuck living with a girl not one of us besides Gennie had ever really spoken to in the last three years.

  "I guess this means our relaxing week off is actually going to be a whole lot of packing and unpacking," Steph said, but not really looking like she minded the extra effort, not if the end result was her living with the woman she loved.

  "Fine," Jericho said without prompting, making the word to sound more like a whine than a statement. "I’ll do a spell to help with the packing. You guys get all the boxes, and clean all three apartments."

  Surprised, I looked over at Tommen's now former roommate, and one of my closest friends. During the entire time I'd known him, even though we all knew he was technically a wizard, I'd never once seen him do any magic. The gift he'd inherited from his mother always left him physically exhausted, to the point where he preferred to live almost as though he were prosaic, rather than having any magic at all.

  "You don't have to do that," Tommen said quickly. "It's a lot to ask."

  "If it means getting you out of my hair faster, that I'm all for it," Jericho said, still obviously joking while still managing to come off as sincere.

  "No, this moving thing will be a pain if we do it any other way. We all worked insanely hard this year, we deserve a week off. Let everyone else spend the next nine days scrambling to get everything they own into boxes and across the street or up several floors in a building with an elevator. We'll spend our week relaxing by the pier.”

  Jericho shot us all a big smile. "But I'm serious about you guys doing the cleaning thing. And if I'm going to do this, then I need to start resting up much now."

  "You're sure?" I asked. Jericho nodded. "Okay, then you'd better get some sleep. The rest of us have a lot of work to do."

  Even with Jericho’s help, the moving process ended up taking three whole days—about one for each of the reassigned apartments. But the first night I got to crawl into bed with Tommen and fall asleep in his arms made it all worth it.

  For three nights in a row, I went to sleep wondering how I’d managed to get so lucky. It genuinely felt like I had everything I’d ever wanted, and I was probably starting to creep out my friends with all my constant grinning.

  But on that Tuesday morning, as I lay in bed, Tommen still asleep beside me, I remembered exactly how I’d gotten that far. I remembered what it had all cost, and what I had done.

  And that I was lying to the man lying in bed beside me. A man I loved. And who loved and trusted me.

  The same man who made me pancakes that morning, all while I could barely look him in the eye.

  “Is everything okay?” Tommen asked, as I pushed my final pieces of pancake around on my plate.

  “Just thinking,” I answered, not looking up.

  “About anything in particular?” I could feel Tommen’s brown eyes watching me, and all I wanted to do was to get as far away from him as possible.

  “Nope. Nothing.” I got up and put my plate in the sink.

  That night, I only went to bed once Tommen was already asleep, but it took hours of tossing and turning before exhaustion finally took me.

  The next morning, things were even more uncomfortable between Tommen and I, but I didn’t know how to fix it. Anything I said to him would just be another lie.

  It wasn’t right.

  “You have to tell me what’s going on,” Tommen said finally, sitting down at the table across from me. I’d been hiding behind a book, hoping to get swept up in a story long enough to get my head on straight again. To figure out what I could do to make this right.

  “I’m fine,” I said, not for the first time. “It’s just an adjustment. Moving in with someone new.” Even though Tommen didn’t say anything, I could feel him sitting across from me, willing to wait me out until I gave him something more.

  Not bothering with a bookmark, I closed what I was reading and put it down in front of me.

  “I mean, it was a little presumptuous of the librarians to just assume they knew who we’d want to live with. And to spring this on us right before we had to start the hardest year of our apprenticeship, right?”<
br />
  I didn’t know what kind of answer I was expecting Tommen to give, but knew as soon as Tommen’s expression fell from worried to hurt to angry, that I’d said the wrong thing. Again.

  But maybe that was what I should have done a long time before. I’d let myself get too comfortable, comfortable enough to even fall in love. And now it was only a matter of time before one or both of us got hurt.

  “Why are you being like this? Where is this coming from? We both know that there was magic involved in the room assignments, and maybe there’s a reason behind it that you don’t understand. But I would have thought this was what you wanted. It was what I wanted. We talked about living together later, after graduation. Why is it such an issue for you all a sudden?”

  I let out a frustrated grunt, not sure which question I was supposed to answer first. And knowing there was really no answer I could give that would make him happy. Not unless I was willing to go back to lying to him.

  And I wasn’t sure that was something I could do a moment longer. But that didn’t mean I could tell him the truth either.

  “I can’t do this,” I said out loud, surprising myself. “It’s not fair to you. There’s so much you don’t know.” I stood up, stepping backward away from Tommen to try and give myself some distance to figure out what to do next. Maybe I could convince the librarian’s to undo some of their new assignments, to put me with Marybeth and Jericho back with Tommen. We still had some time left before the new school year. It could work. Then I could...

  “Tari, Tari. It’s okay. Calm down.” Tommen reached for me, but I instantly recoiled. I couldn’t let him touch me. I couldn’t let this go any further than it already had. “I already know.”

  I stopped moving instantly, hands still held up in front of me to keep Tommen from getting any closer. Finally, almost comically slowly, I shook my head. “You don’t know. You can’t.”

  Tommen took a step closer to me. I moved back the same distance. I was convinced Tommen was way off the mark.

  No one knew what it was I was keeping from him.