“You know what, forget it,” I grumble, turning back to the door. “Knock yourself out.”
“Wait.”
My hand freezes on the warm brass handle, and I twist my neck to look back at him.
“I can’t make an arc.” His near-inaudible admission is heavy with frustration. “It just won’t make the shape I fucking want it to.”
His grudging request for help is progress, but I can’t treat it as such, or he’ll regress out of spite. Straightening my spine, I put more reluctance into my steps than I really feel as I head for his side, holding my hand out for his grimoire.
It’s still slimmer than it should be at his age, and I frown at the lightness of it as I carry it back to the table in the cornerand compare the runeform he’s drawn to the one in the textbook.
“You’re out by a few degrees on this line,” I correct, humming under my breath. “Which could be causing your difficulty. How are you finding the incantation?”
“Shit. Why can’t you guys just use English?”
I roll my eyes. I can’t help it. A pen appears in my hand, and I offer it to him so he can mark the correct line. I’m even a little impressed when he draws a scrap out of his pocket and uses a simple erasing spell to remove the incorrect one.
He’s still inept enough to hand over his grimoire without complaint, but he’s learning faster than I sometimes give him credit for.
Wait.
I blink twice, half convinced I’m dreaming. Is that…?
The final page of the contract is laid flat on the table just beyond where we’re working.
And it now bears a messy, scrawled signature at the bottom.
North…signed it? Platonically, surely? My gut flutters, and my fingers itch to nudge the paper aside, to see what he wrote on the first two pages. Which boxes did he tick?
Nope. I’m not going there. He probably didn’t tick anything. I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Magic, given our interactions so far, I shouldn’t be as invested as I am. There’s attraction, sure. He’s the coarsest of the heirs but still devilishly beautiful.
Any reluctant attraction on my part is almost certainly unrequited. He’s never so much as suggested… Unless the book he gave me at Christmas, and the way he dealt with Goodberry on the day the Arcanaeum reopened were…? No. I’m not that obtuse. I would’ve noticed… Right?
It’s no longer a matter of curiosity. Ineedto see what he wrote.
Unfortunately, he notes the direction of my gaze and shifts another book to cover the paper.
“Fire spell first. Then we’ll talk.”
A shiver runs up my spine at the darkness in his tone. It’s not…resentment. At least, I don’t think it is. More like…disapproval or…heat.
Only, that’s ridiculous.
Clearing my throat, I move aside. “Try again.”
With a grumpy huff, he takes the book and brings it to hover beside him in one silent motion that has me wanting to strangle him.
How much has he been practising to be able to cast that spell without using the incantation? Eddy was right to be concerned.
“Inflemi erchehlon,” he grunts, placing his hand over the runeform while directing the palm of the other away from us both.
The fireball that erupts from his outstretched palm is almost an arc. Well, really it resembles a fizzling drunken firework, but I can see exactly what his error was.
“Try again. This time, try not to butcher the incantation. It’saerchilon. Air-shill-on. Not whatever you just said.”
The yellow in his eyes deepens, becoming a dark amber as he pauses. For a second, I don’t think he’ll do it.
Then he returns to the grimoire, deliberately releasing the rigid set of his muscles, and casts again.
