“Is this spot taken?” Felix said. The sound of hearing his voice out loud in public was far more disturbing than she thought it would be.
Avery turned to the shifter, cocked her hip, crossed her arms, and looked up at him with a scowl on her face. “It is actually.”
He gave a polite smile; on the outside, it would look like he was nothing more than a gentlemanly student. But the words that came out of his mouth were anything but. “Move the fuck over before I make you.”
A traitorous blush crept along her neck. She wouldn’t risk making a scene, not when she was already so scrutinized for her performance. Begrudgingly, she took a step back.
“Good girl.”
She bit her tongue; there were so many things she wanted to say out loud that would not go over well with the professor, the first beingcockhead.
Maya raised an eyebrow at her as she passed, to which Avery only shrugged as her friend went and found a place with one of the girls from the swim team.
The fake familiar Felix had conjured, a black ferret, played with a pen on the table, while Avery’s fake familiar, who should have been Felix, slapped at it like a mouse. Even their shadow collars made noises.
“Why are you doing this?”she said into his mind.
“God forbid a man want a little independence.”
Huffing, she gave up. Nothing serious ever came out of that man’s mouth. Everything was a goddess damn joke. How they were ever going to unbind each other was a mystery only the goddess knew.
Speaking of the goddess, the tree played on her mind. The more she reflected on it, the more she thought it was almost impossible that it was truly Cerituen. It seemed too convenient. The golden key Felix had retrieved, and its engraving was another riddle that she hadn’t yet figured out.
Felix’s voice slithered through her.“You seem unfocused. Are you thinking about me again?”
“You fucking wish,” she said, out loud.
Shit.
She looked up, her mouth slightly agape. Every single person had turned around to stare at her.
The professor stopped mid-chalk, turning slowly to look down at her through his glasses. If looks could kill, she would have smashed into a fine enough powder that one could snort like cocaine.
“Miss Alarch? Something to share?”
She dropped her shoulders, making herself as small as possible, fervently wishing that she could materialize in another plane of existence. The sound of Felix’s laughter filled her mind.
Nineteen
Felix
The lookon her face waspriceless. He wished he could frame it. It was the cherry on top of the plan he had haphazardly thought out this morning. The witches’ constant proximity was starting to grate on him, especially after he had been caught last night. He needed a way to move around without suspicion. Students had cover. Ergo, he was a student. Simple math. Never mind that he stood a head taller than every witch in the room and was far older than any student here.
Already he was pulling unwanted attention from the women in the class. Their giggling and staring, and worse, the whispers of the filthy things they would do to him. He had exceptional hearing, and they had an exceptional lack of subtlety. Truly, he didn’t blame them; even with his best features glamored away, how could they stand to be in front of such a handsome specimen as himself without acting accordingly?
But the only person he was interested in hearing from at the moment was silent.
Her lips pursed into a hard line, glaring at the innocent shadow beings on the table. So she was pissed. Fine. He could work with that. It was what he wanted all along, anyway, to notbe reminded of her existence. Yet for some reason, it annoyed him that she was annoyed. And yes, he needed a better term than annoyed, but with the way she had his head frazzled, a dog could probably eat alphabet soup and shit out a better sentence than him right now.
“Healing the self,” Professor Bran started, pulling their attention to him as he scratched his salt and pepper beard, “is one of the most important skills a witch can have before they enter the field.” He cleared his throat, pausing for effect. “Before you can repair another body, you must understand the mechanics of your own.”
He stopped at a student’s station.
“The first stage of healing requires you to locate the wound with your awareness, not your eyes. Your eyes will lie to you. Your magic will not. A healer who cannot do this for themself is a healer who will kill her patients.”
The little witch looked down as the professor’s gaze landed on her.
“After all, how can you expect to help others if you cannot help yourself?”
