Not good.
Definitely not good.
But better.
Which honestly said more about how catastrophically lost I’d been when we started than it did about any sudden academic breakthrough on my part.
The truth was, before Sten, I’d spent most of Professor Franco’s lectures sitting in stunned silence while everyone else seemed to understand concepts that sounded like another language entirely.
Celestial drift theory.
Realm overlap calculations.
Ley line convergence mapping.
Most graduate students at the Asgarheim Runevald Institute absorbed those things easily.
They’d been raised around magic, trained from childhood to understand energies that shaped worlds.
Meanwhile, I’d spent most of my twenties trying to convince my mother and sisters that I wasn’t switched at birth.
But seriously. I was getting better.
Truly.
I mean, when we’d started, I’d stared at celestial equations the way normal people stared at ancient torture devices—with fear, confusion, and the certainty that I was moments away from public humiliation.
Now I hardly flinched at all—well, maybe I still did, but just a little.
“Use the calculations I showed you,” Sten grumbled behind me.
I jumped slightly at the sound of his voice so close to my ear.
Gods.
Why does his voice make goosebumps break out across my skin?
Because he’s hot. Duh.
My inner voice was such a bitch sometimes.
Focus, Amrin.
I sat at the massive obsidian desk in Sten’s private study quarters, trying very hard not to think about the fact that he was looming over my shoulder close enough for me to smell him.
Which was unfortunately impossible.
Lavender.
Cold night air.
Spice.
And something darker beneath it.
Something masculine and rich that made my stomach tighten in ways completely unrelated to astronomy.
“I am using them,” I muttered defensively, typing another string of coordinates into the program.
