A barrel-shaped creature with a flat head and stiff, uneven legs glimmered into sight in the middle of the room. Asta recoiled, stepping behind Felix in mock fear– it gave her an excuse to curl against his back and put her chin on his shoulder.
‘Oh my, what is it?’ she rasped, exaggerating her nervousness to keep up the game.
‘You needn’t fear, my lady. It’s just a goat.’
Asta tried to stifle her laughter. ‘Agoat? It looks like a pig that got its head run over.’
Felix glared at her out of the corner of his eye. ‘Hey, I was learning.I think it’s a pretty good goat.’ He tilted his head at it. ‘Sort of.’
Asta regarded the strange creature skeptically. ‘If you say so.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Felix stepped away as her shield and directed the squash-headed goat-pig toward her. ‘You don’t like Humphrey?’ The illusion lumbered closer, and in spite of herself, Asta found she was a little unnerved. ‘He’s my oldest friend in the world, Asta. My creation. My own!’ Felix’s eyes were wide and crazed.
Asta backed away from the abomination, but it kept coming. She found herself pinned against a tower of student desks with battered corners. She spotted an opening and darted past Humphrey. But she cut too close to the desks, and they tottered.
‘Asta!’ Felix dropped the illusion, and it dissipated into spiraling motes of light. He rushed forward to stop the desks from falling. Asta spun and grabbed the leg of the second desk in the stack, just as it began to tip. Panting, they eased the tower back into place.
Asta smiled at Felix, her eyes twinkling. ‘We’resogoing to get caught. We should get our story straight.’
‘I’ll say I was tutoring you.’
Asta slapped Felix’s arm. ‘Shut up! As if I need tutoring fromyou.’
‘From what I hear about that course design—’
Asta gasped. ‘Shut! Up!’ She punctuated her words with playful punches.
‘Ow!’ Felix grabbed her wrist and spun her around, an arm around her waist. His face was beside hers, and his breath tickled at her neck. ‘How about I say that I am crazy about you, and I can’t think about anything else, and all this was a ploy to get you to myself?’
Asta made a half-hearted effort to struggle out of his grasp. ‘That’s a good one. AndIcould say that maybe this us-being-apart plan wasn’t as great an idea as I thought it was.’ Felix’s grip on her tightened. He was holding his breath. ‘I’ve proven myself, haven’t I? On my own.’
When he spoke, his words came out hot against her neck and sent bolts of electricity through Asta’s body. ‘Yes. All by yourself.’
Asta pried his hands open, and he let her. She turned to face him. ‘I’m going to win tomorrow, and Pikki won’t be able to say shit anymore.’
Felix pulled back. ‘You aren’t going to go easy on me, Ekenberg?’
Asta smirked at him. ‘I will never go easy on you.’
Felix raised his hands to cradle her neck, his fingers digging into her loose hair. Asta grabbed at his back and pulled him tight against her. A thousand, thousand times, she had imagined this moment and told herself she could not have it. At last, it was happening. All that waiting now seemed both entirely pointless and entirely worth it. She had him– finally– in her arms.
Their kisses were open and hungry. Felix ran his lips down the side of her neck. The touch of them was unbelievably soft, like the petals of snapdragons. The golden light of the evening poured over their reaching hands, their bodies pressed close together.
Felix stopped, his breath shallow. Asta reached for him again, but he put his hand on her chest, above her heart. ‘Are you sure? Is this really okay?’
A small part of Asta wavered, but what good would it do to keep pretending Felix was a stranger? The secret was out. As for Pikki’s stupid lie about the scholarship? Pikki was obviously jealous of her and Felix. People would see that.
‘Your magic cord,’ she said. ‘Conjure it. Right now.’
Felix did what she asked. His shirt had pulled halfway out of his waistband exposing a tempting sliver of skin.
‘Put it on me,’ she said, extending her arm to him.
He did as he was told. His fingers tickled her wrist, which filled her with longing.
‘Now, go over there.’ She pointed across the room to the cabinets. ‘You said it only works if I want it to, right? So try it. See if I want this.’ She nodded to him.
Felix tested the cord, and it tugged at her wrist.
