Page 85 of Legacy Elite

"Four hundred."

"Approximately."

"That's horrifying."

"That's my father," I say.

She goes quiet at that in a way I wasn't intending, and I move us on.

"Again. Hand where you put it."

She tries twice more with her palm against her sternum and gets nowhere, and the second time I can see she's lost the thread entirely — she's back to bracing, back to grading, back to standing in a field being asked to perform.

"Stop."

"I've nearly—"

"You haven't. Turn around."

"Why?"

"Because you're watching my face for approval and it's making it worse."

She turns around, which surprises me, and stands facing out toward the trees.

"Close your eyes if it helps."

"It doesn't."

"Then don't." I step up behind her. "I'm going to put my hand on your back. Tell me if you don't want that."

There's a small pause.

"It's fine," she says.

I put my hand flat between her shoulder blades.

And the bond comes up like something struck.

It's not gentle. It never has been. It runs up my arm and lands somewhere under my sternum, hot and specific, and every muscle in my body wants her and I have thirteen months of practice ignoring it.

She's very warm through the jacket. I can feel her breathing under my palm. Her hair's coming loose at the nape of her neck and there is a great deal about the back of her neck that I am not going to think about while I am standing here as her instructor.

I have never once let this show. Not a flicker. I have sat across a dining hall from this woman for a year and given nothing away, and the discipline it takes is not something I've ever described to anyone, and the reason it works is that Jessica Miller has never had the first idea what she does to me.

She goes rigid.

Her head turns. Not far. Just enough that I can see the edge of her eye.

And she knows.

That's what's on her face. Not confusion. Not what was that. Recognition — clean and immediate.

She's learned it from somewhere in the last few weeks. She didn't have it in September.

There it is.

Neither of us says anything.