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I am halfway through the fourth fragment when I glance up and see that Vale is looking at me. His head is slightly tilted, the way it is when he’s working out a problem, and his gaze does not move when I meet it.

Neither of us look away.

This is part of the game.

I feel the heat climb from my throat into my face and I know he can see it, but still, I don’t drop my eyes. My gaze remains locked on his, lost in that honey gold. His jaw moves, a small flex that I want to pretend means something, then he looks back at the slab.

By the time the class ends, I have gone through six fragments and read every one. My hands are shaking slightly on the cloth and I press them down to stop it.

Vale clears his throat, pressing his fingers together.

“Very good, everyone. That’s all for tonight. Read Aldren’s seventh chapter for Wednesday.” A pause. “Greythorn.”

The room stills and looks at me.

“Stay,” he adds. A command, not a plea.

Stay?!

The students shuffle out slowly. Nelle gives me a look as she passes that I will have to answer for later and Avelene just presses her lips together, trying not to smile. Great.

The last footstep fades on the stairs and the heavy door of the crypt classroom thumps shut.

Professor Vale and I are alone in the room.

I don’t move.

He’s still at the head of the slab. He hasn’t looked at me since he spoke my name. He is rolling his leather instrument kit slowly, methodically, as if the rolling itself requires his full attention.

I swallow hard, the sound barely audible. The quiet of the crypt is heavy, as if the stone around us drinks in sound. Even my breath sounds muted. I can hear the small catch in it when I try to breathe normally.

The tension thickens and I’m dying for him to say something, anything. Why am I here? Did I do something wrong?

Did I do something right?

Vale finishes rolling the kit and then sets it down and finally looks at me.

“Why are you skipping the invocation?” he asks, his tone flat but quiet.

I open my mouth to give him the answer I have practiced for two weeks. I find the invocation redundant for shorter readings and prefer to⁠—

“No.” He gives a subtle shake of his head. His voice is low. “I know what you’re about to say. I don’t want it. I want the truth.”

I shut my mouth, pressing my lips together.

“You haven’t used the invocation in two weeks,” he goes on, his golden gaze growing in intensity. “You use it the first time with any new category of bone and then you stop. It’s performance, isn’t it? For me, because you know I’m watching for it. The rest of the time you don’t bother.”

Heat creeps up my neck and I know my chest and cheeks are flushed. My pulse is loud in my ears.

“I notice things, Greythorn,” he says, when I haven’t said anything. “That is my job. Frankly, it’s the job of every necromancer. To notice. To read.”

He steps forward. Not toward me, but along the slab. Closer to my side, though. Still not touching distance but closer than he has been.

“You’re skipping steps because you already know how to do what I’m teaching you. What interests me is where you learned it.”

The crypt is very cold, and yet I feel hot enough that steam could rise from my skin. My heart feels like a frightened rabbit being flushed from behind my ribs.

“I read,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. He cannot find out what I am. “Before I came here. The textbook list the Mortis…er, Caranthis, sent me.”