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It was good to catch up with his friends. He gave them a brief summary of his own trip away, and Morgan and Archer both stayed true to their promise not to pry any more about Kaya. That done, Morgan filled him in about all the happenings back home, including a visit they’d been looking forward to from Prince Conrad’s soulmate. Mira was a human woman from a strange place beyond the Fog, which they’d identified not as another insula but another world altogether. She and Conrad made regular visits to each other’s homes, facilitated by Queen Lana’s so-far unique ability to manipulate the Fog into portals between the worlds.
“I wonder if that’s an air sign thing,” Callan said thoughtfully. “Making portals in the Fog, I mean.”
“Are you thinking of trying your hand?” Archer asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’d be very useful for a diplomat,” Morgan said. “Is this what’s finally going to make you take some classes in elemental magic? I could ask Professor Reine which teachers have room for another student if you’d like.”
“I don’t think Professor Reine is a fan of mine,” Callan admitted, wrinkling his nose at the memory of their last encounter. “She had some fairly harsh words about my choice of academic supervisor.”
“What do you mean?” Morgan asked blankly. “She talked to you?”
“After Kaya’s last lecture.”
“She was at alecture?” He was a little unnerved by the way Morgan was leaning forward, the vivid alarm on her face. “What did she say to you, exactly?”
“Nothing particularly clear,” he said, feeling oddly needled by the questions, by the matching worry on Archer’s face. “Something about Kaya being dangerous, about how I’m clearly not listening to my magic…”
“Callan, I can’t remember the last time Professor Reine willingly attended a school function,” Morgan said softly. “If she went out of her way like that to give you a warning, something must be seriously wrong. What exactly did she say?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Callan said, suddenly irritated by Morgan’s intensity. “I don’t need you or your magic teacher to take care of me, alright?” He’d spoken more sharply than he’d intended, and he saw a cool look in Morgan’s eyes as she sat back, folding her arms across her chest.
“Fine,” she said, her tone indicating that nothing could be further from the truth. “I promised not to meddle, and I won’t. I just hope you’ll be careful.”
Callan was grateful for Archer, whose skills at defusing tense situations were legendary. The three of them were talking and laughing again before too long, and there was only the faintest trace of coolness in Morgan’s smile when she said goodnight. But when Callan headed for bed, it was a long time before sleep came to claim him. He dreamed of Kaya, as he did most nights, but these dreams were different. Again and again, he took her into his arms with increasing desperation—and again and again, she disappeared into smoke, leaving him with nothing but her necklace clutched in his helpless hands.
Chapter 14 - Inota
One more lecture, Inota kept telling herself as the term started again, dragging her unwillingly into the tedious world of a teaching assistant. Stressful enough to be surrounded by her loathed enemy without adding a pile of infuriating busy-work to the mix. Being in Margrav for those two weeks had really reminded her how much she disliked dragons. Every time she left the hotel, she’d seen that horrible ring of almost literal ivory towers looming in the distance, their inhabitants looking down on the common people who did their dirty work for them, underpaid, under-appreciated. How had she ever forgotten how much she loathed them? Their unlimited lifespans, their hoarded wealth, their utter disregard for the lives of lesser beings. As much as she hated the Mage’s Guild, the one thing she’d never hold against them was their distrust of dragons. Humans had been treated like absolute dirt by dragons for centuries—it made perfect sense that a human organization like the Mage’s Guild would treat curious dragons with suspicion. Callan’s naïveté on that subject could be charming sometimes, but increasingly, Inota had only found it grating. It had been oddly satisfying to hear about the difficult time he’d had getting information out of the Mages. Serves you right, she kept thinking. Every human in that building has likely suffered unimaginably at the hands of dragons just like you.
But as long as she was masquerading as one of them, she had to keep those particular resentments to herself. That was probably for the best, too. Revisiting memories of the Mage’s Guild had been hard enough. Going back even further than that—well, that simply wasn’t an option, was it? Not if she had any hope of getting through her plan unscathed.
The plan. That was what kept her focused, as the term began again and she tried not to notice or care about how much she missed having Callan in her bed each night. As much as events during the trip could have been disastrous, she was cautiously optimistic about how things were going. She’d played things just right, alleviating Callan’s growing suspicions that she was keeping something from him with a misdirection that would pay dividends later. Once he’d given up on the prospect of getting the Mage’s Guild to forgive her of her crimes, and she’d continued to nurture the seeds she’d planted about what terrible danger she was in—well, they’d only be a hop, skip, and a jump away from simply sending her to safety in the other world. If she played it right, she might just be able to get him to suggest it.
And sometimes, usually quite late at night, she even fantasized about what it would be like if he offered to go with her. Wasn’t that what soulmates did? Something told her that he’d be more than willing to give up his whole life here if it meant following her to her new life. Ridiculous, really. Even more ridiculous that she was even considering it. And then what, Inota? Keep living this weird lie for the rest of your life? Maybe it would be worth it, to keep him with her… after these kinds of internal debates, she’d always fall asleep gripped by indecision, haunted by uneasy dreams.
It was a week before her final lecture was scheduled that her intuition shifted gears. What had been an uneasy prickle turned overnight into something more comparable to a siren going off in the back of her mind. Inota had encountered this before, quite a few times. It always meant the same thing: time to go. The last time she’d felt this unique ratcheting-up of worry, she’d been out of the building that very same night. But halfway through packing her bags, she faltered, staring down at her belongings.
What was she doing? Running away, again? Where was there to run, exactly? Her intuition was telling her that there was danger close at hand, but what else was new? There was danger close at hand on every insula, in every city, in every building. It would catch her running, or it would catch her standing still, it made no difference. At least here, she could prepare to meet it head-on.
At least here, she had Callan on her side.
And so she unpacked again, feeling an eerie calm settle over her. She’d often heard it said that men on their way to the gallows encountered a similar feeling as they accepted their fates. Whether that was true, she didn’t know. But she did know she spent the following week in an almost dreamlike state of calm, waiting for the end to come. A few of her students even commented on how relaxed she seemed, which always made her laugh.
Part of her had been hoping that the other shoe would drop before she actually had to give her lecture, but when she woke up bright and early in her room and not in handcuffs, Inota was grateful that she’d prepared for it anyway. She dressed slowly, gathered her notes, and headed for the lecture hall, curious about what would happen. The high-pitched whine of her instincts hadn’t quietened at all since she’d first noticed it, but she was getting accustomed to it a little, at least. When would it happen, she wondered? Would she finish out the term? She knew that that was the point in time that Callan had his heart set on. He still believed that her being his teacher was the only obstacle to the two of them being together—she tried to harden her heart against the pang of grief that thought caused her, trying to convert her pity for him into contempt. It was getting harder to think of Callan as just another stupid dragon, but that was exactly what he was at the end of the day, wasn’t it?
She had her hand on the door to the lecture hall when it hit her. At first, she didn’t know what she was listening to, only that it had shocked her—and then she realized in a rush that the absolute silence in her mind meant that her intuition’s warning had finally been silenced. Which could only mean—
“Good morning, Kaya.” A hand on her elbow, gentle but firm, belying the apologetic tone. She turned to see the Dean standing behind her, his usual polite smile on his face, but she’d been here often enough to know what lay behind that smile. “I’m so sorry about the timing, but would you mind stopping in at my office just for a moment?”
It almost made her laugh, how easy it was to slip into crisis mode. Hadn’t she handled this exact situation about a hundred times before? Strange, how much simpler it was to deal with being caught than to agonize about when it was going to happen. “Of course,” she said, coloring her voice with just a touch of surprise. “I’ll come by right after the lecture.”
“Before would be better,” the Dean said quietly, as she’d expected. She dropped the handle of the door, turning to face him fully, letting a frown crease her forehead.
“Is everything alright, Dean?”
“I’d appreciate it if we could talk in private,” he said. She couldn’t ever remember being put under arrest with such masterful subtlety. “Nothing serious, just an issue with a couple of your references.”
Ah, she thought faintly. So that was what had done her in… someone had finally gotten curious enough to follow up on her falsified resume. Well, she’d been ready for this. She grimaced, smacking herself on the forehead with an open palm and muttering a curse under her breath. “Sorry, Dean,” she said quickly, as if catching herself. “I just—I think I know what the problem is. It happens all the time. If it’s alright with you, I’ll stop by my quarters on the way to your office? I’ve got some paperwork that should resolve the issue, if it’s what I think it is.”
