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The Dean hesitated, but she’d spoken loudly enough to draw the attention of a few passing students, who were now watching curiously. He wouldn’t want a scene, she knew that. That was why he was inviting her back to his office before he dropped the hammer on her. And on top of that, he was a good man who genuinely wanted to believe that this was all an easily-explained mistake. He nodded and gestured for her to go ahead, and she flashed him a quick smile before hastening off around the corner.
By the time she was out of sight of the Dean, she was already wearing a different face, her features shifting and blurring. It was a relief, honestly, finally letting go of those features… though she couldn’t help the pang of regret she felt at the thought of Callan. He’d liked this face.
Well, he’d liked a lot of things about her that weren’t real.
Chapter 15 - Callan
Callan had been looking forward to this lecture all term—all year, if he was honest, ever since he’d met Kaya and begun to realize how much she was going to mean to him. And as much as he was looking forward to hearing more of her insights about the Mage’s Guild, especially with work on the project he’d started over the break still moving along, he couldn’t deny that the majority of his excitement was to do with just seeing her. He’d known that it was going to be hard returning to the school after spending so much uninterrupted time with her, but he hadn’t anticipated the physical ache in his body as the days without her turned into weeks.
Not long now, he told himself. After this final lecture, she was technically not his teacher anymore… although he wasn’t entirely sure if her contract continued to the end of the term with her teaching assistant duties. It was one of a few things he was intending to ask her, once her lecture was over. That was, assuming Professor Reine wasn’t going to hang around to make cryptic, unsettling remarks all afternoon. He found himself scanning the hall as he and the other students filed in, just in case, but there was no sign of the eccentric professor. He felt a mixture of relief and unease as he settled into his seat with nobody beside him. He knew Morgan was still very worried about what he’d told her, and though she hadn’t raised the subject again, she didn’t have to. Her worry had served to make the subject weigh more heavily on Callan’s mind than he was happy with, a mixture of frustration that they didn’t see what he saw in Kaya—and deeper down than that, worry that it was him that was missing something.
She had a difficult past, he kept reminding himself when those worries threatened to keep him awake all night. It was understandable that it would take her a little while to open up, even to her soulmate—a word he couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t used yet. Patience, he kept telling himself. Patience was what he needed here. Love and trust were one and the same, weren’t they? He loved her, so he’d trust her, and it wouldn’t be long until he was looking back on all of these worries and laughing the way that Morgan and Archer always laughed about their own turbulent beginnings.
It wasn’t like Kaya to begin a lecture late, he thought with a frown. It was ten minutes past the hour, and the student cohort was still chatting and laughing, the podium standing empty before them. She never ran late for anything. He could feel worry stirring to life in his belly. And when the topic coordinator came to the podium instead of Kaya, Callan felt that worry turn to dread.
The old dragon launched into a lecture without any preamble or explanation about the delay, or about the sudden change in scheduling. Callan even flipped back through his book to find his timetable, though there was no way he’d been wrong about who was giving the lecture today. There was her name, right there on the schedule. So why were they receiving what he was beginning to realize was next week’s scheduled lecture instead? And why hadn’t the professor even mentioned the change? Something was wrong, Callan could feel it in his bones. It was all he could do to stay in his seat for the rest of the lecture, his dread threatening to turn to panic at every turn. Taking any of the information in was completely out of the question. He kept stealing glances around the room at his fellow students, wondering if any of them had even noticed what had happened.
Of course not. To them, it was just a regular lecture. None of them had turned up today with the expectation of seeing the love of their life up there on the podium.
Finally, blessedly, the lecture came to a close. Callan wasted no time in heading up to the front of the room, where the professor was putting away his notes with more haste than he usually did. He also didn’t miss the flicker of annoyance on the man’s face when Callan approached—he’d clearly been intending to get out of the room without fielding any questions.
“Callan, I’m a little late for my next—”
“What happened to Kaya?” It was unlike him to cut one of his teachers off so rudely, but the look of surprise on the professor’s face was quickly replaced by a deliberately blank facade. “Her final lecture on the Mage’s Guild was scheduled for today. I was relying on her insights for the final part of my—”
“Regular changes are made to the lecture schedule, as is indicated in your handbook, I believe,” the professor said stiffly, gathering his books to his chest. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Well, when will her lecture be?” Callan followed in his wake, refusing to give up on the subject even as the professor quickened his steps.
“To be confirmed, young man, to be confirmed. Now, forgive me, I’m late for a meeting.”
That was a lie, Callan thought faintly, standing in the doorway to the lecture hall as the professor disappeared into the crowded hallway. The professor was clearly hiding something from him. Every schedule change prior to this one had been announced and discussed at length with the students. Something was terribly wrong—something they were hiding from the student body. It couldn’t be that Kaya was indisposed or unwell. The professor would have had no problem with telling him that. And anyway, Callan had seen Kaya yesterday, a brief glimpse in the hallways between classes, a flash of that cryptic smile of hers—he felt his stomach twist with worry as her face crossed his mind.
He had a full schedule of classes all day, but nothing could be further from his mind right now. Callan swung his bag over his shoulder and headed for where he knew the staff quarters were located. Students were absolutely forbidden from entering that part of the school, even for academic reasons—the staff all had offices for that reason. But as far as Callan was concerned, they could expel him. He was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what the cost.
He encountered no resistance when he reached the staff quarters. Strange, that. He’d expected at least some security presence at the school, at least a quick inquiry about where he was going, but there were no security guards in sight. He found himself walking down unfamiliar hallways, his pace slowing as he realized that he had no idea what he was actually looking for. He’d never been to Kaya’s quarters, for obvious reasons.
But it wasn’t long before it became clear why he hadn’t seen any security personnel on his way here. At the end of the next hallway, he could hear low, urgent voices, and as he rounded the corner he saw two security guards, deep in conversation with the Dean. They were standing outside an open door, and a quick glance showed that still more guards were inside, searching the little room thoroughly. He could see the unmade bed, covered in books and notes that had been tossed out of a desk drawer. He knew without asking whose room was being searched… and he could tell from the expression on the faces of the guards, as they turned to look at him, that this was no routine search.
“Stay clear of this area, please,” a guard said firmly, stepping forward with one raised hand. Callan slowed his pace, but nothing short of an army would have made him leave that hallway. The guard seemed to sense it, judging by the slight lift of her eyebrow, and she glanced over her shoulder at the Dean for further instruction.
The man looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped as he waved a dismissive hand at the guard. “It’s all right, let him stay.”
“Dean, what’s going on?” He knew he should be hiding his shock and worry, knew that it could arouse suspicion about his relationship with Kaya, but something told him that that ship had sailed long ago. Had the university administration found out about him and Kaya, somehow? Had she already been fired? Was that why the professor had refused to give him any explanation about the schedule change? Didn’t they know he’d have found out eventually? “Where’s Kaya?”
“Of course. She was supervising your project.” The Dean rubbed his forehead tiredly as the realization dawned on his face. So he didn’t know about Callan and Kaya. That was a relief, at least. He’d been terrified that all of this was his fault, somehow. But if it wasn’t their forbidden relationship, then what was going on? “I think you’d better come with me, Callan.”
He lingered for a moment, casting a worried look at Kaya’s bedroom, where he could see a few familiar items of clothing being tossed out of the wardrobe by the guards. It felt wrong, leaving them to rummage through his soulmate’s belongings so callously. But if he didn’t want to let on about their relationship, he couldn’t think of any justification to step in to stop them. So he followed the Dean, the residential hallways eventually giving way to the more familiar sight of staff offices. Once they’d reached the Dean’s office, the man sank into the chair behind his desk with an audible sigh. Callan wished, not for the first time, that he had Morgan’s knack for reading people’s feelings. He was getting a strange mixture of anger and exhaustion from the Dean, and his curiosity about what it meant almost rivaled his terror that something awful had happened to Kaya.
“I’m afraid none of it’s good news, Callan,” the Dean said softly. “Your supervisor will not be returning to the school. We’ll ensure that someone else is reassigned to see you through the last stages of the project, and of course we’ll take all this into account when the paper’s being graded.”
“All this?” Callan wanted to shake the Dean by the shoulders and shout at him that nothing could possibly matter less than his grades on the stupid assignment. The project had only existed as a means of getting closer to Kaya. Without her, the whole thing was meaningless. “What’s happened, Dean? Where is Kaya?”
“We don’t know.” Callan exhaled a little. That was something of a relief, at least. He’d been imagining awful scenes, Kaya locked up in some dingy cell far beneath the school, waiting for representatives from the Mage’s Guild to come and collect her. “She disappeared this morning, not long before her lecture was scheduled to begin, in fact.”
“Why?” Callan knew he was being rude, but it was all he could do to keep his voice calm.
“It likely had something to do with my questioning her about some of her references,” the Dean said, and Callan realized that the look on his face that he’d been trying to decipher was anger. “We’d been waiting for a few of the contacts on her list to get back to us—and when they did, it was to inform us that nobody of that name had ever worked with them. Furthermore, when we made contact again with a few of the references we’d already spoken with about her credentials, they claimed that no such conversation had taken place.”
