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“You’ll stay here while we find Wendos,” he says without looking back at me.
My eyes just about pop out of my head. “Don’t be ridiculous. We all need to be—”
“You’ve done enough,” he interrupts, in a tone so fierce I hesitate.
He stands up with something in his hands. “You’ve nearly been murdered twice in as many days, and I’d rather not have to worry about it happening again the second I turn around. This is the one place in the college with a door only you and I—and I suppose the dean—can unlock.”
I glower at him. “I suppose we’d better hope the dean isn’t in on the conspiracy too, then. I can help. Isn’t it more important—”
The former general crosses the room to me in a few powerful strides. “We can handle it between the four of us—and the entire Crown’s Watch, once I’ve got them. And if I’m wrong about that…”
He holds out the object he pulled from the chest. It’s a leather belt, twice as thick as the dainty feminine one I’m wearing now, with a short sword in a scabbard attached at one side.
A short sword with the royal family’s crest emblazoned on the pommel in glinting gold.
My lips part. I yank my stare from it to him.
Stavros’ gaze sears into mine. “Part of my old military equipment. That crest carries weight. Show it, and whoever’s around will listen to you if you need their assistance.”
A laugh hitches out of me. “And you’re giving it to a thief?”
“Ivy…” He pushes the sword into my arms and steps closer in the same movement. His head bows over mine, his hand rising to cup my jaw.
“You’re not just a thief,” he says. “I’d already realized that, and I shouldn’t have forgotten that. And I’ve seen how dedicated you are to the cause. You’re—you’re not like anyone I’ve ever known before. I don’t know what you have going on with Casimir or whoever else—”
I scowl. “That’s nothing you should be—”
Stavros hurtles onward before I can get out more than that. “It isn’t for me to judge anyway. What matters is… I gave up a hand to receive a gift I can’t use anymore. And now it seems another ‘hand’ has come to me.” A trace of a smile touches his lips at the reference to my outer-ward nickname. “A better one than I knew to ask for. Maybe better than I deserve.”
My throat closes up. “Stavros—"
“Just listen. I don’t want to lose you, and I’ve already been on the verge too many times. I don’t know any other way I can protect you right now. So stay here and be safe, for once in your existence. Please.”
The ‘please’ unravels something inside me I didn’t know I was holding so tight. I swallow hard against the wave of affection I instinctively tamp down.
He wouldn’t say that if he knew everything.
But the fact that he’s saying it even knowing some of me feels incredible.
I adjust the sword in my arms. “All right. I’ll stay here. As long as there’s no urgent reason Ineedto leave.”
A chuckle tumbles from Stavros’s lips. “That sounds like as much of a promise as I could have expected.”
Something shifts in his expression. A flush creeps up my neck with the impression that he’s going to kiss me.
The moment crackles between us and vanishes when Stavros pulls back. He dips his head to me. “We’ll get the whole scourge on this college rounded up as quickly as we can.”
Then he strides out of the room, leaving me clutching a general’s royal sword and drowning in a whirl of emotion.
I take a couple of steps back and all but collapse onto the sofa.
“What wasthat?” I ask the air—and, inadvertently, the ghost inside me.
Julita lets out a laugh, but there’s a twinge of melancholy to her voice.You’ve really affected him. I’ve never heard him speak like that.
Not around her… or to her, I suppose.
My stomach twists. “I wasn’t looking for anything like that when I came here. I never meant—”
