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I take another delicate nibble of my puff and raise an eyebrow at Stavros, who’s standing stubbornly there waiting for me to trot back to his quarters at his heels. “I could use a moment too, without you glaring daggers at me. You’re about to let me wander off into the woods on my lonesome tonight—how much trouble do you think I can get up to in a locked room?”
Stavros attempts to glower me into submission, but he hasn’t drawn his sword, so I feel reasonably secure it’s a bluff.
After a moment, he sighs. “If you insist. I’m going to finally getmydinner and negotiate field time with the other military division professors. I should be back at my quarters by tenth bell—I expect to see you then too.”
I bob into a mock curtsy that’s probably less respectful than doing nothing at all. He shakes his head and strides over to his cord.
When he’s gone, Alek sinks into one of the chairs. “You didn’t need to stay with me.”
“I figured dessert is more enjoyable with company,” I say. “And I really do need a break from that oaf.”
The corner of the scholar’s mouth twitches, but the impression of gloom around him doesn’t shift. All the same, I can’t help tracking the movements of his full lips as they close around the edge of the tart.
All of these men are too ridiculously handsome for their own good. Or formyown good, is more like it.
Yanking my eyes away, I pop the rest of the puff into my mouth while I consider my words.
Propping myself against the table near his chair, I motion toward him. “What are you really worried about? You seem more concerned than everyone else combined. Did you find out something you didn’t want to tell the whole group?”
Alek looks startled enough that I believe his denial. “What? No. It’s only…”
He frowns and glances away. When he fixes his attention on me again, it’s with an air of determination. “You’re going in there with Julita. How much is she supporting whatyouthink is the best plan, and how much is she pushing you to do whatshethinks is?”
My hackles come up automatically, even as Julita makes a chagrinned noise. “I’m perfectly capable of coming up with good plans on my own.”
Alek holds up his hands. “I’m aware of that. That’s not what I was implying. I—I remember what you told us about how she persuaded the four of us to start investigating, and you said she’d used a similar strategy with you. Now you’re diving into this mission that could very well be fatal. I know how much it mattered to her to stop the scourge sorcerers.”
Oh,Julita murmurs.Well. I suppose that’s fair.
It isn’t, though.
I shake my head. “I also told you afterward that I blew the situation out of proportion. She’s been a good friend to me, on the whole—as good as she can be, the way things are. It’s a messy situation. But I didn’t survive for eight years on the streets by letting other people badger me into doing things I thought were a bad idea. And this idea I came up with myself, whether you think it’s bad or not.”
Alek winces. “It’s not so much that I think it’s bad. It’s just so risky, putting yourself in the scourge sorcerers’ hands. And we’d lose both of you just like that.”
Is that really the crux of it? He doesn’t trust Julita whole-heartedly anymore, but he’s also afraid that what little life she’s clung to will be snuffed out? And maybe he’s conflicted about wanting her and yet feeling he shouldn’t both at once.
He always did seem to be the most devoted to her out of the four men.
An unexpected melancholy descends over me. I can gaze at his handsome face and admire his incisive mind, and he once told me he wouldn’t think I was an idiot for making a pass at him, but the scholar is just as out of reach to me as the courtesan is.
I can’t give him what he really wants, because what he really wants is a woman who’s only a ghost. Who maybe didn’t even totally exist the way he saw her when she was alive.
But he still cared enough to make sure I wasn’t being shoved into dangers I wasn’t totally okay with. He trustsmedespite the reams of research I’m sure he’s done on the riven.
I want to give him something that means as much as that back, so badly my chest burns with the urge.
If he could just hear from Julita in her own words…
My stance goes abruptly still. Ah. But hecan.
The mere thought sets my pulse thumping anxiously fast. I wet my lips and shoot him a hasty smile. “Can you just… wait here for a minute? I think I might be able to show you something that’ll settle your mind at least a little.”
Alek eyes me with obvious curiosity but nods in answer. I push off the table and slip between the shelves to the adjoining supply room.
What are you thinking, Ivy?Julita asks.Did you stash something in here that I didn’t notice?
“No,” I whisper, low enough that Alek shouldn’t be able to hear. “I was just thinking—”
