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Julita seems to flinch, and then her presence is slamming straight through my mind like a sprung arrow. I jolt back into full awareness with a stumble and a gasped breath.
The impression of my ghostly passenger whips into her usual place at the back of my head and dwindles away. She’s not just retreated but pulled right in on herself the way she has a few times in the past—into the distant, darkened state where she’s told me she can’t sense anything at all.
“Julita?” I venture, but as I expect, there’s no response. Not even a quiver of acknowledgment.
Alek is staring at me. He wavers on his feet as if he’s not sure whether to step closer or not.
His voice comes out rough. “Ivy?”
I yank my attention back to him. “Yes. Why— I was trying to help. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He still looks upset. His mouth forms a series of only partly familiar sounds that I recognize with my rudimentary Woudish. “Do you know the hour?”
“A little past eight,” I answer automatically in the same tongue, and understand why when Alek all but lunges forward to grasp my arm.
Julita didn’t know a word of Woudish. Hardly anyone at the college does.
He was making sure it really was me, not Julita just pretending to have left.
I’m vaguely offended on her behalf, but Alek speaks before I can defend her, the slide of his fingers sending a distracting tingle up my forearm. “Don’t ever do that again. She had her life. This is yours.”
I frown at him. “Well, she’s completely withdrawn now—tucked away so deep she won’t even be hearing this conversation. You were worried about her. It was the only way I could give you a chance to talk to her directly.”
He steps closer, his bright eyes piercing mine. “I don’t need to talk to her. Not like that. You’re worth more than that. I was mostly worried aboutyou. You’ve already given up a piece of your mind and a heap of freedom and everything you were doing before you were dragged into this place.”
“It was my own choice to come. I decided—”
“You decided what your conscience could bear, not what you’d find easiest.” Alek lifts his other hand to touch my cheek. “She’s right, you know. You’re the most spectacular person I’ve ever known, and I don’t want to watch you whittle even a little of that away to make yourself less for someone else.”
Warmth blooms in my skin at his tentative caress, making it harder to think. But I’m nothing if not stubborn. “It was only temporary. I wasn’t giving anything up.”
“You weren’tyou,” Alek says. “It matters. It matters to me. I—”
He cuts himself off with a choked sound, and then he’s dipping his head to press his lips to mine.
My mind blanks in shock and a blaze of heat. I barely manage to do more than stutter a breath before Alek is yanking himself away.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters, pressing the heel of his hand to his temple. “I’m sorry. Of course you don’t— I’ll go.”
He spins toward the loops of cord. Through my reeling thoughts, it hits me that he thinksIcouldn’t possibly wanthim.
Gods smite us all, how did we end up so muddled?
I throw myself after him before he can reach his ring and catch his hand. “Alek—”
I don’t know what else to say. I ache with all the things I want and the possibility that this stunning, brilliant man might never realize it.
Maybe this surge of emotion matches what he felt just moments ago.
So when he turns back toward me at my tug, I let the flood carry me. I slip my hand around his neck, bob up on my toes, and meld my mouth to his.
Fourteen
Alek
I’m kissing Ivy.
Ivy is kissingme.
