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I spin around and stalk off before he can make any other accusations, but I catch his voice before I put more than a few paces between us. “Thank you.”
I walk on without looking back.
Julita chuckles softly.Now he is a strange one. I suppose if he badgers you about stargazing again, you can remind him of his butterfly escapades.
A hint of a smile touches my lips, but my heart isn’t in it. I don’t feel comfortable wandering around the courtyard anymore, not when I might run into the guard and his unknown magical abilities again.
He couldn’t have any ideawhythe woods make me uneasy, right?
The last streaks of sunlight are fading from the sky. Sconces flicker along the walls of the college buildings.
I rub my arms, cast about for another option, and then resign myself to my fate.
I do have to talk to Stavros eventually. Aboutallthe things that happened last night that we haven’t addressed yet.
Time to get the awfulness over with.
Forty-Two
Stavros
Iwasn’t trying to break the plate. I only brought it up to my room at all because the buzz of chatter in the dining hall was grating at my nerves.
So the dish happened to be sitting by the edge of my desk while I paced around the room, straining my mind for something I could say to my king to change his mind, some alternate strategy I could offer that would make Ivy’s involvement unnecessary. And when I kicked the leg of the desk in frustration, the plate happened to hop off and shatter on the floor.
Naturally, Ivy returns while I’m muttering to myself and picking up the broken pieces.
At the squeak of the door opening, I freeze other than the upward jerk of my head.
Ivy slips inside. Her bright blue gaze feels especially penetrating as she takes in my position and the jagged chunks of ceramics on the floor around me.
“What did that poor plate ever do to you?” she asks, her tone sardonic but her body tensed as if she thinks she might need to bolt right back out the door.
“It was an accident,” I mutter, scraping the shards together as hastily as I can between my regular hand and the hooked prosthetic I put on for a late-afternoon workout—which did absolutely nothing to get my head on straight.
While I work, Ivy stalks around the room in her now-typical surveillance for conjured creatures. Apparently finding none, she steps tentatively to the sofa and lowers herself onto it.
Her posture still looks braced to flee.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that she’s been running from me ever since my blunder last night. She’s left every room we’ve been in together as swiftly as humanly possible.
As I bring the mess to the waste basket, I shoot her surreptitious glances. Brief twitches of my eyes for as long as my vision will remain steady.
She’s gazing toward the window rather than watching me. Her mouth is set in a line that looks pained.
Even though the moss-green hue of the new gown Casimir’s provided sets off her pale skin and red-blond hair to impressive effect, it doesn’t suit her quite as well as her sparring clothes. But the fierce strength of her spirit shines through all the same.
That spark in her set my blood thrumming through my veins long before I was willing to accept, let alone admit, the effect she has on me. Now, remembering the way she arched and shuddered against me in my bed last night—
No, better to remember the fear in her eyes afterward. Giving in to my hotter desires before we had a stable foundation to carry us through them is what landed me in this disaster.
I wash my hands in the latrine and return to the common room, half expecting our thief-turned-lady to have darted off in my momentary absence. She’s stayed, sitting stiffly on the sofa.
I consider walking over but decide it’s safest giving her plenty of space. As I prop myself against the front of my desk, my stomach churns with all the things I need to say.
Before I can even open my mouth, her gaze flicks to me. She blurts out the words in a rush.
“My magic got away from me during the initiation.”
