“When are they doing the ceremony to officially appoint you baron?” I asked.
“Later this afternoon. They don’t want to waste time. We went almost twenty years without a Bloodstone baron already, and not everyone recognizes Maggie the way they should.”
Her gaze slid beyond me, and I suspected she was thinking of the brief span when her mother had returned to claim the title—and proceeded to lead the other older barons into a massive assault on nonmagical society. Rory’s mom had tried to kill her when Rory and the other scions had stood up to them. I was lucky my parents had stuck to scathing phone messages and now only the occasional hostile magical missive of disappointment. How could I complain?
A lot of things had changed since the rebellion had left four of the original barons dead. To begin with, instead of the oldest child from each of the five barony families automatically getting a spot in the pentacle—unless some relative managed to off them and steal their place—the scions now shared their power within their families. Rory’s older cousin Maggie had held the Bloodstone point on the pentacle while Rory finished her schooling. Now they’d rule together.
It all sounded incredibly complicated to me, but Rory and the other scions seemed happy about the new arrangement, so who was I to judge? I had zero interest in ruling over anybody myself.
I gave Rory a teasing nudge. “Make sure you take the time to celebrate afterward. You had to work a lot harder to earn this honor than most barons do.”
She grinned. “Oh, I bet the guys will make sure of it. I’ll see you soon. And if you need anything, you’ve got my number.”
Rory got into her car, and I hightailed it toward Nightwood Tower. I took a certain pride in my punctuality, and that was twice as important when it came to Illusion, where I was working as a teacher’s aide under Professor Burnbuck.
A fleeting shiver of sensation—a flash of sky, a ripple of air—told me Percy was soaring by overhead. My falcon familiar swooped closer, but I shook my head. There wasn’t time now, but I’d have to run him through a few exercises this evening. He got bored if we didn’t hang out.
Okay, so I had one friend left—just one that happened to be one foot tall and covered in feathers. The dribs and drabs of fear he provoked in the rodent community around campus provided most of my magical fuel these days.
As I reached the green between the triangle of the university’s three main buildings, I picked up my pace. The stone face of Nightwood Tower loomed over the grass, ominous even in the bright midday sunlight. A few other students passed by, none of them offering more than a watchful look my way.
I was almost at the door when an unfamiliar guy standing at the edge of the green caught my eye. The fact that I didn’t recognize him was enough to make me slow just slightly.
He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous by any means, but plenty appealing with his wind-blown cinnamon-brown hair and square jaw. Since most of the families loyal to the former barons had pulled their kids from Bloodstone University to have them tutored privately instead, the campus wasn’t crowded at the busiest of times, and half of even the typical student population skipped the summer semester. If he was a student, I should have seen him around before now.
He definitely didn’t look young enough to be just starting. Actually, I’d have put him at around twenty-five—too old to be a student at all when the typical age of graduation was twenty-one. Maybe he was a new professor or part of the maintenance staff? The latter might explain the gloves he was wearing despite the summer warmth, tan leather ones that fit his arms nearly to the elbows. He wasn’t working, though, just… standing there, watching.
His gaze traveled over me and caught me in mid-stare. Jerking my eyes away, I hurried to the tower door.
I made it to the Illusion classroom no more than thirty seconds shy of lateness, but Professor Burnbuck didn’t look bothered by the close call. He motioned me over to stand in my usual spot by his desk and cleared his throat for the students’ attention.
The TA gig had been Victory’s suggestion. She’d done the same thing in her specialty, Persuasion, during her last year, and she’d said helping teach our classmates had made her twice as confident in both magical practice and theory. That was a big deal to Victory, who true to her name was never satisfied unless she could say she was the best at something.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt completely confident about anything... even before I’d come to Blood U, to tell the truth. That was probably why I’d gravitated to Victory’s side in the first place, wanting to absorb some of her immense self-assurance. And the teacher’s aide job had been something to keep me occupied, maybe even an opportunity to get a better idea of what I’d want to do with myself when I graduated and didn’t have even the school as a home base.
Of course, I wasn’t Victory, and so it hadn’t worked out quite the same way. Victory might have been a jerk to Naries and lesser mages in the past, but her parents had sided with the scions rather than the other barons in the clash. That’d seemed to be enough to convince people she wasn’t some kind of double agent.
When I moved around the classroom after Burnbuck’s lecture, answering questions and demonstrating techniques, there was nothing confidence-inspiring about the way the other students tended to avert their eyes or hesitate between sentences as if they had to think carefully about what they said around me. Or about the snickers that passed between a couple of girls in the back in between hushed murmurs.
I was sticking with the job because after quitting my family, I’d rather not make turning tail into a pattern, but the work was mostly a reminder of how little anyone wanted to do with me.
Anyone other than Noah Ashgrave, that was. At the end of class, as the rest of the students filed out of the room, the scion came over to where I’d hung back by the front desk.
“Miss Warbury,” he said with a warm smile and a gleam in his bright brown eyes that showed he was only having fun with the formality. “I’d like to set up another tutoring session. When are you available this week?”
It was nearly impossible not to smile back at Noah, so I didn’t try to resist. The younger guy had the same stunning looks as his older brother, Declan—tall and just a little broader in his lean frame, with jet-black hair he pulled into a short ponytail and those eyes that lit up from within—but he wasn’t half as stern about, well, everything. Since he’d arrived at Blood U after a few years studying abroad in Paris, he’d cultivated the kind of easygoing charm that had made Jude Killbrook irresistible on his better days.
I’d had quite the crush on Jude for a while. I definitely wasn’t going to crush on Noah. Setting aside the fact that he was only nineteen and, you know, my student, I was also pretty sure that the tutoring sessions he’d been coming to me for were more about keeping a close eye on me for his brother and the rest of the barons than improving his already pretty decent illusionary skills. He rarely called me over for help during class, although he did sometimes let out a low whistle of approval when I pulled off a particularly complex demonstration.
Remembering that sound while face-to-face with the guy who’d offered it sent a tingle over my skin that it really shouldn’t have. I shook the sensation off. “I could do tomorrow around five if you don’t have more thrilling weekend plans.”