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I lick my tingling lips. His gaze drops to my mouth, watching me. The gravity between us is heavy and slow.

Do I really want to take things slow?

He inclines his head, a formal seeming gesture, almost like a bow. Then he falls back into his familiar spot by the bush beneath my window, exactly where he’s always kept watch, and where he’ll keep watch tonight.

At least one of us has willpower. And that’s a wonderful thing.

I turn and climb the stairs, feeling like my feet aren’t quite touching them properly, grinning the entire way up.

Chapter 12

Painful Pause

Iam thrumming with excitement.

Presentation day. Group project, Commercial Law. Sebastian and his rowing team energy are still technically my partners despite everything that happened to his trousers, but I have genuinely enjoyed every single hour I’ve put into my section.

Which I appreciate is not a universal experience, judging by the group currently up before ours. I’ve printed handouts. I’ve rehearsed my opening line in the mirror twice, which I’m choosing not to be embarrassed about, and I’m wearing my good shirt, the one Felix described as trying slightly too hard for a law presentation, which I’ve decided to take as encouragement rather than criticism.

“And in conclusion,” says a girl at the front, reading directly off a slide in a voice flattened by what I can only assume is sheer terror, “implied terms serve an important function in commercial contracts.”

Her partner beside her looks like he’d rather be facing the actual dark rising than another slide of bullet points. I don’t understand it, honestly. This is fascinating material. Implied terms are basically the law admitting that people never say exactly what they mean and someone has to sort out the gap afterwards, which feels enormously relatable.

“They look miserable,” I whisper to Sebastian, genuinely puzzled.

“Some people don’t enjoy public speaking, Brian.”

“But it’s so much fun!”

“You are a deeply unusual person.”

I take that as the compliment I’m fairly sure he didn’t intend.

A voice booms through the open window from somewhere out on the quad, carrying easily over the lecture hall’s hush.

“BRIAN ALMIGHTY!”

I freeze, hoping against all reason that ignoring it will make it stop.

“BRIAN ALMIGHTY! ARE YOU IN THERE?”

It does not stop.

“BRIAN!”

I wince. It’s moments like this I find myself wishing, with real and specific feeling, that the commune wasn’t quite so committed to the belief that mobile phones are government issued mind control devices designed to track your soul. A phone call would have been considerably less disruptive than this.

“Is that you?” Sebastian asks, delighted, already twisting around in his seat to look for the source.

Our professor, a small, sharp woman who has clearly decided this is beneath a direct response, simply looks at me over her glasses. “Bunny. Would you mind.”

I would very much mind, but there’s no version of not going, that ends with this situation resolving itself, so I slip out of my seat and sprint for the door before Magdalene can announce anything else at that volume.

She’s standing in the middle of the quad when I get outside, kaftan billowing, absolutely delighted to see me, as though she hasn’t just derailed an entire lecture hall’s group presentations. A couple of students have stopped to watch, phones half raised, clearly uncertain whether this counts as a spectacle worth filming.

“Brian,” she says, beaming, cupping my face the second I’m close enough. “The end times have begun.”

“Have they?”