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I know him less now than I did before, but it doesn’t take a genius to know he’s lying.
“I’m going to be late for anatomy unless I leave in two minutes, and I’m not letting you stay in my room unless you tell me why you’re hiding under the covers. So, get talking.”
With a forlorn sigh, he throws his head back and closes his eyes. “Gil doesn’t want me anymore. He says he doesn’t want to be with someone who also sees other people, and you know what I’m like, Alis. I can’t just stick to one guy, or one girl for that matter. But I like Gil. I like him a lot.”
Inwardly, I groan. This is going to take more than two minutes. But then again, my attendance is pretty perfect and my cousin needs me right now. I sit at his side. “You know what I think?”
“What?”
“You were honest. You told him you were polyamorous from the start.” It’s hardly a surprise; most witches and warlocks are. “He tried your way, and he was honest, too, when he let you know he was monogamous. It sounds like a simple incompatibility. You could either leave it that, or you could take a step in his direction. Try ithisway for a while. And if he doesn’t work out, you’ll know. Better now than in a few months, when you’re more emotionally involved.”
“I am emotionally involved!”
I believe it. Callan loves easily and with his whole heart. I don’t know where he got that from. The rest of the Frejr tend to be more guarded.
"Okay. So, how about giving this one man’s man thing a chance, then?”
He winces. “I suppose I could try.”
One of my eyebrows shoots up. “So, feel like taking practical hexes now? He’s in that class, right?” I guess.
Callan nods. “He teaches it.”
Of course, he’d go for his freaking professor.I decide I’m done with advice for the rest of the day. “All right. I’d better head out. And you should go drink a sobering-up potion and take a shower.”
He has more time than I do, given the fact that his lessons happen downstairs.
I run through the grove, and rush into my class right before the bell.
It’s only two hours later, as I drink my first clandestine cup of coffee in the library, that I remember Reiks.
I suppose that from now on, you’re my bitch, Alis.
His choice of words makes me wince.
I pour a second cup and add milk before closing the lid. If I hurry, I can catch Daria on her way out. Her second period today is alchemy, in the tower of sorcery.
I’m rushing out of the carved doors too fast, just as a hulking figure enters.
I scream and almost drop my coffee. Some of it splashes on my dark silky blouse. It might have burned if I weren’t, as Daria so delicately puts it, a freak.
“Woah, Alice.” Reiks steadies me, one of his hands at my wrist, the other behind my back. His touch unsettles me; he’s too warm, too…present. “You’re good?”
I can only nod. Like a devil summoned by my thoughts, he appeared just as I remembered our deal.
“We have to stop meeting like this. What will the court think?”
That I’m throwing myself at him.
I glance at his companions. Today, he walks with the woman wearing blue who was with him yesterday, as well as four strangers, and, to my dismay, Camil Ostra.
“Thank you.” An unfamiliar phrase I’ve said too many times in his presence.
“You’re very welcome.” He waves at his followers, and without a word, they walk ahead, entering the library. “Do you have a free period?”
I tense. I did promise him my free time. “Yeah, I’m bringing a coffee to a friend, then I have a paper to work on.”
Part of me expects him to tell me to remain here and do his bidding instead. I’m relieved he doesn’t.
