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.”
“Apparently my thrilling weekend plans include stopping by the TA room at five. I’ll bring pastries.” He gave me a teasing salute and headed out.
Noah’s time in Paris had given him excellent taste in all things patisserie. Since I’d nearly swooned over an éclair he’d brought me as a thank you for one of our early tutoring sessions last term, contributing baked goods to our sessions had become a sort of tradition of his. It took a little of the sting out of my suspicion that his main purpose was to ensure I held no continuing allegiance to my family.
As I descended the tower and stepped out onto the green, I was thinking too much about the delectable canelés or madeleines I might be enjoying tomorrow to notice the girl hustling over to me until I was practically tripping over her. One glance at her pinched, wide-eyed face told me she was a junior student, probably in her first year. I’d seen that bushy strawberry blond hair around, but I didn’t know her name.
“Cressida?” she said in a thin voice, and shoved her hands toward me. “I have to give you this.”
The urgency in her voice made me tense up before she’d even moved. There was a certain frantic note that crept in when someone was operating under the influence of persuasive magic—when they didn’t really want to be saying what they were. Between my parents’ use of it and Victory’s, I was far too acquainted with that sound.
She’d thrust the object she was holding at me so abruptly that I grasped it automatically. A thick linen envelope creased between my fingers. My heart stuttered as a jolt of understanding hit me, and I jerked my arm to hurl the thing away from me—too late.
The envelope burst open with a shrieking surge of energy that smacked straight into my face. Into my mouth, clogging it like a fist. Into my eyes, blacking out my vision. There was nothing around me—nothing but suffocating darkness. Like when… Like when…
Icy horror surged through my veins. Even though I knew the effect was only a potent mix of illusion and