forget you had to make a difficult choice in the first place.
Sprawled on the sofa in the otherwise empty common room with my glass beside me, I was teetering on the border between those two intentions. The alcohol had added just enough haze to my thoughts that neither the prospect of saying no to the barons or of infiltrating a conspiracy of hostile mages seemed all that horrifying. Maybe I could just stay here on the sofa forever and not have to bother with either. I took another cool sip, letting my thoughts drift away.
A knock on the dorm-room door startled me so much I would have splashed some of that precious liquid onto the floor if my glass wasn’t already close to empty. I pushed myself fully upright, gave myself a little shake to summon more alertness, and walked over to see who was calling on me without warning at eight in the evening.
I found Noah Ashgrave standing in the hall, a plastic bag dangling from one hand and his narrow eyebrows slightly raised, giving his handsome face a roguish cast. I blinked at him, stamping out the flicker of attraction as firmly as I could—and remembered.
“Oh, shit.” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. “The tutoring session. I totally blanked on it. I’m sorry.”
He laughed. “I figured you must have been pretty distracted after the meeting with the pentacle. Do you want to talk about it? I brought éclairs.” He held up the bag, the glint in his bright eyes turning even more sly. He knew those were my favorite.
I didn’t really want to talk about the request the pentacle had made of me, especially with one of the members of that pentacle, but on the other hand, I owed him something after standing him up this afternoon. And also… éclairs. So maybe I was a bit of a sucker, but at least I’d be one with a stomach full of heavenly pastry.
“I suppose you can come in,” I said magnanimously.
Noah didn’t remark on the still-frosty bottle of vodka on the coffee table or my already-emptied glass beside it. He flopped down at the other end of the sofa as cavalierly as if this were his common room and not mine, and I went to get him a glass of his own. When I returned, he’d opened up the box of éclairs and was already devouring one. Clearly they weren’t just for my benefit.
“Not sure this’ll be the best pairing, but it’s what I’ve got,” I said, filling his glass halfway.
He eyed the clear liquid and threw back half of it in one go. His eyebrows lifted higher than before. “That’s nice.”
I couldn’t hold back a satisfied smile. “You made me a French pastry convert, and now I’ve introduced you to Icelandic vodka. My work here is done.”
I topped up my glass too and snatched an éclair for myself before he went and ate them all. For a few minutes, I didn’t have to think about anything except the creamy sweetness melting in my mouth and the careless haze creeping through my mind with a few more sips of my drink.
Then Noah had to start talking business again. “I take it you’re still trying to decide whether to accept our little mission.”
I shrugged, licking a smear of chocolate off my thumb. “It’s… not so little. Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing I should jump into without thinking everything through.”
“Is there anything in particular that’s worrying you?”
I studied him over my raised hand. “Did you come here to try to talk me into it? Figured you could buy my service with a couple of éclairs?”
He grinned. “Was I wrong? No, seriously, the request obviously threw you for a bit of a loop. The others are mostly off doing their baron business, but I’m here, and—we’ve gotten to know each other decently well, haven’t we? I thought you might appreciate having someone to hash it out with.”
To be fair, I might. Even if it sent a quiver of self-consciousness through me to think that through our study sessions and the rest of our shared time at the school, he’d gotten to know me well enough that he read my reactions. And that he’d bothered to.
“I don’t know how much there is to hash out,” I admitted. “It’s dangerous. If the reaper families find out I’m conning them, they’re not exactly known for forgiveness. I could end up dead.” The school’s protections and my association with the