Dodging Calamities (Artemis University #7) - Erin R Flynn Page 0,12

me.

Case in point was when I found Instructor McGrath sniffing around my station and plants in Botany 101… Which he wasn’t the teacher of.

Which he clearly wanted to get caught doing. Why? I had enough on my mind, and I didn’t want to flip on my telepathy, but apparently I didn’t get what I wanted that day.

“Yes, be unnerved. Get more paranoid and tell people you’re worried about me. Play up your mental impediments I’ve started journaling about, and it will give me more of what I need to file the right everything you’re unstable and—”

That was enough of that. I didn’t need to hear anymore of his crazy. It was another stupid plan that wouldn’t remotely work. Maybe it could have a chance in our sexist society, but if I didn’t have the protections I did… Wouldn’t someone already have tried it? He thought he was so much smarter than the others and would make it happen?

Yeah, right.

I slapped on my brightest smile and put on my acting hat as I went right to him. “Are you sitting in and getting a lesson today, Instructor McGrath? I think that’s great! Your ingredients the last assignment were lacking and not up to Professor Pillay’s level. I mean, of course not, she’s a professor and the head of the department, so yeah, she would be the best.”

Rage filled his eyes instantly and his hand shook with the need to probably smack me.

He was such fun to fuck with, but I didn’t stop, turning to find Pillay. “Professor, do you want me to set up a station so you can help Instructor McGrath?”

I thought Professor Pillay was going to burst out laughing, long having figured out on her own McGrath was full of shit and targeting me. She’d pulled me off to the side about a month before midterms to ask if I was okay and warn me. To say she’d found it amusing I was messing with him, and knew, was an understatement.

“Does he need that much help?” she asked me, ignoring when McGrath tried to object. “What was the problem with his ingredients?”

I gave her a rundown, and that was when McGrath lost it.

“You are exaggerating matters again, Ms. Vale. I worry about your mental faculties and—”

“Over potions ingredients?” I asked, my eyes going wide. “I’m not sure that’s something to get hysterical over, Instructor. I could be mistaken in my assessment, but I have extras from the assignment in my room. I’ll get them to Professor Pillay during lunch, and she can decide if you wish. Either way, I believe your specialty is potions, not psychology, so it’s best not to give decrees on my mental anything, right?”

“And the setting is highly inappropriate,” Professor Pillay added, giving McGrath a disgusted look. “She was not harsh in her assessment, even if wrong. What does that have to do with her mental faculties? She’s crazy for criticizing ingredients? This is a place of education, McGrath. This is the appropriate setting for her to raise such questions and give those remarks.”

“Oh geez, maybe someone will try to have me declared crazy or mentally unfit again so they can try and seize all my assets and name me as a dependent to control my power,” I drawled. I couldn’t even hide my amusement as McGrath’s face went pale, fear in his eyes.

Professor Pillay did a double take. “Again?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, after the huge power clap and people found out I inherited a big, unnamed estate, someone tried something Geiger squashed before I really got the details. Now I have way better protections in place. I’m a helpless, stupid female, so of course it would be super simple to just declare me mentally unstable and take me over.”

And just to put the cherry on top, I gave McGrath a wink no one else could see. Let him get paranoid how much I’d heard and knew.

Fucker.

It worked from his thoughts, and he didn’t stick around after making some crap excuses. Pillay shot me an amused glance and started class.

Lunch was more of me pointing out people to Darby who wanted him. He was completely gobsmacked by the end, his thoughts almost static as I overloaded him. He truly didn’t see himself as he was and couldn’t comprehend the sheer amount and levels of people who wanted him.

And that wasn’t even a slight against me. He valued me as the highest quality of woman. He meant the caste system, the supes “elite” wanting him.