never lets me step foot off the campus without him,” Acubens told me as we headed to a popular human eatery a few blocks away. “It’s insufferable. He wanted me to have this dinner date in the cafeteria!” He shot Arcturus a glare, which was received frigidly. “I convinced him that a date in the cafeteria is beneath the dignity of a Nightfeld.”
“What dignity?” I said, and smiled as Acubens turned his glare toward me. “I haven’t really gone off of campus either, so it’ll all be new to me too.”
Behind me, Aegis’s silence had a disapproving quality to it. I’d had to sell him on the date as a diplomatic opportunity—Arcturus would always hate House Redbriar with a burning passion, but I might be able to win over Acubens. Wouldn’t the family benefit from an ally within House Nightfeld? He’d relented, but he didn’t seem very happy about it.
Still, my heart was light as we crossed through the wards surrounding campus and entered a bustling human neighborhood lined with shops. Neon lights and halogen street lamps glowed in the descending dusk. Fallen leaves crunched underfoot. The smell of the air brought back half-buried memories. My mom had taken me down streets like this, a long, long time ago.
The eatery had a chalkboard sign with doodles of cats and window boxes overflowing with flowers. A waiter escorted us to the window table for two that Acubens had reserved—it had to have been Acubens, because I couldn’t imagine Arcturus picking this place out.
“Sorry, no space for you,” said Acubens sweetly to Arcturus. The table only had two chairs. “I guess you’ll have to go somewhere else—”
Arcturus merely requested another chair from the waiter, with the air of someone who expected immediate action, never mind that it was entering peak dinner hour. In no time, he’d seated himself next to a scowling Acubens.
Aegis, on the other hand, remained standing, grim-faced.
“You can sit down too,” I told him.
“I’m on duty as your bodyguard,” he said.
I sighed. Feeling bad for him, I pushed the bowl of breadsticks toward him. He didn’t take any.
“I’ve never actually been here, thanks to a certain relative of mine,” Acubens admitted, angling a glare at Arcturus. “I just picked this one based on what I’ve overheard from other students. And because of the cat doodles in the pictures in the app. But from a glance and sniff at the other tables, you can’t go wrong with any of the pastas.”
Even with magically enhanced senses, that was impressive. “I’ll trust you,” I said, as we placed our orders. I’d never actually ordered at a restaurant in my life, thanks to spending the last decade of it at Redbriar Manor. Any input was helpful.
We settled in to wait. “How were midterms?” I asked idly, as if we had a normal college classmate relationship instead of whatever this was.
“Higher Magic was good. Lower Magic was boring. Artifact Analysis was an exercise in bullshit.”
I snorted. “You’re not wrong.” Fortunately, being at Wraithwood Academy was giving me lots of practice at bullshitting in and of itself. “Did you get the Macedonian phalanx question on your version of the test too?”
“No, which sucked, because Arcturus got that question on his test three years ago, and I still remember the answer because it was just that stupid.”
“Good,” said Arcturus severely. “You should rely on your own learning at school, instead of memorizing old answers.”
Acubens rolled his eyes. “You’re just bitter because you lost points on that question.”
“Acubens.”
“Eat a dick, Kit.”
“Wait,” I said. “Kit?”
“Yeah, it’s short for Arcturus,” said Acubens gleefully.
“How? I mean, Art, I can see. Artie.” I ignored the way the temperature dropped around us. “But Kit?”
“I was a little kid then,” said Acubens, shrugging.
I tried to mangle Arcturus’s name the way a little kid might. “Aw-kit-owus. Wow.”
A thought seized me. “Do you have an embarrassing nickname?” Acubens froze like a deer in the headlights, to my delight. “Ben? Benny? It’s something really ridiculous too, isn’t it.”
Acubens shot a frantic look toward Arcturus, who took a sip of his iced water and said, coolly, “I don’t go around giving other people strange names.”
For some reason, I didn’t think that was the full truth, but just then the waiter arrived with our food. I set that riddle aside in favor of testing out Acubens’s expertise.
“Okay, this is good,” I said, covering my mouth while I chewed. The cream sauce was rich and smooth, with subtle hints of flavors I couldn’t place. “I have no idea how