Page 72 of Architecti
He swallows, looking less confident and holds his hand out.
Thalia cocks her eyebrow at him.“I thought you could see the cut?”She smirks, and Hadrian blushes.His friends laugh at him, and I’m instantly less pissy.
She sighs and moves his hand to the right position.“Feel the frayed edge?”she asks.
His brow furrows in concentration, a line of sweat appearing.“THERE!”he says, and his hand vanishes.
“Whoa,” I breathe, along with half the other students in here.
He goes grey, yanks his hand out and promptly spews at Thalia’s feet.She makes the reverse swiping shape with her hand, and I assume the cut seals back up.
She glances down, her nose wrinkling.“I forgot how pathetic first-years were.Clean that up, Umbriel.Right, everyone else, begin.”
I take back everything I said about Silvana.She might be small, but she’s a beast with the fabric.She slices first—as a Doorstop it’s a lot easier for her.I, however, am not so good.She guides my hands to the frayed fabric, but it takes me three attempts and an extra ribbon of magic from the classroom walls before I can slide my hand through.
I don’t puke, but I do get a nosebleed.
Despite the blood pissing down my face, all I can taste is sour milk, stale cigarettes and a hint of old meat.No wonder Hadrian puked.I have to rapidly swallow down both blood and bile to stop myself doing the same.
This could all be over.The campus.That fucking incessant voice.It hasn’t left me.Not since I made the deal.It’s in the windows and walls.It follows me to class and into my dreams.It whispers in the wind and poisons my thoughts.
It wants Lucy.
And I don’t want to give her to it.
“You okay?”Silvana says.
“Yeah.Sorry.Just clearing my head.”
The class moves on.By lunch, all of us are sweating and exhausted.Most of us are covered in bruises.One student lost a nail—an ashspawn bit it and yanked it out of the nail bed.
Thalia strides up to Aurelia.“Well done, I was extremely impressed with you.Keep this up, and that favour will be yours, without a doubt.”
Aurelia beams.
I seethe.
With less than eight months left, I need to double down and increase the number of extra training sessions I’m doing, or I can kiss my soul goodbye.
24
Lucy
We’re in the library tonight.Midnight is practicing Veil stitching and cutting.
The library isn’t the best location, but I have a ton of contracts to mark, and I needed some resources from the vaults.So here we are.
“No,” I say and slide in behind her.
She huffs in my ear as I move my arms over hers, repositioning her hands into the correct position for a more effective long stitch.
“There,” I say, lacing my fingers through hers.My lips are close to her neck, my breath trickling down into her collar.
“It’s intensely difficult to focus when you are this close to me.”
“I’m pretty sure I could be further away and directing you, but where’s the fun in that?”
“What a deviant professor you are.”
