Page 38 of Sonnets and Serpents
Even though the Cast provided a translation of every word, Eliza’s comprehension lagged. By the time she understood, the professor had already moved back to his desk.
She gaped at Silas. “He’s a . . . you’re both . . .”
His return expression was hard, nothing like the relaxed enjoyment he’d shown while inventing new words.
“Get used to it, Highness. Out here, we’re allowed to exist.”
He joined Kerem at the desk, and Eliza found herself with no better option than to return to her cushion. Since she still had Silas’s pen, she attempted to write the new words she’d learned on the parchment tucked in her sonnet book, but her hands were trembling.
She set the pen aside and read. Her mind tried to bring up issues of shapeshifters—or even her morning conversation with Silas, when he’d claimed the author of her sonnets had called love “unstable”—but she forced all concerns aside, burying them beneath familiar, comforting words.
Even if the author himself denounced what he’d written, Eliza never would. She felt the truth of it every time she read her favorite sonnet.
Love, my crown, most precious gems within its settings gold;
Patience abiding, unceasing hope, and mine endurance bold.
Love, my armor, gleaming steel, the guard above mine heart;
To pointed axe and hardened falchion, ne’er will it part.
Love, my sword, a sharper blade will ne’erwhere be found;
Which severs lies, defends the truth, and holds me honor bound.
Love, my cup, and to it raised;
Drink deeply now and all my days.
For with thy love, a king I’ll be;
And with my love, all’s well with me.
Somewhere in the city, Henry was struggling just as she was, surrounded by magic and unfamiliar customs.
She could only hope he’d encountered fewer snakes.
I’m not offering my best work today,” Silas said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
The distraction felt doubly ungrateful, since Kerem’s generosity was the only reason Silas had been able to stay on campus at all. The only reason he had a chance at a professorship.
The princess had returned to her cushion in the corner, and he resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder at her. Even without looking, he could feel her there, a prickling awareness like what he felt for snakes, except this didn’t come from magic, only from annoyance. How did she manage to distract him so easily?
By contrast, Kerem worked with relaxed shoulders and his signature calm, reading through a stack of student essays and marking notes as he went. Rather than filling his office with comfortable chairs, he kept only a few stools at his desk, and he never sat for long. Motion prompted ideas, he taught.
Silas sat on his own stool, wishing it was a chair with a back because that would have been one barrier, however slight, between him and Eliza.
“You’re agitated,” Kerem said. “No Affiliate can do their bestwork with emotions churning.” He glanced up, gesturing with his pen at Silas’s bracelet. “That’s new. Something to do with this?”
Embarrassment heated Silas’s ears. “Stone Cast. It was an ... ambush.”
“Looking for a way to break it?”
He found he’d rather discuss anything else. “What happened to Iyal Havva? Theyaslariwas still on his office door today, and I’ve never seen a shrine like that in Pravusat.”
Kerem’s lips pressed to a grim line. He underlined a paragraph in the current essay, jottingunsupportedbeneath it. After adding another line of direction, the professor finally said, “An experiment gone wrong, most likely. He was on a research leave from teaching, and his body was found, missing bones. About a week after you left.”
Silas frowned. “I’ve heard of Stone Casters breaking their bones”—Yvette had broken her arm while overexerting herself on the Great Eastern Wall—“but never themvanishing. Still, I would have expected him to survive, however painfully.”
