“I meant,” Elethior swallows roughly, “my ward. It’s—gone.”
He claps his hands so the analysis spell falls, and he stares at the space over his desk, seeing nothing,tryingto see something, with the same bewildered frustration as when he was trying to see Nick.
“You didn’t just break it,” he says. Does he sound… awed? Hereaches out, fingers moving over where the barrier was. “It’s—gods, it’s like you neutralized the particles around it, too.”
I busy myself pulling my laptop and supplies out of my bag, ignoring the dread ballooning in my chest. “Maybe your ward was unstable. I did a simple breaking spell. On principle of the fact that I’m offended you assumed I’d go through your shit.”
One pierced eyebrow goes up. “There’s no way that was a simple breaking spell. What did you do?”
I slam a book onto my desk. Bad enough I lost control at all, but doing it where Elethior could find the evidence and pester me about it—
“You want me to explain a ward-breaking spell to you, the mighty Elethior Tourael?” I ask.
He doesn’t rise to my baiting, still more confused, intrigued, than annoyed.
One arm bends as he scratches the back of his neck, tattooed bicep flexing under his black T-shirt. “I’m trying to figure out what happened. I’m going to have to cleanse this area before I do other spells here.”
“Well, if there’s any fucked-up magic, it was from your wonky-ass barrier.”
His arm falls with his expression. “I see we’re diving straight into hostility, despite what progress we made on Saturday. Forgive me for trying to have a calm discussion aboutwonky-assmagic happening inourlab.”
I deflate over my desk, fists pressing to the wood.
It was my dumb fault he evenhasweird magic to fixate on, and I sure as hell won’t be making that mistake around him again.
“You’re right,” I whisper to my desk. “I’m sorry.”
Elethior’s quiet for a beat.
A beat so stretched out that I glance over to see if he teleported away.
His eyes glitter.
“Did you just,” he licks his lower lip, “say I was right,andapologize to me?”
I drop into my desk chair, face hot again, and fiddle with my hoodie’s sleeves. “We’re on a fresh start, right?”
He’s grinning. Smug-ass bastard. “Uh-huh.”
“Get that look off your face.”
“I can’t help it. This is the look I get when an apocalypse is looming.”
My mouth lifts in the barest smile that I quickly smother. Screw him.
I wave at my books and laptop. “Can we get to work, or are there other things you’d like to accuse me of? The dagger hail, perhaps?”
His eyes zip to the window, where beyond a slight ripple from Bellanor Hall’s activated shield, we can still see spears of ice stabbing into the Quad.
“Fine.You’reright.” He sneers at me. “Thinking you did any powerful magic is giving you way too much credit. It had to be my ward.”
I exhale relief before realizing,insult. So I turn my exhale into an aggrieved sigh.
Elethior reaches back to grab his overstuffed notebook. He wheels his chair to my workstation and sits, notebook open, pen in hand. His component harnesses are pinched tight around each thigh and the leather creaks as his legs spread.
He waits.
I turn on my laptop and swivel my chair to face him.
