I pushed the door open.
The classroom was lit by a single glowing orb hovering near the ceiling, casting long shadows across desks and an open floor meant for demonstrations. Old sigils shimmered faintly along the walls, dormant but watchful. This room not only remembered conflict, but it had also been built for it.
Gideon stood at the center.
He wasn’t touching anything. He wasn’t summoning or manipulating or testing boundaries the way I half-expected. He was standing there, with his hands clasped behind his back, as he stared at a faded diagram on the far wall that illustrated the anatomy of a curse.
For a moment, I just watched him.
He looked grounded. He didn’t appear restless or coiled to strike, which was a nice change for once.
The tension I’d felt in the dream wasn’t here, or if it was, it lay buried deep.
“You couldn’t sleep,” I said finally.
He didn’t startle at my words, but he turned slowly and deliberately.
Our gazes met across the room, and the air between us tightened. Our meeting wasn’t met with a threat or with seduction. The sensation was something heavier and quieter. It felt like we were willingly recognizing the aftermath and leaving most things unsaid.
The Academy hummed softly around us, listening, and I knew, with sudden clarity, that whatever came next would not be simple.
He didn’t look away when he spoke again, and somehow that made it worse.
“You should be careful,” Gideon said quietly. “With your daughter.”
The words landed like a thud to my chest, abrupt and unwelcome.
Every protective instinct I possessed flared hot and sharp. I felt my spine stiffen, and my magic stir in response before I consciously reined it in.
“Do not,” I said, keeping my voice level through sheer will, “use Celeste as a point in whatever argument you think you’re making.”
He exhaled and, for once, didn’t meet my defensiveness with provocation.
“I’m not threatening her,” he said. “I’m acknowledging reality.”
I folded my arms, bracing myself. “She’s not your concern.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he replied, and there was no edge to it this time. No cleverness or veiled manipulation. “She became one the moment her magic woke up. The Priestess notices that sort of thing.”
I hated that he was right.
“She’s protected,” I said. “By me. By the Academy.”
“And by you keeping dangerous people close?” he asked, mild but pointed.
I opened my mouth to retort, already forming the usual arguments, when he did something that knocked the air from my lungs.
“I’m sorry,” Gideon said.
The words were simple and unadorned. They didn’t come with conditions or clever framing. He didn’t soften them with humor or sharpen them into a challenge. He simply stood there and let the statements exist between us.
I stared at him, searching his face for the telltale signs I’d learned to read so well over time. The subtle lift at the corner of his mouth when he thought he’d outmaneuvered someone or the spark in his eyes when he was enjoying the game. But I found none of it.
“You’re sorry,” I repeated slowly.
“Yes,” he said. “For involving her. For ever frightening her. For letting myself become something she’d need to fear.”
The sincerity unsettled me more than any lie would have. This man built his life around threats and actions that involved nothing more than…fear.
