“What happened?” he repeated his question knowing it came out with more aggression than he meant it to.
She whirled on him. “All I wanted was a sliver of peace and yet you won’t even afford me that small request.”
Despite the way she shot daggers at him, he knew he wasn’t truly the cause of her ire. At the same time, he recognized this wild energy in her. Her magic, even with the comb in her hair, was chaotic and poised to lash out. She needed an outlet.
“Peace is a luxury you aren’t afforded, Miss Marudas. Peace is for the ordinary witches that float through these halls never being anything more than they are. Is that what you want? To be ordinary?”
He could see his words struck where they meant them too. If there was one thing he knew about Seren, it was that she would suffocate underneath the weight of mediocrity.
She stepped closer to him, her obsidian magic curling around her as if it were her familiar. “How dare you? How dare you think you can just command me like I’m nothing? Like I’m nothing more than a mindless doll you can order about. How dare you think you can fetch me like I’m some plaything?”
He knew he had pushed her to this, but her words still grated against him. If she only knew that he thought of her as anything but those things. As if she wasn’t more important to him— He cut off the dangerous thought and focused on the task at hand.
“As I told you before, if you expect me to teach you, you will follow instructions.”
Her next step brought her close enough to him that he had to bend down his head to look at her. Her dark eyes took on a strange glint, and it shot fire through his veins.
“Is that what we are doing, Icarus? You’re teaching me?” Her words were mixed with accusation and something else he refused to name.
“Careful, Miss Marudas.” His voice was low, barely restrained. It was taking all his years of carefully constructed control not to react to her.
Her mouth twisted, and he was acutely aware of the tilt of her lips. Too aware.
Icarus stepped away from her and opened the portal knowing she would follow. She would take her time about it, but her desire to learn was greater than the tempest swirling inside her. The training arena was quiet as it always was, but especially tonight as if the ghosts of Calami waited on bated breath to see what would come of it. He closed the portal as soon as Seren stepped through, her energy raw and chaotic. Whatever happened to her today had left her more than unsettled. He told himself he was doing this because like this she was unfocused, unable to learn, but it was probably a lie.
“I heard about what you did to Arabella.” Her voice was quieter, more present.
“And?” he asked, ignoring the increase in his pulse.
Seren shrugged as she eyed the training room. “I’ve known Arabella to be many things. Obnoxiously good, kind, selfless . . . to others at least. Yet I’ve never known her to be aggressive. Even when the other kids thought to treat us like outcasts because of what we were, it was always me who defended us. Arabella would have been content to just cry and avoid them.” She turned and met his gaze, unflinching. “So tell me why she can now take down three women with brute strength?”
He knew he should deny her, but in this, he wouldn’t. “Arabella is a seer. I wondered at the possibility last year, but after the Pavor wand, there is no denying it. There hasn’t been a proper seer in generations, but I believe she has formed a mental connection with Calder. She used his fighting skills to win.”
Seren considered his words, running them over in her mind. It was one of the things he admired about her. Most of the witches at Calami took what they were told and memorized it, accepting the words as truth, but Seren didn’t. She carefully disseminated each piece of information and analyzed it before committing it to memory.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked hands on her hips.
“You need an outlet,” he said.
“So you will teach me to fight? Are we going to go to the docks each night too?” she said with venom underneath each word.
“Seren,” he warned.
As always, she didn’t listen. Stepping forward, her eyes sparked with challenge.
“What is this?” she asked, appearing for all the world as if she were a queen.
“I agreed to train you—”
“No, Icarus. Not that.” She gestured to the space in between them. “This.”
“Nothing,” he answered. “There is nothing.”
Seren’s laugh was bitter and despite the irritation she radiated he hated what he saw underneath in the way her hands tightened when she placed them back on her hips and in the way she turned her face away from him.
“Fine. So we keep playing this game where we pretend that nothing is happening when we both know damn well that something is.”
It would have been easier if it had only been his burden to carry, but he had seen the truth of it when her augere chose her. He couldn’t stop the damage that had already been done, but he could at least prevent it from worsening.
