Across from me, Aric perks up. “Really?”
“Mm-hmm. Look here.” I turn the parchment so it’s between us on the table. “You’ve got lumen, the rune for light; fixus, for attaching and binding; argentum, for silver; and vita in the center, for life and energy, to power the rune. But I think we need one more.”
I look up and am startled to find Aric leaning in close, his face inches from mine. He’s so close that I can see each of his long black eyelashes, but his gaze is trained down, on the rune map, instead of on me. I catch my breath and lean back from him. He must notice my hesitation, because he looks up. His hazel eyes catch the light, and they remind me of the little glass jars of honey that Mama keeps in the café, sparkling and rich with shades of yellow and gold.
Aric blinks. “What am I missing?”
His voice draws my focus back to what I’msupposedto be doing: tutoring, not admiring Aric Vandermere’s pretty eyes.
“Well...” I quickly organize my thoughts. “We need something to support the light—to ensure it doesn’t go out.” Telling him would be too easy; I want him to try to think through it on his own.
Rune magic isn’t as black-and-white as other magics; it requires a bit of playful exploration, and you have to learn how each rune interacts with others, since every grouping will produce different results.
“Something to support the light and keep it from going out.” He taps one finger on the tabletop, then casts his gaze up to the stained glass windows, a thoughtful furrow forming in his green-tinted brow.
I sit quietly, in no rush to give him the answer. When he continues to struggle, I offer, “What can destroy light?”
Aric tips his head, expression still thoughtful. Then his face lights up, and he meets my eyes. “Darkness!”
He sounds so joyful, I can’t help but to smile. “Right. But we need to resist darkness, rather than inviting it in. How do we do that?”
He thinks for a brief moment, then says, “We flip it upside down, use the inversion.”
I nod. “Just like a tarot card, an inversion has a different effect.”
Aric grabs his quill and inkwell from his bookbag. He dips the quill into the ink, then narrows his eyes in focus as he practices sketching the rune for darkness: tenebrae.
“How’s that look?” He puts his quill down and holds up his practice parchment.
His lines aren’t perfect, but they’ll do.
I nod. “Good. Let’s go see if it’ll work.”
“DO YOU ALWAYS CAST YOUR runes this way?” Aric asks. He stands next to me in the academy’s courtyard. The sun is warm on my shoulders, and being outdoors, where I have more room to breathe, makes me way less nervous about being so close to Maeve’s stepbrother.
“Not always,” I say, grabbing a stick that must’ve fallen from one of the trees dotting the courtyard. “But if I want to do it right, then yes. Drawing your runes in the earth helps give them more power—vita.” I look up at him, then offer him the stick. “Let’s try it.”
Aric drops his bookbag next to mine, then peels off his fourth-year robe and tosses it over the bag. He’s wearing a white button-down, and the material strains a bit at his chest and arms. I try not to stare but fail spectacularly.
“This isn’t going to blow me up or something, is it?” he asks while rolling up his shirt sleeves, exposing his muscular forearms.
I tear my eyes away from his smooth green skin and quickly shake my head. “N-no, of course not.”
Aric lets out a laugh. And then he bumps my shoulder.
My stomach does ballet, leaping and twisting, and I’m sure my face is beet red. Boys don’t touch me. Ever. But Aric did it so casually, so confidently.
It’s nothing, I tell myself.He touches girls all the time.
“Just kidding with you,” he says, flashing me that tusk-filled smile, the many golden hoops adorning his pointed ears catching the sunlight. His hair is cut short on either side and around the back, but the rest of it he wears long and pulled up into a topknot. He looks equal parts clean and rebellious, and having just known him a short while, I feel rather certain that fits his personality well.
I take a step back and gesture to the dirt beneath our boots.
Aric pulls his parchment with the rune map from his trouser pocket—I try not to wince at how wrinkled and crumpled it is—and he studies it for a moment, his face taking on a focused, serious look, hazel eyes narrowing. Then he starts to draw his runes, tracing them carefully into the dirt with the tip of the stick.
He starts with vita, the rune for life. It’ll supply the energy needed to power the rune. Then he draws four more runes, one on each side of vita: lumen, fixus, argentum, and tenebrae. Just as he finishes tracing tenebrae’s final line in the dirt, a subtle vibration goes through the air, and Aric glances at me, eyes wide.
“Did it . . . ? Is it . . . ?”
