I avoid the stares that are starting to drift away from me, losing interest, and I look for a spot to sit.
Just three rows of desks on each side of the classroom for just twelve students who chose this class for their final semester.
Magic and Nature.
The study of the relationship between both, how they each give and take from one another, and a focus on maintaining the balance.
I chose it for obvious reasons.
No actual magic is needed to take this class.
Andtheytake it because they are primed to lead one day soon—the faces still angled towards me, the gazes that follow me to the only free chair left in the class.
My unbrushed hair comes lifting up around my flustered, flushed face.
I lean forward and let the books spill onto the table before I drop into the seat with a thud—and it rattles.
Great. I get the wobbly chair.
I throw a look at the half-breed beside me, Dragana, and wonder if she knew this chair was wobbly, and swapped them out before I got here.
Dragana keeps her cheek to me as she smooths out the creases on her workbook.
“Psst.”
I slide my dark gaze to Landon.
At the desk in front of me, he leans back in his chair, balancing on the hind legs, and his hand grips onto the edge of my table.
His spine is all twisted as he eyes me over. “What the fuck happened to you? You look like you’ve been shagged through a hedge.”
My lashes lower.
I let my bag drop to the floor. Something in it cracks, glass of sorts—then I remember I stuffed a phial of mint paste into the side zipper before I raced out of the dorm.
“Forgot to set my alarm,” I grumble, then kick my bag under the table. “Got a mint?”
Landon makes a face.
The disgust is obvious, and he considers my lips, like he’ll see all the hidden nasties there—because now he knows I didn’t exactly have time to brush my teeth when I woke up to my curtains closed, opened them, and saw that the dorm room was empty, and the clock was ticking much too close to the start of class.
I’m just surprised I don’t have my sweater on backwards, I got dressed in such a rush.
Beside Landon, the chair creaks.
I turn my darkening, tired gaze on Dray as he reaches into his trouser pocket, then draws out a white stick of gum.
Without looking over his shoulder at me, he tosses it back.
It lands on my desk.
My thanks is a filthy look I run over the back of his sawdust hair, but still, I snatch the gum and shove it into my mouth.
Spearmint floods my tongue.
Still twisted around in his chair, Landon asks, “How were you the only one to sleep through the alarm?”
Because I shut my curtains and forgot to bring my alarm clock into the bed with me.
