“Wonderful,” he mumbled under his breath. He dreaded the next two hours.
“I think there is something you need to say before class begins, correct?” Her high, joyous pitch grated his ears.
Grimot internally groaned. Maybe he should just offhimselfat this point. Maybe he understood why Kamine wanted to do it, especially with how he had embarrassed her.
He faced the poor victim. She was dressed in Skola training clothes, the black fabric hugging her body like a second skin. He could tell she hated wearing it, with the way she stood with her shoulders slumped. He agreed that it didn’t suit her. He preferred the dress she had been wearing the first day, when she bumped into him. He thought of the way the fabric billowed behind her, the white contrasting against the stark darkness of their environment. It suited her.
Expectant eyes stared at him.
He cleared his throat. “I may have overstepped during our first class, and taken things too far, too quickly. After all, I expected greatness from such inexperienced children.” Someone in the room snorted.
“We’re adults, jackass,” someone else said. Grimot guessed it was Lycaster. He hadn’t learned from their first lesson that outbursts were not tolerated. Perhaps he could loosen up his teaching style, just slightly, so that he wouldn’t have the Headmaster constantly disturbing their precious time.
Headmaster Dritoria butted in. “I think there is someone specific that this should be directed towards.”
Right, Kamine. She wasn’t even looking at him, instead she was reading a worn book that looked about ready to crumble into dust. Her eyes moved quickly across the page, her one hand playing with something at her wrist.
Through gritted teeth, he said, “My apologies to Kamine.”
She ignored him, her eyes still focused on the page. Headmaster Dritoria softly cleared her throat to try to get Kamine’s attention, but the Headmaster had more patience than he did.
“Did you hear me?” he said, a little louder.
Kamine finally turned her attention to him, slamming the book shut. “I did. I don’t accept.”
“Don’t accept what?”
“The apology.”
So much for taking it easier. He stalked over to her, ripped the book from her hands, and threw it across the room. “You don’t get to decide whether to accept or not.”
“Actually, that’s exactly how apologies work. But I’m not surprised that someone like you doesn’t understand that basic etiquette.”
His jaw tightened as his hands cinched into fists.
Headmaster Dritoria clapped, her authority causing some rocks from the ceiling to crumble and fall. “Kamine, Professor Grimot is sincerely sorry for his behavior in the last class. Please accept his apology so that class can resume.”
For the second time in his life, he was grateful for the woman. The first had been when she had allowed him to become a professor.
Kamine pushed up her glasses. “Fine.”
“Great,” Headmaster Dritoria said. “Now that that’s sorted, I’m going to let you begin your lesson.” She then excused herself, her rose scented perfume wafting across the room.
So she hadn’t actually cared about the progress of the students—or at least she had a second motive. She wanted to keep an eye on him as if he were a child, as if the apology itself wasn’t embarrassing enough.
Grimot stood at the front of the classroom. “We’ll be doing the same exercise. You—” he pointed to Lycaster, whose powers needed a lot of work. “You’re first.”
Kamine sat cross legged on the ground. When she did, she knew that Professor Grimot clocked it, and that he desperately wanted to reprimand her. For some reason, he held back. In fact, he completely ignored her. Everyone was called one by one to the front of the classroom to try and defend themselves from an oncoming rock. Some even moved onto larger boulders, including Janina and Zoya.
With the way it was going, Kamine would be last.
At least that gave her an opportunity to observe, to closely examine the tactics that she needed to try. Most of the cohorts moved their hands, which allowed them to redirect the trajectory of the rock. Others, like Franciz, could destroy the rock while it was mid air. He seemed to flinch his neck slightly, to do that. One student—Magda—even resorted to kicking the rocks with their heavy boots. Professor Grimot did not like that, proven by how he threw a larger rock the next time. They were now in the infirmary with a broken toe, most likely.
Kamine waited and waited, anticipating her turn.
But it never came.
“Class is over,” Professor Grimot said. “Next time, we’ll move on to have multiple objects being thrown at you at once.”
