Willan gives me a look I can’t really decipher, tilting back in his chair as I walk closer to the desk to collect the bags of crystals.
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Eh. Depends if you’re into that sort of thing.”
I let my eyes drop over him, taking in the full picture and a blush heats Willan's cheeks. He opens his mouth like he’s going to ask something but his mouth snaps shut again.
“Yeah, well, when we were kids I never would have thought you’d end up dancing on bars for a living.”
“Why, because you thought I’d be in jail?”
Willan chokes on a laugh, his eyes going comically wide.
“It’s okay to laugh dude. Your brother and I were shits.” Willan doesn’t really have a choice about the laugh; it rips out of him with his gasping need for oxygen. “There you go. But yeah, it wouldn’t have been my first pick. But I like it. For now.”
“For now? Got different plans for the future?” He asks.
“Nothing set in stone, but I have a long life ahead of me. And I might have the body of a twenty-three-year-old, but I figure dancing around in tiny pants might lose its shine when I’m tipping one hundred.”
Willan hums, looking off into the distant corner of the room, almost like he’s considering a world where I’ve outgrown the need to dance around on a bar in my tiny pants and it’s leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
“That’s fair I guess.” He sighs, then he smiles at me, a cheeky smile that softens the usual hardness in his eyes, and the silence stretches out between us.
When it starts to feel big, almost malleable, Willan coughs and shakes his head, picking up the pen he dropped somewhere along the line and readjusting his chair. With the moment gone, I pick up the last set of items—packs of divination cards—and start laying them out, too.
“So what are you marking there, anyway?” He’s nearing the end of his stack of papers. Each one has been dutifully read, marked and graded before being stacked in a neat pile on the other side of the desk.
Willan may not have been all stern and bossy when he was a kid—he was more of a dweeby pushover, or maybe I just had that impression because Aleksi never tolerated not being in charge—but he’salwaysbeen a perfectionist. One of Aleksi’s favourite ways to antagonise him was to go into his room and purposely mess it up. Willan wouldragewhen he found it. Being a lotsmaller and scrawnier, and less powerful, there wasn’t much he’d been able to do against his bigger brother's bullying. But it never stopped him from trying to befriend Aleksi and me, following us around like a lost puppy. Aleksi never deserved the admiration. Neither did I. Not back then.
“Spells written by novice witches.” Willan doesn’t look up, but marking has definitely got him in full teacher mode. His voice has taken on a rich timbre that makes my stomach flip-flop torturously. “They have to compile all the components for a spell, justifying their reasons for each component for its intended effects. They also have to provide consequences, complications, and contraindications.”
“Woah. How’d you guys manage to suck the fucking fun out of magic? It’s just point and fucking shoot.”
Willan rolls his eyes. “Not for witches, it isn’t. And need I remind you that ‘point and shoot’ is how you and Aleksi almost caused a landslide back when you were twelve?”
Well, no, because when he talks using that voice it kind of makes me want to throw myself over his knee and ask him to punish me, and I’m seriously trying to be reasonable here.
“Okay. Point taken. I’m going to get a blood. Want a tea or something?”
Willan looks taken aback by my offer, but asks for a tea anyway, giving me a complicated, detailed list of instructions on making it perfect.
“Right, bag in the hot water. Got it.” I wink and walk from the room to the sounds of his muffled huffs of irritation.
In the staff kitchen I give myself a thorough talking to about not falling back into old habits of fucking around just because my dick thinks it’s a great idea. It’s not a very emphatic lecture because, honestly, it raises some good points. When I return with my blood, and Willan’s tea—brewed to perfection of course,because Iwaslistening—I settle myself on the edge of one of the desks. The one right next to Willan's desk.
Taking a sip of my blood, I watch as he tries his tea, a giddy thrill rushing through me when his mouth hooks into a tiny, impressed smile before he replaces the cup on its delicate plate.
“Good?” I ask, suddenly desperate for him to acknowledge my good job. If only Kai could see me now.
“Perfect.” Willan smiles at me and that giddy thrill turns into a warm pulse.
Desperate to get my thoughts anywhere other than how good it feels to have his approving eyes on me, I pick up one of the bags I so expertly put together.
“So what’s all this then? This isn’t the usual mage stuff is it?”
Willan sets aside the final paper in front of him and leans back on his chair, resting his elbows on the arms and steepling his fingers over his chest.
“No, it’s not. Not our traditional clan items anyway. It’s just a generic starter kit we put together. Simple things to get them started and find where their skills lie. Witches aren’t as limited by tradition as mages are. All our instructors here have learnt to be more flexible in accessing their magic. We’ve got mages, faes, a couple of witches. We teach each other, and the students. Not everyone can do everything, but,” he shrugs, “we can get by.”
