I don’t know what she sees on my face, but her protest falters.
She’d have every right to insist that I confirm or deny, and then I’d have to decide whether to lie. Whether it’s worth the risk that Cole would be able to tell I am.
Instead, she ducks her head. She speaks tersely but clearly. “I’m obviously not in the right headspace for doing readings right now. I apologize for my behavior.”
She’s implying that she made it up. To spare me? But why, after everything…?
She’s angry with my brother, but all at once I’m not sure that her reaction tomehas anything to do with dislike.
An urge twines through my muscles to reach out and grasp her gloved hand in mine.
Cole strides around his desk, casting a glower across the rest of the students. “We’re done here. Get to your next classes.” He shifts his glower to Elodie. “Except for you. In my office.Now.”
As Elodie grudgingly gets to her feet, my heart leaps to my throat.
I scramble up too. “Cole, it’s really?—”
He waves me off, already ushering Elodie toward the door. “I’ll take care of this, Asher. You don’t need to worry about it.”
As I watch him shadow her out the door, a strange twinge forms in my chest.
Why is every part of me suddenly clamoring to race over there and pull her away from him?
Twenty-Nine
Elodie
With every step I take toward Professor Raith’s office, I regret my last “divination” more. I hadn’t planned on cutting quite so deep or so blatantly.
But when Asher made his comment about my back, the need to shut down any further conversation bowled over every other consideration—and common sense—I might have.
Possibly I shouldn’t have used the exercise to needle Professor Raith in the first place. It just got my hackles up so high that he was pitting me against Asher, prodding for something to criticize about me... I had the idea I was turning the tables on him.
I’m not sure it worked. And the memory of Asher’s deer-in-the-headlights expression when I hurled out my last accusation burns in my mind.
I never meant to hurt him. It’s the one thing I’ve been trying to avoid more than anything else from the moment I arrived in this world. I just got so caught up...
At least my hasty retraction seemed to stop Cole from thinking I’d revealed something true about my partner. If this Asher ever wants to tell his older brother how stifled he feels, it’ll be on his own time.
Professor Raith brushes past me to unlock the door to his office. A swipe of his hand twists the ephemera embedded in the lock as effectively as a key.
I stiffen against the flush that blooms over my skin where his shoulder grazed mine. My fingers press my stinging palm.
The door squeaks faintly as it opens. A waft of Cole’s piney scent, intensified by all the years he’s worked out of this room, seeps into my lungs.
Oh, this is a very bad idea. An ache is already wrapping around my heart... and condensing low in my belly.
Things got fraught enough in the library where anyone could have walked by. Letting myself be shut away in an enclosed space with just him?
I don’t have any choice. Professor Raith motions brusquely for me to get a move on, his mouth a slash of resentment, his eyes still smoldering with fury.
And hopefully not any other emotions.
As I follow him inside, my pulse hitches at the familiar scene.
This Cole has styled his office almost identically to mine. The tall window only lets in a thin stream of hazy light along the edge where the heavy curtain is mostly shut. The muted glow touches the broad oak desk set in the very middle of the room. Bookcases cover two of the other walls, stuffed with a mix of old and newtexts as well as various esoteric devices meant to examine or conduct ephemera in various ways.
Yes, he even has a literal crystal ball.
