“You’ve been asking people about me?” I cried in a despairing wail. “Zakary!” It would be less than an hour before someone turned up on my mother’s doorstep.
“It’s Zak, remember.” But his face looked guilty now. “Should I not have asked about you? I wanted to talk to you, and I didn’tknow how else to find you now that you’re finished with that school.”
“If only,” I muttered.
“But all the commonborn schools have started their summer break. Even the Academy has had their graduation now.” He frowned. “And don’t you finish at the local school once you’re sealed regardless?”
The crease between his brows and the confused, concerned look in his eyes made me want to reach out and touch his face. I sternly suppressed the instinct, reminding myself I was supposed to be annoyed. I couldn’t continue to muster the emotion, however, so I sighed.
“Never mind, what’s done is done, I suppose. At least I know to brace myself for my mother’s questions.”
Zak’s brow cleared, and he laughed. “I didn’t think of that. But I can imagine. There would be plenty of people at my home asking questions if our roles were reversed.”
I stiffened at his mention of his family. Whereas my mother would be painfully delighted I had befriended a mage, his mother was likely to have very different feelings about the situation.
He looked at me with renewed concern. “But why do you still need to go to the school? I thought you would be out from under that man’s influence now.”
I groaned. “I only wish I was. I never want to see him again. And the last student I want to spend the summer with is Byron. But I don’t know anyone other than Teacher Wendell who can teach me to read and write, so I’m stuck with them both a while longer.”
Zak’s face immediately lightened. “If that’s all it is, there’s no problem at all.”
I gave him a baleful look. “That’s easy for you to say.”
He grinned at me. “I think you’re forgetting you do know someone else who can read and write.”
I stared at him blankly. “Faylee’s gone off on an expedition to the Sekali Empire and won’t be back until at least the end of the summer, remember.”
“I wasn’t talking about Faylee, silly.” He looked at me with a smug expression as if waiting for me to see the obvious. When I continued to stare at him blankly, he gestured at himself. “I do know how to read and write, you know. I could hardly have just graduated the Academy if I couldn’t.”
“You!” I blinked. “Well, obviously you know how to read, but you’re hardly going to teach me.”
“Why not?”
I stared at him, unable to think of anything to say.
“Do you really think I’d be such a terrible teacher?” he asked, pretending hurt.
“Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take?” I shook my head. “I’m not going to be reading fluently in a couple of hours.”
His face turned serious, although his eyes shone with something I couldn’t read. “Of course not. I expect it will take you all summer—and you’ll have to work at it intensively. But clearly you have a lot of experience at working intensively.”
“Why would you want to spend your entire summer teaching me to read?” I asked incredulously.
He cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m hoping for a favor in return.”
He fixed me with pleading eyes, but I narrowed my own in response. The future I had worked so hard for was finally before me, and I wasn’t risking it with any more foolish or illegal favors.
“The truth is that, unlike you, I’m a terrible student,” he said in a rush.
“I—wait, what?” Whatever I had imagined him saying, it hadn’t been that. I frowned suspiciously. “Didn’t you just graduate?”
“Yes, but the Academy is different. Half our training is in combat, and the other half is in compositions and controlling our power. I find those interesting, naturally, so that was easy.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I asked, still not understanding. “Aren’t you supposed to be joining a mage discipline now? Won’t it just be more compositions and the like?”
He sighed. “That was my plan. But my parents are utterly determined for me to go to the University.”
I raised my brows. “You’re terrible at study, but they want you to spend years at the University and—what? Become an academic or an official? That sounds like a terrible idea.”
