“You mean I kissed you,” I said quickly, my cheeks warming. “I explained that to my brother. It wasn’t your fault.”
Zak’s brows rose. “Fault?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said hurriedly, my face now flaming.
He stepped closer, reaching out a concerned hand. “Aria, I?—”
I took a swift step back, and his hand dropped.
“I’ve made my family a promise. And like I said, we’re only missing two weeks. I can read well enough to practice on my own now, and you’ve made a lot of progress, too. I’m sure you’ll do fine once classes start. And once we’re at the University, we can—” I hesitated. “We can see each other again there. If we find we want to. I actually met Gina in the market yesterday—my old Robart friend who was sealed instead of me. She apologized, andshe’s going to show me around the University and introduce me to her friends.”
Zak continued to watch me with knit brows, but I needed him to know that I had other friends. I would be all right at the University, even without him. I didn’t want him to feel guilted into anything.
And there was something else I needed from him too.
“I need you to make me a promise,” I said, and he answered quickly.
“Anything.”
I swallowed. It was an alluring statement.
But I could see the concern in his eyes. He was worried about me, and I wasn’t going to take advantage of that. Except for one thing. Where one matter was concerned, I would take ruthless advantage of his opening.
“Good,” I said resolutely. “Then I’ll already take your promise as given. You have to stop looking for the Shrouded Mage.”
His eyes widened, but I held up my hand to forestall his words. “Or whatever you want to call him. You have to stop trying to lure him out and forget about him entirely. Now that we’re no longer meeting, you shouldn’t have any reason to even come into the lower city.”
“But Aria, he’s just killed again. It’s more important than ever that?—”
“That the Reds track him down,” I said loudly over the top of him. “I quite agree.” I gave him my most steely look. “You said you would promise me anything.”
He slumped, the fight going out of him, and I wished I felt even a little victorious. But there was nothing in this situation to celebrate.
“Very well, then,” he said before looking back up with a spark of defiance. “For two weeks at least. Everything starts fresh when our University classes begin.”
I closed my eyes, breathing deeply. My track record of resisting Zak was low, but I would just have to find an inner reserve of strength before then. For now, I would take what I could.
I opened my eyes again, catching a flash of movement from deeper in the alley. I peered after it but couldn’t make anything out. If I was fortunate, it had only been a cat and there had been no one to overhear our embarrassing conversation. If someone had heard, though…I shivered. I needed to get away as quickly as possible before I ended up humiliating myself further.
Somehow I dredged up a smile. “Two weeks free of study. I hope you enjoy them.”
“Just two weeks,” Zak said, as if responding to something else entirely. “And then we make a fresh start.”
I nodded once and fled out of the alley, telling myself as I went that it was merely a strategic retreat.
CHAPTER 12
The two weeks before classes felt longer than the two months that had preceded them. Only one thing prevented them from becoming unalleviated misery.
Gina visited, bringing first a cake and then a basket of fresh produce for my mother. My family accepted her gifts as the token of apology that they were, welcoming her back with open arms.
My old friend—now new again—insisted on dragging me out of the house, taking me shopping for everything she assured me I would need. The commonborn students at the University didn’t wear black mage robes, of course, but we had our own uniform of sorts, apparently. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was officially required, or something adopted more informally by the students, but either way I was eager not to stand out.
Gina told me tales of the lessons and the lecturers and the enormous library that dwarfed the one at the office of sealed affairs.
“They’ve been building the commonborn one for five years,” she told me. “But the academics have been building the one at the University for five centuries.”
“Five hundred years,” I said faintly, shaking my head. “I can’t imagine how many books it must contain.”
