My heart stopped. I reluctantly filled in the gap the guards made between them and closed thedormitory door.
“Great!” Annalisa shouted from inside the dorm. “Now Sera isin trouble!”
They found out. Derrick was too careless with his words on the dance floor. Headmistress Blackiston was going to expel me immediately. The guards silently led me through the halls, but instead of taking me to the Headmistress’s private quarters, they opened the glass doors tothe garden.
The guards left me standing on the garden path at the bottom of the steps and shut the academy doors behind them. The faint aroma of pink roses hung in the evening mist. The scent briefly sent me back to the smell of rose oil on my chest when I saw Derrick for the first time at Ravenwood Manor. The near-full moon cast all the flowers in a gentle glow as I tried to findmy breath.
Before I could finally inhale, a soft and deep voice mademe freeze.
“Hello, Birdie.”
My mind was playing tricks on me, I was sure of it. The voice I had heard in the night was too deep to be Derrick’s…orwas it?
No, I was just on edge. The suitors were all gone. I had no idea why the Ashmore guards had brought me into the garden, but surely it wasnot because—
“Of all the places Icould be,
Over the moon or acrossthe sea…”
There it was again, the voice. I took a tentative step on the garden path and slowly scanned the rowsof flowers.
“Between the clouds or under skiesof blue…”
I followed the voice until it practically whispered inmy ear.
“I only want to be nextto you.”
I whipped my head to the right. Derrick was right next to me in the shadows, his black Heaston uniform making him nearly invisible. He had his arms casually folded across his chest and his broad shoulders against the stone wall ofthe academy.
He looked down on me with a soft smile spread across his face, but my heart thumped with fear. He was even taller than he looked in theGreat Hall.
“I always loved that one,” Derrick said. I finally matched the voice tohis face.
I kept my face schooled as my mind spun. What was hetalking about?
Derrick gently pushed off the wall and took a silent step toward me. His smile did not falter. “You wrote that poem three years ago, but I still think about it all the time. Technically not your best one, but it was too cuteto forget.”
I smiled back. The poem,right.Brietta’s mind behind my pen had been fruitful. I needed to pretend that I had humbly forgotten that I hadwritten it.
I tried to craft the lie, but my hands trembled as he towered over me. My eyes fell to the cobblestones and my cheeks burned. Hopefully he would see me as being demurely bashful, but I felt so tiny and insignificant in front of him that I was too scaredto speak.
What was I doing? I could not just stand in the open alone with a suitor, regardless if he were the heir. If anyone found us, I wouldbe expelled!
“We could get into serious trouble.” My eyes flicked up to his face for a brief moment. “You know seeing each other like this is againstthe rules.”
A sly smile crept up his lips. “I thought you said the Duke’s heir could make hisown rules?”
He remembered Ravenwood Manor. That was a good sign,at least.
“How did you get the guards to bring me here?”I asked.
“They may guard Ashmore, but they are still my soldiers,” he replied. “I snuck away from the Great Hall and ordered a couple of them to help me out. They could not refuse an order froma Hyton.”
“Oh, so you are in charge now?” I laughed softly. “I hope your father does not hear yousay that.”
“No one will hear us say or do anythingout here.”
My heart fluttered and my breath disappeared again. He took my hands and gently pulled me further into the shadows of the academy’s walls. I immediately noticed the tiny calluses on his fingertips—proof that he actually had played the harp and violinfor years.
