No one had warned me sharp objects would be involved in my education, but somehow I wasn’t surprised.
Hale, or so I assumed, was already there.
He stood in the center of the room with his sleeves rolled to the wrist and his hands loose at his sides.
Tall, tan-skinned, close-cropped hair, broad through the shoulders without looking heavy.
My first thought was that he looked like he could put me on the floor before I finished deciding whether to be afraid of him.
My second was worse.
I wanted to see if he would.
He didn’t bother to introduce himself, only inclined his head a small degree.
Apparently Hale was economical with more than his words.
“Hale?” I asked.
He nodded. “Astra, I assume. You know why you’re here?”
“Some man named Aldric, who I’ve never met before in my life, said lower salle at nine. He seemed to think that was enough information.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No, directions would have helped. That’s why I’m late.”
His eyes stayed on me for one breath too long. I got the feeling he didn’t appreciate my wit.
“I’m to take you through the places you’re expected to know before someone punishes you for not knowing them,” he said finally.
“That’s generous of the school, considering no one has shown me anything since I got here.”
“Generosity hasnothing to do with it. Neither does the school, really.”
I had to stifle the urge to stick my tongue out at the back of his head.
Cryptic bastard,I thought as he turned and walked.
I followed him anyway, partly because I had no idea where else to go and partly because the view wasn’t terrible.
His shirt fit badly in the shoulders.
Or well.
Whichever one made the fabric pull across the muscles of his back when he moved.
I was still wondering whether noticing an instructor’s deltoids was against any academy rules when the sensation came again.
He was three feet ahead of me, walking, and still I tasted it, the same impossible way I had tasted marble in the quad with Caspian and apples in the kitchen with Kieran.
Except this time, it was leather and the faint metal-salt of someone who had been working out before I arrived.
Under that was something else I was too flustered to pin down.
Hale’s step checked, then he kept walking.
So he’d felt it too.
