Impenetrable, ready for anything, hand already on that nail in her pocket, as she eased the creaky, half-collapsing door open, and just let herself peer through the crack she had made. No body parts going past the threshold, no making a racket. One look, and nothing else.
But one look did nothing for her. All she could make out was a long stretch of wooden floor, slightly warped with age and disuse and probable damp. And a stripe of a velvety-looking crimson curtain, tattered at the hem but still somehow sumptuous. It made her think of baroque performances, where everyone wore makeup so thick it gleamed and moved in unsettling ways.
In fact, for a second she could almost see it.
She could hear the slightly discordant music.
She shut her eyes, and she was there on a seat amid rows of them, in the dusty darkness, as performers parted over-lipsticked mouths, to show their disturbingly large teeth. They cavorted and capered, in a play she could almost see the title of. A word from the Underneath, something someone whispered to her, and whenhe did, he put his hand over hers, and she knew. She knew then that they were going to end the night tangled together in—
“I wasn’t sure you would really dare come.”
Her eyes snapped open the second she heard him speak. Heart already racing, half of her sure she’d dropped the ball already. But he just stood there, hands in his pockets, in the sliver of space she’d revealed when she opened the door a crack. Like he’d done no more than step to the left, so she could see him. And even after she had, he didn’t make a move.
He waited for her to make one first.
To step inside—and she did. She slipped through and shut the door behind herself. Carefully, and with her eyes never on anything but him. Then she stood like he was, hands in her pockets, her battered little Mary Janes positioned primly together, face as expressionless as she could make it.
And only after she was satisfied that she had made the right, slightly defiant, and ready-for-anything impression did she speak. “Well, I do have my little safety net now. So it didn’t seem like such a dangerous thing to do.”
“This will always be a dangerous thing to do, bookworm. And especially when hunger exponentially increases, the more time a vampire spends in the company of the thing they hunger for.”
“If that’s the case, how do you even expect to do these lessons?”
“By making them fast enough and brutal enough to beat the clock, of course.”
“That’s ridiculo—” she started to say. But before she could even get to the end of the word, he cut in with one she already recognized all too well. “Draw,” he said, like a whipcrack. And this time, she had no time to grab a thing. No chance to put a book in front of her. There wasn’t even a book to behad.
All she could do was lurch to the left, hard enough that she went down on one knee. The bone there brayed at her; some muscle in her side definitely got twisted in a way it didn’t like. But the mess that came out of his wand missed her by what felt like a millimeter. She honestly thought she felt heat kiss her flailing arm.
Before the bust of some old dead man burst into flames, behind her.
For a second all she could do was stare at it, agog. But the only thing he had to say about it was this: “Well, at least you can sense a spell when it’s coming for you, and dodge in the correct direction. Even if you can’t instinctively shield.”
“You just almost fucking incinerated me to provethat?”
“Don’t be dramatic. I didn’t almost incinerate you. I aimed for your hair.”
“My hair is on myhead, Harker. If one burns, the other does, too.”
“Not when I can put it out this quick.”
He flicked the wand still in his hand at the bust. And sure enough, the fire winked out, like it had never been there at all. Still amazing to witness, after a month of seeing similar feats in the halls and her dorm and all over the grounds. But even so, she couldn’t respond with anything but fury. “Or you could have remembered I can’t even gather, and told me how to first.”
“You don’t need to gather to feel magic coming for you. Ordinary people sidestep it all the time, without even knowing they’re doing it. And you aren’t ordinary, so your sense is keener. Now, let’s see if we can juice you into doing something more than dodge. Ready?”
No, she went to say.
But he didn’t even wait for her to answer. He just snapped thatwand at her again. And this time, she knew it wasn’t fire he was throwing. Somehow, she knew it was worse. It was somethingmuchworse, and it was aimed right at her heart, and she just wasn’t fast enough. She could feel it—exactly as he’d said—but she was too slow. She wasn’t going to make it; all she could do was throw herself onto the ground and squeeze her eyes tight shut and hope.
And god, this time she felt it do more than kiss.
She got pressure, sizzling over her left shoulder. The sense of something sharp, thesnicksound of something being sliced. When she looked, she honestly expected to see blood. And instead she watched as the strap of her dress suddenly drooped, and slid, and finally settled into two separate pieces, on either side of her body.
Shouldn’t have worn a bra that shows through this blouse, she thought mindlessly. “My fucking dress, you absolute arsehole,” she spat.
Much to his amusement.
“It really shouldn’t be something you’re mourning.”
