The desk is sturdy, but it creaks under the weight of our bodies as he thrusts into me. Every steady stroke sends waves of pleasure across me. My ankles are locked against the small of his back as I lose myself in him. It feels so mind-numbingly good to have him inside of me for the first time in what feels like forever. To have his hands on me. We work so perfectly together—better than should be possible.
He finds the perfect rhythm that has tension coiling in me without even laying a finger on my clit. So when he does, it nearly sends me over the edge. The sound of skin on skin fills the room.
I reach up, pulling him to me, his lips to mine. My fingers rake through his hair as my tongue finds its way into his mouth again, in no hurry to leave. My hands trace down the wiry muscles in his neck. The arc of his shoulders.
Without warning, he pulls out, neither of us reaching our climax. My heels fall hard against the desk, legs quivering. I work to prop myself up as he’s somehow composed enough to be pulling on his trousers.
“What…” Before I can find my question, he speaks.
“Don’t actually stay in the professors’ wing like you did last night. Come to my chambers. Come back home to me, and I will give you the rest and more.” Kaelis finishes the laces on his trousers with purpose. “As fun as desks are, I want a bed to fuck you on and a room where we’re not smothering our moans.”
“Excuse me?” I’m scrambling to gather my clothing as he’s halfway across the room. “Kaelis, you cannot be serious—”
Without another word and with a coy smile, he slips out the door.
Chapter 35
What a dramatic ass,I think as I smooth the wrinkles in my skirt, as if order in my appearance might restore order in my thoughts. Fortunately, no students come looking for me all afternoon, so I have the time to gather the remnants of my composure before dinner.
Kaelis, of course, is nowhere to be seen throughout the rest of the day, nor is he in the main hall while food is served. Somehow his absence taunts me. Throughout the meal, I imagine him sitting alone in his apartments, waiting for me to show up.
We’re only one day into the academic year and I’m already figuring out how to move from the professors’ wing into his chambers without raising suspicion. But that’s a future problem; there are other places I need to go tonight. Kaelis can wait—give him a taste of his own medicine. If I’m risking people questioning my movements, I’ve someone far more important to visit.
The entire time I descend into the lower passages of the academy, I look over my shoulder to make sure I’m not being followed.
Gregor is tending to Arina. The man is fastidious; I can find no fault in his care. Arina is sitting propped up against pillows wedged against the wooden headboard. Her eyes are open, and she dutifully eats the spoonfuls of soup he feeds to her.
But she doesn’t otherwise move, nor react, nor speak. She will sit, even get up to tend to her physical needs when prompted, and lie back down to sleep. But every movement is without thought, as though her mind has come fully untethered from her body.
“I have something for you.” He sets down the now-empty bowl and reaches into his jacket, producing a flyer with ripped corners. “These have been plastered all over the city.”
I take it from him, studying the rough likeness of my original face sketched on it. It reads:
Clara Graysword, still at large, illegal Arcanist, enemy of the crown, destroyer of Halazar prison, terrorist.
“Lovely,” I say dryly and crumple it, tossing it into a corner of the room as I continue to hover by him and Arina.
“There’s a lot of enforcer activity out there,” he cautions.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m in here with a new face.”
“The Worldkeepers are also hearing rumors of a Major coming? The Hierophant?”
I reassure Gregor that the Hierophant is nothing to worry about. “I’ll let them know,” he says in response, and something twists in my gut. He already speaks about the Worldkeepers with such familiarity…
“Why does it feel like everyone else but me has already moved on from the club?” I whisper to Arina after he leaves to continue his hunt for Silas’s family. “At least having someone I trust on the inside is helpful.”
After bathing my sister gently with a rag and changing her into fresh clothes, I settle her back into bed and kiss her forehead. I wait until after she’s dozed off to shut the door and leave, moving swiftly into the depths of the academy.
I find my way to a familiar sequence of rooms. At the end of themis a doorway that opens only once my fingers brush its handle. The markings Kaelis gave me last year shimmer white before fading. Mysteries compound around me, and this is the year I will have answers.
Even if it kills me.
At the end of the short hall is the workshop of the Fool, exactly as I remember it. But I see it with new eyes. I see the small prototype of the mechanical mill that bears King Naethor’s mark—the same mark as is on the lockbox he keeps affixed to his chest. Kaelis’s father was here in another life, of that I have no doubt.
Did he come here with the former queen? The academy was once her castle, so Naethor could’ve married her to get closer to this place…Given that he killed her and took her crown, it wouldn’t be surprising if he manipulated her in other ways.
In the back of the room are a series of nearly empty jars of powder. This is what I came here for and I take them all. The ink I used to forge the Major cards might hold the key to creating the vessel—it’s a place to start, at least, and I know this is one place that Vaduin would not have been able to investigate.
