The northern staircase was still cordoned off since it had been contaminated with pall slime, meaning students and faculty were crowded in the southern staircase in between each class. It also meant that Maggie would be on the wrong side of the building to Taliesin’s Materials Alchemy lab, so she decided to cut through the courtyard.
The path coiled through the courtyard like a nautilus, converging on a small, flowering hawthorn tree in the center. The beds were neat and orderly, with the electric green of new spring growth and blooms bursting forth in pinks, whites, and purples. The campus gardeners, worried about the gloom cast by the pall and the reduced sunlight, had installed small lights shaped like wide leaves to help the plants grow. The lights vined through the courtyard garden like a lucent pothos, creating a dazzling array that seemed to have grown overnight. The strangely festive, twinkling glow left Maggie breathless.
Maggie cut through the garden on stepping stones, brushing her hand across a soft reaching sweet fern, until she stood outside Taliesin’s class. Materials Alchemy had been relocated from a third-floor lab to this cramped classroom tucked off the courtyard near the northern staircase. Even though the room was small, it had tall windows and a back door that opened to the garden. Most professors who taught in that classroom kept the door open since the room was so small and stuffy, letting in a little bit of cool, fresh air. She was pleased to find that Taliesin had done the same.
Through the open door, Maggie had a view of about half the students and Taliesin by the chalkboard. She knew it was the same class that had experienced the pall, and she recognized most of the students, if not from her own classes, then from helping them down the stairs to safety that day. Materials Alchemy had a reputation for being a chore of a class. At Hawthorn, it was previously taught by an ancient professor who had finally retired last spring. The coursework consisted of basic lessons on the transformation of organic and inorganic materials, an essential building block for many complicated spells. Maggie was surprised when Taliesin was hired specifically to teach it. He taught three Materials Alchemy labs and then two other slightly more advanced intro courses. She would have expected such a famous visiting scholar to teach more advanced, niche topics, but this was just another way that Taliesin surprised her.
Maggie pulled her sweater tighter over her shoulders as she peeked through the door of Taliesin’s class. Up at the front of the room, she saw a different version of him than any she hadmet so far. Taliesin bounded around from the chalkboard to the lectern to directly in front of his students’ desks without any of the awkwardness she had seen on the auditorium stage. He was energetic. Enthusiastic. On the board, he had drawn an example of a complicated rune. Maggie’s materials alchemy was rusty, but it looked like the conversion of iron into copper.
Maggie didn’t hear the question Taliesin asked or his student’s answer, but she saw the triumphant grin on his face as he exclaimed, “Yes, exactly!” and turned to make a note on the chalkboard in scratchy handwriting. His students now chattered over each other, and Maggie braced herself for Taliesin to lose his cool, but he didn’t. “One at a time!” he urged calmly, and the chatter stopped.
The students shouted out ideas, one at a time as Taliesin had requested, and he marked them on the board, nodding or gently correcting, steering the discussion effortlessly. Of the students Maggie could see, they all watched him with rapt attention, and most joined in the discussion and took notes.Gods above, is he a good teacher, too?
Maggie would have liked to blame his students’ enthusiasm on Taliesin’s fame, but students could usually see right through that, especially after the first few classes. It was very clear to her that he was good at this and that he liked it, too. And though they certainly had differences in opinion about the how, it was obvious that Taliesin loved his job in much the same way that Maggie did.
Abruptly, Taliesin looked up at the clock in the room, which was inconveniently right above the doorway Maggie peekedthrough. She didn’t have time to duck out of view and instead offered up a sheepish half wave. Taliesin gave her a wry grin before saying to his class, “Time’s up! Bring this same energy to your final and you’ll all do fine.”
He paused and then added, “I know some of you might have tried to find me during office hours last week. I was ill and missed them, I’m sorry about that—if you tried to come talk to me, shoot me an email and we’ll set up a one-on-one.”
Maggie didn’t know how he would have time for that, but she had no doubt that he’d scrounge some up. He began erasing the chalkboard as his students filed out, some of them lining up to talk to Taliesin. The rest left through the courtyard, cutting a faster path to some of the dorms on the south side of campus. She smiled warmly and waved hello as they passed while she waited for Taliesin to finish talking to his students.
Unlike Maggie, he didn’t rush out of his room to join her, but she did catch him sneaking glances at her. She tried to appear busy, spending far more time looking at the new garden lights than necessary.
Maggie’s stomach fluttered every time she caught Taliesin looking at her with those kind brown eyes, a light, dizzy sensation that unsettled her. She had felt it last night, with their legs twined together in the window seat at Willoughby’s, as he’d listened to her so intently while she’d told him some version of the truth about her first year in Galloway. She wasn’t even sure why she’d told him any of it, only that she wanted to share a piece of herself after he’d shared so much of himself.
But now, the fluttering feeling curdled slightly. It allreminded her too much of her ex, of Evan, of the way they’d cast hurried glances at each other over textbooks, across labs, like they were the only two people in the world. The final time her eyes met Taliesin’s, he gave her one of those smiles that crinkled the corners of his eyes. It was too much, and Maggie was desperate to keep it from happening again.
Chapter Seventeen
Before Arthur’s Materials Alchemy class, Rory had lectured him in a series of texts that were rattling around in Arthur’s brain as he walked into the courtyard.
Rory Farrell:What do you mean nothing has worked? What have you tried?
Rory Farrell:We came up with this plan a week ago
Arthur:I feel like it’s important to put in writing that you came up with this plan
Rory Farrell:You don’t have to make out with her in the middle of campus, just do something
Rory Farrell:Talk to her, get close to her, do what you did that night!
It wasn’t worth explaining to Rory all the things he’d tried, but when he looked up at Maggie with that guarded grin on herface and saw the hawthorn petals that were stuck in her hair, he had the half thought that it must be divine intervention.
“Hi, Maggie,” he said when he was close enough to reach out and brush them away. His voice was quiet as he brought his hand up to her hair, letting his fingers graze her earlobe as he did it. He tried not to look like he was searching her expression for some sort of recognition, so he kept talking. “You should have come in and joined us, shown off your materials knowledge.”
If there was anything in Maggie’s expression as he pulled his hand away, it was relief as the petal blew away on the wind. “You know very well I haven’t taken that class in over thirteen years. Your students would put me to shame.”
Arthur shrugged. “I think you probably have many talents I don’t know about.”
Even in the dreary light, Arthur could make out the blush that bloomed on Maggie’s face. He wanted to reach out again and brush her skin, feel the heat in her cheeks. But he didn’t, of course. No matter how much he wanted to. No matter how proud Rory would be.
Maggie cleared her throat. “Dr. Paige is waiting for us.” They walked through the archway that led from the courtyard to the covered pathway connecting Ilex Hall with the rest of campus. When the grounds came into view, Arthur was pleased to see the grow lights dotting the landscape, nestled into flower beds and hanging from tree branches to combat the hazy gloom produced by the pall. Maggie seemed to forget their awkward moment when she saw them, her face brightening. “I hate that we need them,” Maggie said, “but maybe this one small thing isn’t so terrible.”
A groundskeeper had crafted the clever lights, and Dean Clearwater had shown Arthur the plan earlier in the week. It had been such a relief to have one less thing eating away at him, especially after he persuaded Dean Clearwater to talk to the administration about providing the lights to local residents. “The school is going to distribute free lights to anyone within a mile radius who needs them. Hopefully it will stave off some of the ecological impacts of this cloud cover,” he said. “Maybe you could take a couple home for your balcony?”
They stepped off the main campus walkway to a winding brick pathway that snaked up the hill toward the edge of campus. Other than Ilex Hall, there were six other buildings on campus, some that were original to the property and some that were built as it transitioned to a college over the past century. The historical center was in the Annex, one of the original buildings. It came into view as they followed the path around Ferox Hall.
The squat building was made out of silver shale stone and covered in moss and lichen. It had an original thatched roof that must need to be rethatched every few years, and it was surrounded by a copse of trees, nearly reclaimed by the Wilds. It looked like one of the faerie cottages from the old Diadhan poems that Maggie loved so much.
