Page 40 of The Witch They Fear

My brain starts running logistics instead—Corvin and Zeva would have to approve it or at least be informed, and probably Balcour, the council tracks my movements, I'm on a twelve-month leash with zero slack—

"Just think about it," Nellie says, reading my face. "We'd figure out the whole enforcer situation. My mom has dealt with worse than two vampires with bad attitudes."

I almost laugh. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I—"

"Ladies."

I jump.

The voice drifts down from the upper rows. Warm. Easy. Carrying the particular resonance of someone who knows exactly how good they sound and has been weaponizing it since birth.

Leopold is out of his seat, descending the aisle with that unhurried, long-legged stride. Blazer still on—unbuttoned, sleeves pushed up, uniform worn carelessly because he knows he looks better disheveled than most people look dressed up. He must have been waiting. And listening…

The whole conversation with Nellie, the rune, the Thibodaux invitation—he's been sitting up there, watching, biding his time until the room was empty enough.

"I was hoping to catch you," he says. To me. His eyes pass over Nellie like he’s acknowledging a piece of furniture. "If you have a minute."

Nellie stiffens beside me. I can feel it—the shift in her posture, the protective instinct kicking in. She opens her mouth.

"It's okay," I say, rolling my lips between my teeth. "We'll catch up later."

She looks at me. Those sharp brown eyes say twelve things at once, most of them variations on are you sure and I don't trust him and I'll be right outside. But she nods. Gathers her bag. Bumps my shoulder on the way past—the Nellie shoulder-bump, our thing now—and walks out.

Leopold watches her go. Then he drops into Nellie's vacated seat like he was invited.

"Calypso Dellaby." He says my full name the way you'd say the title of a book you've been meaning to read. "I'm Leopold Vassard. Officially. Since we haven't been properly introduced."

"I know who you are." I start packing my bag. Notebook in. Textbook in. Pens gathered from where they rolled across the desk. I'm not going to give him my full attention. Something tells me that's what he's used to, and I don't feel like being what he's used to.

"Do you." He stretches one long leg out under the desk in front of him, settling in. "What have you heard?"

"That you're late to everything, your family has buildings named after them, and you could charm a nun out of her habit."

"That last one's an exaggeration." He grins. Fangs. He's not hiding them—two sharp canines glinting in the classroom light, casually displayed the way another man might flash an expensive watch. "It was a priestess, and she came willingly."

I stop packing. Look at him.

He's watching me with those warm brown eyes, and up close the warmth is more complex than it looked from across the room. It's not simple. It's not accidental. It's the warmth of a fire that knows exactly how much oxygen it needs to keep burning and adjusts accordingly. Every degree of it is managed.

He’s cocky as fuck with a jawline to back it up.

"What do you want, Vassard?"

"Leopold." He corrects it gently. Like he's being generous. "And I want to talk to you. Is that so unusual? New student. Historic circumstances. I'd be a poor representative of my house if I didn't extend a welcome."

"Your house."

"Vassard. Noble blood. One of the founding families of this institution." He says it without arrogance—or rather, with an arrogance so total and so comfortable that it's circled all the way back around to sounding like humility. "We've been part of Devenir's governance since its inception. My family helped establish the council's educational mandate. We take the academy's mission seriously."

"The mission of..." I zip the smaller pocket of my bag. "Managing dangerous supernaturals?"

"Nurturing exceptional ones." His head tilts. The white hair shifts. "You're exceptional, Calypso. Everyone on this campus knows it. The question is whether you know it."

I look at him. He looks back. The smile is still there—warm, generous, practically magnetic. But his index finger is tapping against his thigh. Three quick taps, rhythmic, almost unconscious.

I don't know what it means. But I notice it.