Page 80 of The Witch They Fear

Nellie looks up. "Cal—"

"I need a minute."

"Do you want me to—"

"No. Just—I'll be right back."

I grab my bag and walk out. The hallway is cool. Quiet. I lean against the wall and breathe. In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth. Aamon's technique. I can almost imagine him saying it again.

I check my fingers. Flickering. Little arcs of light at my knuckles, dancing across the skin. But manageable. Fading. I'm catching it earlier now—recognizing the curve before it crests. Progress. The ugliest kind—invisible, incremental, but I have to find strength in it.

If not, I’ll go back into that room and beat the fuck out of Leopold without even dipping inside myself for my magic. Just fists. Like God intended.

I push off the wall. Round the corner toward the water fountain—

And stop.

Corvin is at the end of the corridor. Leaning against the wall near the stairwell, phone pressed to his ear. His back is half-turned. He doesn't see me.

I'm about to walk up to him when I hear my name.

"—Dellaby, yes. The schedule is consistent. Training sessions with Aamon are back on, every other day, seven a.m. She went off-campus this weekend—Thibodaux, the Marchand woman's shop. The Marchand daughter drove. Aamon accompanied as escort."

I freeze. Press myself against the wall. My heart rate, which was just starting to settle, kicks right back up.

"The cottage situation is unchanged. She's still in the duplex. Zeva and I rotate shifts. She's—" He pauses. Listens. "—cooperative. Mostly. She's unpredictable but she's not suspicious. She trusts the routine."

She trusts the routine.

My stomach turns.

"The timeline is—yes, I understand. When she's ready." Another pause. Longer. "I'm aware of the parameters. I'll continue the reports until instructed otherwise."

He ends the call. Pockets the phone. Rolls his shoulders and straightens his spine—snapping back into the wrinkled-but-blank-faced enforcer I've been walking past for weeks without a second thought.

I have maybe three seconds before he realizes I’m here and thinks I was listening.

Shit.

I step around the corner. Casual. Easy. Acting like I just wandered into the hallway to clear my head.

"Hey, Corvin." My voice is steady. I'm impressed with myself. "Do we have any scheduled evaluations this week? Balcour mentioned something in his last note and I can't remember the date."

He looks at me. A beat too long. His expression is the same professional nothing it always is, but I've spent weeks cataloguing faces and the phone went into his pocket too fast and his weight shifted to his back foot when he saw me—defensive. A micro-retreat.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"I'd check with the administrative office," he says. "I'm not privy to evaluation scheduling."

"Right. Yeah, thanks."

I turn. Walk straight back toward the classroom. My stride is measured. My shoulders are relaxed. My face is doing whatever face a person makes when everything is fine and nothing is wrong and the man who's been living right next to her is delivering reports about her to someone. I mean, I know I’m being monitored, but the sinking feeling in my stomach is telling me he wasn’t talking to Balcour.

Ready for what?

I slip back into my seat. Nellie glances at me—you okay?—and I nod and open my notebook and write absolutely nothing because my brain is too busy screaming.

Corvin. Corvin. The older vamp with the thermos who watched me practice with my stone at dawn and grumbled about the early hour. The man I bragged to about my channeling. The man who walked me home from Leyonna's office without asking a single question and I thought that was respect and it was surveillance. Every night he’s been in the cottage next to mine. Every morning he's trailed me to class. Every detail, every movement, every conversation within earshot—fed to someone.