Page 81 of The Witch They Fear

Like a damn wire tap with legs.

She trusts the routine.

Yeah. She did. She was an idiot apparently.

The voice stirs. Quieter this time. Careful.

Something's wrong. I can feel it.

I grip my pen. Stare at the chalk notes on the board. And for the first time since this voice showed up in my head, I don't push it away.

Yeah, I think back. I think something is very wrong.

A pause. The voice leaning in.

Tell me.

I close my eyes. Let the classroom noise fade to static. The voice is warm in my skull and for once I'm grateful for it—less an invasion and more like the only locked room I have left.

I think one of my enforcers is feeding intel about me to someone. My schedule, my training, where I go, who I'm with. And whoever's getting those reports is waiting for something. Waiting for me to be "ready." I swallow. Whatever the hell that means.

Silence. Long enough that I wonder if it heard me.

Who?

I don't know yet. But I'm starting to think the people guarding me aren't just guarding me for the council.

Then, quieter than I've ever heard it:

Be careful, Calypso. Trust is expensive. Spend it wisely.

The warmth lingers. Holds. And then—

Emric turns his head.

Three rows down. Mid-lecture. No reason to turn around, no stimulus, no one calling his name. He just turns—slow, deliberate—and his dark eyes find mine. Those warm, kind, eyes land on me with an accuracy that has nothing to do with coincidence and everything to do with the fact that the voice in my head just went quiet at the exact moment he looked at me.

One second. Two. He holds my gaze. Then he turns back to face Malloy, smooth as water, and picks up his pen and resumes writing.

My pulse is in my ears. My pen is shaking in my grip.

The voice spoke. The voice went quiet. Emric turned around. At the exact same moment.

That's not a coincidence. That's not proximity or timing or any of the other explanations I've been using to talk myself out of it. I was having a conversation inside my own skull—a full, two-way, telepathic conversation—and Emric Vane turned to look at me the second it ended. Like he hung up the phone and then checked on me through the rearview.

It's him.

I look down at my notebook. My hands are steady but my heart is hammering and the dark-curled, olive-skinned, red-eared boy three rows down—the one who defends me in classrooms and blushes when he asks me to coffee—might be the stranger who's been living inside my head since the day I arrived.

I write one word in the margin of my notebook. Small. Careful. Where no one can see it. Then say it into my head.

Emric?

I wait.

He doesn't turn around.

But I swear—I swear—his pen pauses on the page for a half-second before it resumes.