Page 248

And so, after the seminar, I waited with growing nervousness for the others to leave the room, packing my things extra slowly so as not to attract attention.

Alarik sat at his desk, probably correcting essays, while my fellow students rushed out for their two-hour lunch break.

Suddenly, he got up and walked over to the windowsill, where he had placed some of his folders because at some point the desk had become too small.

When the door closed behind the last student, I tried to fix my gaze on his tailor-made three-piece suit. His trousers and jacket were a pleasant dark navy blue, checkered with wafer-thin ochre stripes, and the vest, which was tailored to fit perfectly over his white shirt, was also ochre. Only his tie was black, and his leather Oxfords were brown. One shoelace was untied, which caused me to smirk.

Analyzing his style helped distract me as I stepped forward.

Alarik strode from the windowsill to his desk to sit down again before he reached for a pair of glasses and absorbedly went through one of the essays.

A gust of wind blew through one of the open windows and, as if by reflex, without looking up from his work, Alarik pressed his hands down on all the loose sheets of paper scattered chaotically across the oak desk.

My smirk intensified when one of the sheets managed to escape anyway, sailed to the floor, and Alarik looked up as if he had only just noticed my presence.

His wavy brown hair hung completely disheveled over his forehead, as always.

Sometimes I wondered how anyone could work so focused and deep in thought.

I crouched down and reached for the sheet of paper covered in scrawled, barely decipherable handwriting.

As I stood up, my eyes automatically tried to decipher Alarik's notes.

Raindrops in her crystal eyes,

I cannot hold her when she cries.

My silence is her bitter win,

Deceiving her, my little sin.

Abstention from these thoughts I need,

Or my sweet hope will bitter bleed.

Will watch her, hoping she won't fall,

But I will catch her, after all.

– Inkbird

“A poem,” I noted, fascinated by the enigmatic clarity of his words, skimming over the unmistakable pseudonym he had given himself within the Dragonfly Society. “How beautiful.”

A poem about Alice? Was he reminiscing about old memories?

When I looked up, our eyes met.

He looked as if I had torn him from his usual composure.

And then I understood.

I had invaded his privacy.

The smile disappeared from my lips.

“I'm sorry,” I managed to say, and my hand shot forward, placing the poem on one of his file folders, from which countless sheets of paper were spilling out.

Not that I had broken into his office and even his apartment at the Copeland estate countless times before. Damn it, Bayla.