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Quentin's rings.

I glanced toward the door.

Quentin's voice was somewhere in the distance of the wide hallway.

No, Julie, don't do it.

I shouldn't do it. But I did it anyway, leaning over the table until my stomach bumped against the edge and I barely reached the two rings.

Larissa would be proud of me now. It wasn't a good excuse, but it was better than adding even more questions to my endless list.

Curious, I inspected the gold ring with the the flying raven that clawed at the struggling snake as if to hold it captive, which resembled a signet ring. Only now did I notice the small details: tendrils engraved into the wide curve of the ring. Acanthus tendrils.

The ring was heavy and cold.

He had forgotten to put it back on.

Had he put Umbra on it?

I toyed with the idea of putting it on to see if it would change the way I sensed my Quatura energy. What if I could use it to block my Air powers? That would be the perfect solution to my control stone problem.

I reached for the second ring. It was heavy too.

As I examined the gold, I noticed that even up close, it looked as if two rings had been welded together.

I inspected the outside, then the inside, where I found an engraving.

Don’t Deserve You

Plumb

A J...

My heart stopped.

He was wearing a ring... with the initial of my name... The name I used to text him anonymously.

Was it a coincidence?

My heart began to pound audibly against my chest.

He was wearing a ring with my name on it.

My vision blurred as tears welled up in my eyes.

“What are you doing...”

Startled, I looked up and dropped the ring back into the Petri dish.

There was a loud clink.

Quentin was standing in the doorway. His startled expression seemed frozen.

I blinked away the tears and avoided his gaze.

“Nothing, I...”

Within two seconds, he was beside me and snatched the two rings from the Petri dish beneath me.