Chapter 9 #3
And the next time my magic spikes—because it will spike, because that's what my magic does—he'll reach for his pocket instead of reaching for my hands, and we'll be right back where we started.
The button. The white. The pain of my essence snuffed out in seconds.
My burned arms throb. I did this to myself because he didn't press it. And somehow that's his fault.
"I don't think that's—"
"It's not a discussion, Miss Dellaby. It's a safety matter." Smooth. Final. The dean's voice, not the woman's. "Which brings me to something else."
She reaches into a drawer and produces a single sheet of paper. Lays it flat between us.
"Your friend Miss Marchand came to see me yesterday."
Nellie. My jaw drops. Dammit, Nellie.
She went to the dean. Without telling me, without checking, without so much as a hey, I'm going to march into the headmistress's office and ask for a field trip.
Classic Nellie—reckless generosity at full sprint, consequences be damned, assuming she can bulldoze through institutional red tape the way she bulldozes through hostile hallways and my defenses and every wall I've put up since I got here.
I'm going to kill her. After I hug her. Then kill her again.
"She requested permission for a weekend trip to her family home in Thibodaux," Leyonna continues. "Mr. Balcour has reviewed the request and approved it. Professor Aamon will accompany you for security."
Aamon.
The man I just ran from. Fucking great. And now—after Leyonna tells him to use the fail-safe more liberally—he'll be following me around off campus with a freshly sharpened leash and direct orders to yank it.
A whole weekend. With the version of Aamon I've been dreading since that first demonstration in Leyonna's office. The one with his thumb on the button and no hesitation left.
"I appreciate the offer, but I don't think—"
"Miss Dellaby." Leyonna leans forward. Her expression warms—or rearranges itself to look warmer, which with this woman might be the same thing.
"Take the weekend. Enjoy some time off campus with your friend.
Study the material, practice your grounding, but also—" She opens her hands.
"Live a life that reminds you why you're doing all of this. "
She holds my gaze.
"To be free," she says. Quiet. I can't tell if she means it or if it's just the right thing to say.
Free. The word lands behind my sternum and sits there, warm and aching.
I look at my burned arms. At my own handprints seared into my skin. I don't know if she's kind or strategic or both and I don't know if it matters right now because free is the only word in the English language that still has power over me.
"The infirmary is on the ground floor of Hollow Wing," Leyonna says, shifting back to practical. "Go. Get those tended to. Then go home, rest, and change your attitude."
"What about Aamon? After what I—"
"Professor Aamon will be notified." Smooth. Handled. "Is there anything else?"
A hundred things. A thousand, actually. Why did you call me valuable? What do you want from me? What does the council want from me? Am I a student or an investment? Do you actually care if I succeed or do you just care about what I can do for you if I do?
"No," I say. "Thank you."
I stand. My arms throb. The burns have settled into a steady, pulsing ache that I can feel in my teeth.
"Miss Dellaby." Leyonna's voice catches me at the door.
I turn. She's watching me and for once I can't tell which version of her is doing the watching—the dean, the politician, or the woman.
Maybe all three. "What you did today—choosing to harm yourself rather than risk harming others—that isn't weakness. It's the opposite."
I stare at her. Waiting for the but.
"But it isn't sustainable," she adds. "Learn the tools. Trust the process. And trust the people trying to help you."
Trust. Isn’t that ironic?
"I'll try," I say. Because it's the only answer that gets me out of this office.
The corridor is quiet as I step out. Corvin is waiting. He falls into step behind me—silent, professional, asking nothing.
"Hollow Wing," he says after a moment. "The infirmary. It's this way."
Of course he heard. Stupid vamp.
"I know where it is."
I turn the other direction.
"Miss Dellaby—"
"I'm going home, Corvin."
He hesitates. Then follows.
We walk back to the cottage in silence. I unlock the door, close it behind me, and stand at the kitchen sink running cold water over my forearms until the sting dulls to a throb. The burns are ugly—raw, blistered, my own fingerprints seared into my skin in perfect detail.
The infirmary could fix them. Vampire blood, healing tonics, whatever this place keeps in its arsenal of making things look like they never happened.
But I don't want them to look like they never happened.
I want to see them every morning when I roll up my sleeves.
I want to remember what I'm capable of—not the power, not the fire.
The choice. The moment I decided to burn myself instead of burning him.
I lay back on the bed and groan.
Maybe I can just stay in my cottage forever. They can’t make me attend classes and training, right?
The fail safe hums in the back of my neck.
Oh, right.