23. Chapter 23 The Dorm after the Storm
Corvath lay on Lucien's pillow in a curl so tight his nose was buried under his tail. His gold eyes were half-open, aimed at nothing. His leg had been broken and healed inside of ten seconds and he'd decided the universe owed him a quiet evening.
Wulden sat cross-legged on his bed with a textbook open on his knee, the page unturned for the last several minutes.
He'd been talking about the hallway incident since they'd come back from supper, cycling through the same three reactions in different order: disbelief, outrage, and a question about the legality of firing combat spells inside a building that Lucien had already answered twice.
"I still can't believe he did it," Wulden said. "With Renvaya standing right there. Between you. She was between you."
"She was right there in harm’s way."
"That's insane. That's actually insane. He could have hit her."
"He was reckless." Lucien sat on the edge of his own bed with his boots off, his back against the wall, feet flat on the mattress.
"What do you think happens to him?"
"Renvaya floated him to Elyndra's office. That's not a conversation that ends with a warning."
"You think he gets expelled?"
"I think Elyndra decides, and I think attacking a familiar with a combat spell while a professor is standing in the line of fire doesn't leave a lot of room for leniency.
" Lucien let the line sit. The window showed the grounds in the blue-gray of late dusk, the last strip of light gone from the treeline.
"We'll find out tomorrow maybe. I’m sure it will be the talk of the campus. "
Wulden shook his head. He closed his textbook without marking the page, which meant he hadn't been reading it. "How's Corvath?"
"Ask him. He’s right there. You always do this. Just talk to him like you’re talking to me."
Wulden looked at the pillow. "Corvath? Are you doing all right?"
Corvath opened one eye. "I'm superb. I took a bolt of wind mana to the torso, hit a stone wall at an embarrassing velocity, had a bone broken and then reset by a first-year healer with no anesthesia, and endured—and kind of enjoyed—being carried like an infant in front of dozens of witnesses.
" He closed his eye. "Other than that, I'm having a wonderful evening. "
"The bone is totally fine, though?"
"Tesslyn's work was excellent. The technique was raw and the bone-popping was ghastly, but the craftsmanship was sound. I'd rate the overall experience as a three out of ten. The healing was a nine. The rest was unacceptable."
"Three out of ten? Okay, got it," Wulden repeated.
"I'm being generous. The wall was cold and damned hard."
Lucien reached over and rubbed behind Corvath's ear. The cat leaned into it and purred.
"What about Valt's spell?" Wulden said. "Was it at least a good spell? Technically?"
"Technically," Corvath said without opening his eyes, "it was mediocre. Compressed poorly, no shaping beyond the initial thrust, and the spread pattern was sloppy. If you're going to ambush a cat in a hallway, at least put some pride into your work."
"He ambushed you with a bad spell?”
"He ambushed me with a lazy spell. What a sad, pathetic coward."
Wulden laughed awkwardly. He'd talked through the incident three times with Ormon and twice with Hanna and once with a second-year he barely knew who'd heard about it in the dining hall line.
"That's how I feel about it too," Wulden said. "Just, what kind of person does that to anyone—let alone a familiar?"
"A desperate one," Lucien said.
"Or a stupid one."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Wulden was quiet for a moment. He picked at the edge of his textbook cover. "This is going to sound weird, but I almost feel bad for Calith, his sister."
"It's not weird. She apologized twice for things her brother did. She seems to have a trait that her brother and father don’t have: integrity."
"Yeah." He nodded. "She seemed genuine."
"I think so too. However, Liora doesn’t trust her. Maybe I should feel the same way that she does. Beautiful women are a known blindspot of mine."
Corvath’s eyes opened. “Don’t I know it.”
Wulden slid off his bed and grabbed his bag from the floor beside his desk. He slung it over one shoulder and checked his pocket for his key.
"Where are you headed?" Lucien said, though he already knew.
"Study session. Hanna found a good spot in the east wing library. We're going over the Velleck chapter for Gallen's class."
"She lent you a pen once. Sweet girl," Corvath said from the pillow, eyes still closed.
"She lent me a pen one time. One. You people have remarkable memories for trivial information."
"Have fun studying, Wulden." Lucien kept his voice neutral.
"It is studying. Actual studying. With books and notes and a candle because the lamps in that section flicker." Wulden stopped at the door with his hand on the handle. "Do you need anything before I go?"
"Go study with your girl."
"She's not my girl." He opened his mouth again, closed it, and left. The door clicked shut behind him.
The room went quiet.
Corvath uncoiled from the pillow and stretched, arching his back, extending each leg with the slow precision of a creature who had confirmed that all four limbs still worked and wanted the confirmation on the record. He settled back down and looked at Lucien.
"The boy is courting that girl and has no idea he's courting that girl," he said.
"He knows. He’s just…Wulden."
"He knows and refuses to acknowledge it. A fascinating species, dwarves. In my experience, denial as a romantic strategy has a terrible success rate, but he seems committed to the approach."
"Give him time. I’m sure Hanna is very aware of his intentions."
Corvath's ears flicked. He turned his head toward the window where the blue-gray light was thinning to black.
Lucien picked up his textbook from the mattress. He read three paragraphs of the Aldessi supplementary and put it down again. He leaned his head back against the wall. The room was quiet. The grounds outside the window had gone dark, and most students were in the library or in their rooms.
A knock came at the door.
Lucien looked at it. It wasn't Wulden's knock. Wulden fumbled with his key first and swore at the lock. This was three even knocks, spaced and certain.
He got up, crossed the three steps to the door, and opened it.
Renvaya stood in the corridor.
She wasn't in her faculty robes.
The dress was green, a soft cotton print with small white flowers on a deep green background.
It was sleeveless, with thin straps that sat on the outer edge of her shoulders and left her arms and collarbone bare.
The fabric hung loose from the waist, falling just past her knees, the cut relaxed in a way nothing about Renvaya had ever been.
It was a summer dress, a dress for walking to dinner with someone, or sitting on a balcony with a glass of wine, or doing anything that wasn't being a Magical Theory professor at a combat academy.
Lucien had seen her in faculty robes buttoned to the collar. He'd seen her in the dark fitted dress from the lecture that had shown what the robes hid. He'd seen her in the rolled-sleeved cream shirt in her office, the closest she'd come to casual.
This was different.
Her arms were lean and precise, the definition visible from shoulder to wrist, and the narrow waist that the robes disguised sat visible under the drape of the fabric.
Her collarbones caught the lamplight from the corridor sconce.
She was long-limbed, narrow, and angular in a way the soft cotton worked against, the dress saying one thing and the body inside it saying another.
The auburn hair fell past her shoulders, the dark tips of her fox ears showing above it, and her amber eyes looked at him from a distance of three feet with an expression that carried nothing he could use.
She was stunning. The sundress made her look like a woman who'd walked away from her office and left the professor in it.
Lucien had been alive long enough that beauty was data, not event.
He'd sat across from Liora in her underwear and held a conversation.
Professor Kess moved like a predator at the front of the classroom every lecture, and he kept his breathing even.
Tesslyn turned heads, and he'd never lost a thought over it.
Beautiful women were a constant, and he appreciated them and kept walking.
Corvath would disagree with him wholeheartedly and say that women were Lucien’s biggest weakness. He was probably right.
"Mr. Margrave." She said his name with the formality of a woman standing in a student corridor in a sundress and trying to pretend both of those things were normal. "I apologize for the hour. I wanted to speak with you about today's events."
"Of course. Would you like to come in?"
The hesitation was small but visible. Her gaze moved past him into the room, a quick assessment of the two beds, the desks, the cat on the pillow. The calculation was on her face: a professor in a student's room, behind a closed door, in a sundress.
"I intended to speak in the hallway," she said.
"The hallway has students in it. My room allows the privacy you deserve."
She looked left, down the corridor. Two second-years walked past at the far end without glancing their way.
"Come in," Lucien said.
She came in.
Corvath lifted his head from the pillow. He looked at Renvaya, then at Lucien, and the bond carried a single private transmission.
"Your very gorgeous professor is standing in your dorm room wearing a sundress. I would like you to know that I am leaving through the window and I am not coming back tonight. You are entirely on your own. Don't do anything I would do."
Corvath dropped off the bed, padded across the floor to the window, leaped to the sill, and squeezed through the gap. He was unhurried about it, perfectly timed, and clearly wanted credit. His tail disappeared into the dark.
Renvaya followed the cat's exit through the window. "Your familiar just left through the window."