25. Chapter 25 The Garden
Lucien walked the academy's western grounds on the path that ran along the outer wall. Classes were done for the day. The Magical Theory classroom was behind him. Instead of Renvaya's coffee cup shattering into dozens of pieces on the floor, it was back on her desk—thanks to him. He was certain that he should have let it shatter, but it was Renvaya’s cup and he didn’t want something of hers broken if he could prevent it.
Lucien was sure that he would have questions to answer from the professor at some point.
Luckily Corvath didn’t see Lucien’s cup rescue or he would have never heard the end of it.
The corridor traffic had thinned to the last students heading toward the library or the dormitories, and the sun sat low, casting long shadows across the flagstones.
He passed a doorway he'd never used before.
It was cut through the outer wall, an opening in stone three feet thick, no gate, no door, just an archway wide enough for two people to walk beside one another.
The stone around it was older than the surrounding wall, darker, the edges worn smooth by centuries of weather.
Vines climbed the exterior face and stopped at the threshold as if something inside had told them not to enter. He stepped through and found a garden.
The enclosure was open to the sky and ringed by stone walls of varying age.
The sections nearest the doorway were newer, cut from the same pale granite as the academy's main buildings.
The far wall was different. Darker stone, rougher, the blocks fitted without mortar in a style that predated the academy by centuries.
That wall had been standing when whoever built the school found it and built around it.
Inside the walls, everything grew. Low hedges bordered gravel paths that curved between beds of flowering plants, some cultivated and some allowed to run wild.
Trees grew in the corners, their canopies reaching past the wall line, their roots lifting sections of the path.
Insects moved through the heavy air in clusters, their hum constant and layered.
A bird called from one of the trees, and another answered from across the enclosure.
Benches sat along the paths at intervals, iron and wood, most of them empty.
Near the base of the ancient far wall, an old iron drainage grate sat flush with the ground, partially hidden by a sprawl of vine growth that had crawled down from the wall and across the stone around it.
The ironwork was dark with age, the grate bars thick and close together.
Lucien followed the main path past the first row of hedges.
The temperature changed inside the walls.
The stone caught the afternoon sun and held it, and the air in the enclosure was warmer than the grounds outside, still and fragrant.
Bees worked through a cluster of white flowers to his left.
A fat brown beetle sat on a stone near his boot and didn't move.
He came around a bend in the path and stopped.
Renvaya sat on a bench near the far wall, thirty feet ahead, alone.
She wasn't in robes.
The dress was pale blue, sleeveless, cut just above the knee, simple cotton that a woman wore on a warm afternoon with nowhere to be and no one to perform for.
Thin straps sat on the edges of her shoulders, leaving her arms and collarbone bare.
Her arms were lean and defined, the muscle visible without tension, and the line from her shoulder through her bicep to her wrist carried the precision that the robes always hid.
The neckline of the dress was low and the angles of her collarbones caught the late sun.
Her legs were crossed at the ankle, extended, and the hemline sat at mid-thigh where the position pulled it.
She had lovely long legs, the shape of them visible through thin cotton where the light came through the fabric from behind.
Her auburn hair fell past her shoulders, catching sun that turned the color toward copper at the ends. Dark-tipped fox ears sat above the line of her hair, angled forward, aimed at whatever she was reading. Her tail rested along the bench beside her, the white tip hanging off the edge.
She held a book in her left hand and a cup of tea in her right. The book was small, bound in soft leather, nothing that looked like a textbook. She was reading with the relaxed focus of a woman who had been here for a while and had stopped counting the time.
The lavender scent of her reached him on a breeze from thirty feet away. It was just her and the flowers and the sun-baked stone.
She hadn't looked up.
Lucien considered the path behind him. The doorway was right there, the corridor beyond it, his room at the end. He could turn around and she would never know he'd been here.
He walked toward the bench. He couldn’t help himself. Corvath was right about Lucien’s biggest weakness being the opposite sex.
She looked up when he was ten feet away. The surprise lasted a half-second, and she let it go without reaching for composure or the lectern voice. She settled.
"Lucien."
"Professor." He stopped near the end of the bench, close enough to talk without crowding her. "I didn't know this place existed."
"Most students don't. It's not on the tour." She marked her page with one finger and rested the book on her thigh. "The faculty use it when they want quiet. Some of us more than others."
"Do you come here often?"
"When I can. It's one of the few places on campus where nobody asks me about magical theory."
He almost smiled. "May I sit?"
She moved her tail. The bushy length of it slid along the bench, making room with an automatic gesture.
He sat down and put his bag on the ground between his feet. Now only a couple of feet separated them from one another. The stone held the sun's heat, and the path in front of them ran between two beds of yellow flowers he couldn't name. The insects kept their hum going.
"What are you reading?"
She held the book up, turning the cover toward him. The title was embossed in faded gold on the leather. He didn't recognize it.
"A novel," she said. "An old one. The protagonist is a fox-beastkin woman navigating court politics in a fictional kingdom." The corner of her mouth lifted. "My grandmother recommended it to me years ago. I reread it when the semester gets heavy."
"Is the protagonist winning?"
"She's surviving. In court politics, that's the same thing." She set the book beside her and picked up her tea. "What brings you to this side of the grounds?"
"Walking. No particular destination."
"And you walked in here."
"The doorway looked interesting. Old stone, no gate. I thought it was worth seeing what was on the other side. I don’t know why I haven’t looked before. It’s peaceful. I can see why you like it."
She sipped her tea. The cup was ceramic, dark blue, chipped at the rim. "You're the first student that I have crossed paths with here all semester.”
Lucien just nodded and enjoyed her company. The bird in the far tree called again and got silence instead of an answer. Renvaya held her tea in both hands and looked at the flowers across the path. She'd been relaxed before he arrived and she was choosing to stay that way.
"I wanted to apologize," she said. Her voice was level, composed, and the words came out with the care of something rehearsed on the walk home two nights ago and again this morning and once more before coming out here.
"Coming to your room after hours was inappropriate.
You're my student and I'm your professor.
A late-evening visit to your dormitory wasn't the right way to communicate what I needed to say. "
"There's nothing to apologize for."
"There is. I crossed a line. The information I brought could have waited until the next class, or I could have asked you to my office during regular hours.
Instead I came to your room in the evening wearing something I shouldn't have worn to a student's dorm.
" She held the teacup steady. "That was a lapse in judgment and I regret it. "
Lucien looked at her. She meant it. The words were sincere and a little stiff, built by a woman who'd thought carefully about what she'd done and arrived at a conclusion she was committed to defending even though part of her wasn't sure she wanted to.
He was surprised that she had brought up her dress.
"Professor," he said. "I enjoyed your visit.
Seeing you is a pleasure, whether it's in the classroom or in a hallway or standing in my doorway.
You had information I needed and you delivered it in person.
You cared about it and it showed. I'm glad you came.
I will always be glad to see you, wherever that is. "
Her hand on the teacup went still. She looked at him, and whatever she'd prepared for, it hadn't been that.
"That's a generous interpretation," she said. The words came quieter than the ones before them.
"It's the accurate one. I’m an honest person. Mostly,” Lucien said, smirking.
She held his gaze for a moment, then looked down at her tea. The afternoon light sat on her face and caught the angles, and her fox ears shifted once.
"Honest? Well let’s test that theory, then. This morning," she said. She set the teacup beside her book and folded her hands in her lap. "In class. You caught my coffee cup."
"You knocked it off the desk."
"I did. And it stopped. Two inches from the floor, it stopped, and then it floated back to the desk.
" She turned toward him, angling her body so she faced him, one leg folded under her.
The dress rode up with the shift, the hemline settling higher on her thigh which drove him absolutely mad with lust. "No gesture.
No incantation. No visible construct. Invisible telekinesis.
You just chose to not let the cup hit the floor. "