Chapter 13 #2
In my peripheral vision, I see him furrow his brow. “How did that happen?”
I debate lying, but there’s no point. I tell him the entire sordid story about the man on the trail, and he’s quiet for a long moment before he finally speaks.
“Well, there’s no doubt that you possess a strong Affinity, but it seems you need to work on control.
If you don’t learn how to properly use your magic, you risk hurting yourself or others. ”
Nodding, I say, “I know. I guess I probably should have warned you, but I was already embarrassed about my lack of experience. This already happened once before when I tried to test my magic after the first incident, and I killed a plant pretty quickly. I at least managed a little control with this one… at first.”
“What changed between when you had control and when you lost it?” he asks. “What were you thinking and feeling?”
As if this day couldn’t get any more mortifying.
No use in trying to save face now, though, if I want to figure out what I did wrong.
“You were getting closer to me, and I was nervous because I remembered that I didn’t tell you about me being new to magic in the greenhouse before.
And then I got annoyed again at the fact that you intentionally hid who you were that night. ”
Surprisingly, he chuckles, and I finally look over at him. Why the hell is he laughing at a time like this?
“I suppose that’s fair,” he says. “I guess we both kept secrets that night then, didn’t we?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes because he’s right, so I steer the conversation back to the problem at hand, attempting to prove that I’m not entirely reckless.
“I did ask Professor Showen on Friday if she’d be willing to tutor me on basic magic, but she said she didn’t have the time because of her family situation. ”
“That makes sense. She has some particularly challenging circumstances to deal with.” Then, after a long pause, he says more softly, “I’ll tutor you.”
“What? Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I add in a rush, though I’m not sure why. Any tutoring would be a benefit to me right now.
“You’re right. You could probably find help elsewhere, but realistically I’d be the best professor to assist you given your Affinity and the fact that your only lab course this semester is with me.”
I wonder how he knows my schedule, but I don’t ask.
“This is probably against my better judgment,” he continues, “but it’d be professionally negligent of me not to help you.”
“Why is it against your better judgment?”
He simply stares at me for a moment, his expression carefully neutral, before answering in a roundabout way. “I’ll need you to understand that this is a professional academic relationship, so any previous interactions we may have had that went beyond that scope must be forgotten.”
“It’s not like we fucked,” I mutter, then immediately regret it.
When I look over at Dr. Vale, his eyebrows are raised behind his hexagonal glasses, and his full lips are parted ever so slightly.
I would almost laugh at the sight if I weren’t on a continual streak of embarrassing myself.
I didn’t even know it was possible for him to look so startled.
He’s never been anything but cool, calm, and collected when I’ve seen him.
“When does tutoring start, Dr. Vale?” I ask, emphasizing his name and leaving it unspoken that the first time we met, he told me to call him Alaric.
“Fridays at seven, if that works for you. I don’t believe there are any classes at that time.”
Dread and hope intermingle in my chest. I’ll surely embarrass myself more than once with my total ignorance to magic, but the idea of spending more time with him is dangerously exhilarating, even despite the fact that I fully plan on maintaining professionalism.
“That works for me,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
He nods once in acknowledgement. “We’ll meet out here by the greenhouse entrance. Come prepared to work, because this won’t be easy.”
“I can do that. I really appreciate you making time for this.”
“I like to do what I can to help my students,” he answers, emphasizing again the strict boundaries on our connection.
I don’t know why he’s so intent on repeating it.
After I learned he was my professor, I’ve never done anything to indicate that I’m interested in pursuing something more.
He must be used to the constant attention and attempts from students to push boundaries, though, so it makes sense.
A thought abruptly pops into my head, and I’m asking him an entirely unrelated question before I can think it through. “How old are you?”
He frowns. “That’s a rather inappropriate question.”
“Sorry.” My cheeks redden. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just wondering, did you go here when you were a student?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
I sigh. “I just found out that my father attended Arcadia. I didn’t know until a few days ago, and my mom has no clue about any of it. He passed away before I was born, so I’ve just been trying to find connections.”
“Hmm, that is interesting.”
“Yeah,” I sigh.
“Well, do let me know if you find out anything more. I suspect you’ll find that this place holds many more secrets.”