Chapter 14
Aamon called me Miss Dellaby fourteen times this morning.
I counted.
Fourteen.
In forty-five minutes of training.
Every sentence wrapped in professional distance, every instruction delivered with the clinical detachment of a man who was performing composure so hard I could practically hear the seams straining.
He stood behind the coffee table the entire session.
Didn't come around it once. Didn't touch me, didn't mirror, didn't do anything except direct my channeling exercises from six feet away with his arms crossed and his jaw locked and his eyes giving me absolutely nothing.
Miss Dellaby. Like Saturday night didn't happen. Like his fingers weren't in my hair and his voice wasn't breaking on my name and he didn't ask me to lock him out of my cottage because he didn't trust himself to stay.
I'm walking across campus toward Malloy's class, Corvin following close behind, and I don't know if rescinding Aamon’s invitation reset him to factory settings or if this is what Aamon looks like when he's scared of what he showed me. Either way, the whiplash is making me nauseous.
Saturday night he was a man. This morning he was a machine. And the gap between the two versions is going to give me vertigo for the rest of the week.
I push through the door of Malloy’s lecture hall and drop into my seat. Nellie is already there—back from Thibodaux, fresh-faced, a new headband in her curls that I suspect came from her mom's shop. She bumps my shoulder.
"You look terrible."
"Thank you. I moisturized and everything."
"Seriously. You okay? How was the drive back with—" She lowers her voice. "You know."
"Fine."
"Fine? Hours alone in a car with—"
"Nellie.” I cut her off. She bats her eyelashes just to fuck with me. If Aamon hadn’t been so confusing this morning, I may feel more inclined to give her the juicy details she’s looking for. As it stands… “It was fine."
She studies me. Reads the set of my jaw and the circles under my eyes and the way I'm gripping my pen like it personally offended me. Files it.
"Okay, fine. Don't tell me about the car." She drops her voice lower. "But tell me about the rune. Did you do the counter-ward thing? My mom was up all night making that chalk—"
"It worked. Both nights."
I uncap my pen. The memory surfaces—standing in front of my door last night, alone, the chalk rough against the wood and the candle flame jumping every time my concentration wobbled.
Three failed attempts before I found the channel.
The flame burned my palm twice and I had to redraw one of the intersections after the chalk cracked from a power surge.
But on the fourth try, the flame went blue and I felt the ward lock again.
It was very satisfying and I could breathe in my own home again.
"Your mom is incredible, by the way."
"I know." Nellie grins. "She called me twice yesterday after I left, mind you right after I left, to ask about your food preferences. She's already planning what to feed you next time."
Next time. The words settle warm in my chest. Somebody's mom is planning meals for me. I truly never thought I’d be lucky enough to feel that warmth again.
Emric is three rows down. He spots me, smiles, lifts a hand. I wave back before I can overthink it and feel the warmth creep up my neck. Cool. Very casual. Definitely not blushing.
Professor Malloy enters. Sets her bag on the desk. Pulls out her chalk. She's mid-turn toward the board when the classroom door swings open again and Leopold Vassard breezes in like he’s the hottest shit to ever walk the earth.
He's got the blazer slung over one shoulder. The white hair is windswept in a way that took effort to achieve. Every head in the room tracks him as he drops into his seat with a grin aimed at nobody and everybody, and sprawls back like a king settling into a throne.
Professor Malloy watches. Waits. Doesn't give him a single word.
I roll my eyes so hard I see my own brain.
"If Mr. Vassard is quite finished with his entrance," Malloy says, "we can begin. Containment versus rehabilitation." She writes both words on the board, side by side, a line drawn between them. "The council's eternal debate. And the topic of your midterm essay, so pay attention."
She turns. Scans the room.
"In 1547, the Venetian Council executed fourteen witches in a single week after one of them lost control during a market fair and killed three humans.
The council's position was unanimous: uncontrolled power is a public threat, and the responsible action is removal.
" She writes 1547—Venice on the board. I start taking notes.
"In 1802, a coven in Edinburgh took in a young witch who had accidentally collapsed a church roof during a tantrum.
They trained her for six years. She became one of the most skilled ward architects of the nineteenth century and built protective systems that are still in use today.
" She writes 1802—Edinburgh next to it. "Two incidents.
Two responses. Two very different outcomes. "
She sets the chalk down.
"Throughout supernatural history, these two schools of thought have governed how we treat practitioners whose power exceeds institutional control.
The first argues for containment—isolation, suppression, removal of the individual from the general population.
The logic is simple: if the weapon can't be controlled, lock it away.
The second argues for rehabilitation—training, integration, the belief that power can be directed rather than eliminated.
The logic is equally simple: every weapon is a tool if you teach the hand that holds it. "
She taps the board.
This is sounding eerily familiar. I roll my neck.
"Both have precedent. Both have body counts. I want you to argue your position with evidence, not sentiment." Her eyes sweep the room. "Who wants to start?"
The silence lasts three seconds. Then Leopold raises his hand.
Of course he does.
"The containment model exists for a reason.
" Leopold's posture hasn't changed—he's still sprawled in his chair, one ankle over the opposite knee, those warm brown eyes scanning the room with the lazy confidence of a man who's never lost a debate and doesn't plan to start today.
His voice is smooth, unhurried, dripping with the reasonable tone of someone who is about to say something terrible and make it sound like a favor.
"When a practitioner's power exceeds their capacity for control, the risk to the surrounding population isn't theoretical.
It's statistical. The Delacroix incident.
The Harrowgate collapse. The—" He pauses.
Runs his tongue along the edge of his teeth.
Almost smiles. "Well. More recent examples.
The data is clear: practitioners with unregulated power cause disproportionate harm, and the responsible institutional response is managed oversight. "
He doesn't look at me. He doesn't have to. Every head in the room tilts a fraction in my direction. The words more recent examples hang in the air like a neon sign with my name on it.
Nellie's hand finds my knee under the desk. Squeezes.
"Managed oversight," Malloy repeats. Neutral. "Can you define that term for the class, Mr. Vassard?"
"Structured containment with periodic evaluation.
The practitioner is removed from environments where their power poses a risk, housed in a controlled setting, and assessed at regular intervals to determine whether reintegration is viable.
" He leans back in his chair. "It's not punishment.
It's protection. For the practitioner and for everyone around them. "
Structured containment with periodic evaluation.
The facility. He's describing the damn facility.
He's describing the white room and the medication tray and the twelve years of my life that dissolved into chemical stillness, and he's doing it in the language of compassion because that's what makes it land.
As if he has any idea how non-compassionate my time there was.
I'm gripping my pen so hard the plastic creaks.
A hand goes up. Three rows below Leopold.
Emric.
He's sitting forward in his seat—elbows on the desk, dark curls falling across his forehead, the easy posture gone rigid.
His jaw is tight. The olive skin along his neck is flushed and his knuckles are pale where they're gripping the edge of the desk.
I've never seen him like this—the warmth is still there but it's been forged into something with an edge.
"With respect to the historical examples cited—" His voice is steady.
Warm but edged, each word chosen with care because the wrong ones will start a fight he can't finish in a classroom.
"The containment model has a significantly higher failure rate than the rehabilitation model when measured over longitudinal data.
Practitioners who are isolated show accelerated deterioration of control, not improvement.
The Delacroix incident occurred after six years of containment—she destabilized because of isolation, not despite it. "
Leopold's smile holds. "Correlation isn't causation, Vane."
"No, but a seventy-two percent recidivism rate among contained practitioners versus a thirty-one percent rate among rehabilitated ones is more than correlation.
It's a pattern." Emric doesn't raise his voice.
Doesn't need to. "Judging a witch by her worst moment rather than her potential is exactly the framework that created the indenture system.
We spent three hundred years calling ownership protection. I'd hope we've moved past that."
The room is very quiet. Leopold's index finger taps against his desk. Three times. The tell. He uncrosses his legs and leans forward—slow, deliberate, a predator adjusting its weight.