Monday morning arrived with the dull, pounding pressure of a headache that Gwen knew would be her companion for the day. Her dreams had been a feverish blur of spectral horses and falling red envelopes, all presided over by her father’s looming, grey eyes and the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of his dragon-headed silver cane on a floor that wasn’t there.
Her resonance reserves had recovered a little, but only enough to survive the day’s classes. She couldn’t afford to waste even one drop of her energy on aesthetics. Instead, she had been forced to use one of Sloan’s more experimental beauty balms for dark circles—a localized jolt of caffeine for the dermis. It worked, mostly, though it left Gwen with a subtle, periodic eye twitch that made her feel as though her very nerves were protesting the lie of her composure.
Will wasn’t in their morning Advanced Arcanum class. His absence was a cold draft in the lecture hall, a blatant emptiness that Gwen’s mind kept rushing to fill.
After class, she cornered Bryn and Cal, ignoring the unnerving creep of eyes on her back. Their guarded expressions told her everything. Will had been summoned by Chancellor Eddow late last night, and according to Cal—who looked like he had slept as little as she had, but without the balm—Will hadn’t returned to the dorm since.
Gwen’s own meeting with the Chancellor had been a trial of suffocating tension.
Chancellor Eddow usually occupied his office like a mountain—immovable, composed, and unsubtle in his superiority. But today, the atmosphere was prickly.
He didn’t invite her to sit. He didn’t offer tea. He simply watched her as her eye twitched, his silence a heavy, judgmental weight.
“While I appreciate that your actions saved lives,” he said, his voice so low Gwen had to strain to hear it over the pounding in her ears, “using a curse to do so is… not what I typically encourage when I suggest spell-casting creatively, Miss O’Dorchaidhe.”
Gwen felt the familiar, icy pride of her lineage rise. She wasn’t surprised by the reaction. Even a sorcerer as renowned as Eddow wasn’t immune to the stigma of dark magic.
“The situation was not typical, Chancellor,” she said, maintaining a tone of respectful calm. “The Rider’s energy was endless; ours was not. I chose the only path that resulted in a zero-casualty count.”
“You chose a curse,” Eddow said, his eyes flashing with a brief, terrifying light. “An O’Dorchaidhe specialty. One that, I understand, required an amount of resonance you do not possess yourself. That choice required Will to activate the curse with his own resonance—a great risk for anyone unfamiliar with dark magic, but a greater risk to anyone that curse may touch.”
Gwen managed a polite, frosty nod, her blood boiling. She knew that relying on Will’s relentless resonance risked overpowering the curse. But, between accidentally triggering a decades-long nap and death, it was one of the few easy choices of her life.
“When I asked you to tutor Mr. Clark,” Eddow continued, “I expected a focus on sanctioned, stabilizing magics. Not the sharing of… controversial arts. In the future, you will refrain from such experiments. Will should focus on the traditional application of magic. He isn’t ready to face the consequences of dark magic.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command that would have made a weaker sorcerer buckle. But Gwen felt a mounting, sizzling frustration. She was being scolded for succeeding. She was being told to keep Will sheltered—to keep him small. Why let the Chosen One choose for himself? The Inks had their scripted lives, and it seemed Will had his—but no one would bother to tell him how few choices he had.
“Will is ready for more than you think,” the words slipped out before she could check them.
Eddow’s silence was absolute. He watched her for a long, agonizing pause, and for a moment, Gwen saw no light in his eyes. Only the unyielding assessment of a man who recognized that no matter what strings he pulled, she wouldn’t be his puppet. Whatever favour she’d earned by accepting the tutelage was gone.
Fine. If he wasn’t going to trust her, she might as well ask anyway.
“Is Will recovering poorly?” she asked, her voice tight. “He wasn’t in class.”
Eddow’s gaze fell to the dark oak of his desk, his hands shifting papers in a way that felt pointedly dismissive. “There is no need for you to worry about his status, Miss O’Dorchaidhe. Focus on your own. He will be back in class tomorrow.”
But Gwen couldn’t wait for Tuesday.
By six o’clock that evening, the eye twitch had become a constant, maddening rhythm, and her lack of a plan felt like a physical itch she couldn’t scratch.
Gwen stood before the heavy, scarred oak door of the Cairngorm dorm, feeling the weight of her own presence. This was a place of drafty hallways, where portrait subjects wore simpler clothing, and the absence of perfumes confused Gwen’s oversaturated senses. It was a far cry from the gilded maximalism of the North Wing. Few of her kind ever stood here without a disciplinary warrant in hand.
She knocked, the sound dull and flat against the wood.
Roman Smith opened the door. The transition was instantaneous: a boisterous, open-mouthed grin at some joke behind him vanished into a horrified, tight-lipped mask.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, his hand braced on the doorframe. “This isn’t about the letters, is it? Or the Dullahan?”
“No,” Gwen assured him. She forced her voice into a level, silken calm, forcing patience despite having so little left—though her eyelid fluttered with an electric betrayal. “I’m not here in any Circle capacity. I’m looking for Will Clark.”
“Oh.” Roman’s brow furrowed, a wall of suspicion rising behind his eyes. He closed the door a fraction, but not before Gwen caught a glimpse of the common room: mismatched couches, a lopsided Fen-Ball trophy, and a cluster of students laughing over a pile of normie snacks. It looked…messy. Warm. It looked like a place where people actually liked each other.
“Why?” Roman asked. It wasn’t a friendly question; it was the warning of a gatekeeper.
Gwen’s eye twitched. “Because he missed class. And because I am his tutor.”
Roman didn’t move. He stood his ground with a quiet, stubborn dignity that Gwen found baffling. At Cairn-Gait, most people moved for an O’Dorchaidhe because they wanted something or feared losing something. But Roman didn’t seem to care about the social cost of making her wait.
“I’m not looking to get him in trouble, Roman,” she said, her voice softening in an offer of peace. “I’m just… I need to see him.”
Roman studied her. He looked at the chocolate cashmere sweater and the perfectly tailored trousers—the uniform of a world that viewed him as an ‘impurity.’ As a Newblood, Roman occupied the scattered, unmapped territory between the Ink elite and the Vapour underclass. He was a walking reminder that the pure lines people like her father obsessed over had blurred a long time ago.
“He’s with Cal,” Roman said finally, though the wariness remained. “They headed to the South Complex. Probably at Double Trouble for a caffeine fix.”
Gwen nodded and turned to leave, her loafers shuffling on the uneven stone.
“Hey,” Roman called out.
She stopped and looked back. Roman had stepped into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him. He blocked the view of the laughter inside, standing tall—a sentinel in a faded Cairngorm-branded hoodie.
“I don’t know what kind of game the Circle is playing with him,” Roman said, his voice low and unexpectedly steady. “You Inks don’t do anything for free. A favour for a favour.”
Gwen felt a prickle of heat behind her ears. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“It’s not,” Roman countered. “Will’s got enough people trying to use him as a mascot or a target. He doesn’t need a ‘friend’ who’s just looking for social currency. So, if you’re just here to use him… don’t.”
The weight of the warning settled on her tightened shoulders. Roman risked making an enemy of a Circle Chair to protect someone he’d known for a month. It was so profoundly un-transactional.
In Gwen’s world, loyalty was a contract signed in blood and social capital. But Roman stood there with nothing to gain and everything to lose, offering a shield to a Vapour simply because it was the right thing to do. She thought of Sloan, who would defend her only as long as it didn’t stain her own reputation, and Isolde, whose generous mentorship felt like a slow-motion interrogation.
It offered a bitter clarity. Here she was worrying about Will Clark, when she was the one who was truly isolated.
“I’m not trying to use him, Roman,” she said. The vulnerability in her voice was unscripted. “Will is too good for that.”
Roman’s expression softened, just a fraction. He didn’t offer a smile, but he stepped back toward the door. “Double Trouble,” he reminded her. “They usually take the back path by the selkie fountain.”
Gwen thanked him, her voice barely a whisper. He offered a nod and then slipped back inside the dorm, leaving her alone to head for the other side of campus.
As a Newblood—a bridge between two worlds that refused to meet—Roman knew the costs of crossing the lines each side drew. Yet he seemed to have a firmer footing than she ever had. At least there was one more person who wouldn’t sacrifice Will Clark to save their own hide.
***
Gwen dreaded taking the tram, but it was the only way to reach the far end of Cairn-Gait, where the non-Ink students typically congregated. The ride to the South Complex was a descent into the reality of the ‘other’ Cairn-Gait.
October in the Highlands had finally lost the last lingering evenings of warmth, replaced by a biting, peat-scented wind that tasted of impending sleet. Gwen sat rigidly on the tram’s wooden bench, grateful that she wasn’t forced into an undignified cling to the grab handles.
The South Complex lacked the polished trimmings of the North side, where Aurelius and Vespertine alumni charitably showed off their wealth. The South side was grittier, with a frugal approach to maintenance that allowed more crumbling than Gwen thought possible for any building that wasn’t condemned. Here, the gargoyles weren’t regal protectors; they were stained with centuries of black lichen, their stone faces twisted into more honest expressions of misery.
Gwen stepped off the tram feeling like a polished anomaly. She hadn’t yet been inside the South side coffee shop Double Trouble, but she knew the place. She knew every path and building thanks to her regular patrols.
The iron fountain—a selkie shedding her seal-tail skin, posed in a basin filled with dead leaves and stagnant, grey rainwater—waited in an enclosed courtyard behind Double Trouble and a wing of the South Complex.
Will was there, perched on the fountain’s crumbling edge. His shoulders hunched against the damp chill, his dark hair damp with mist. The bruised shadows beneath his eyes almost matched the ones Gwen had fought so hard to hide. Beside him, Cal Whitley was a stark, broad contrast—his arm in a sling, his chin stitched—unapologetically taking up space as he paced and ranted a string of profanities, with Gwen only able to pick out a few intelligible phrases that included “ungrateful pricks,” “damned if you do,” and “up their own arse.”
Gwen stopped ten paces away. The sight of Will—hollowed out, yet lucky to be alive and un-expelled, still endlessly radiating that familiar, bruised violet resonance—made her chest ache. She had crossed campus to find him, but she had no script. No plan. This was her first time seeking him out for anything other than a tutoring session.
She wondered if he’d been this nervous the times he’d looked for her. When he’d found her with flowers outside the infirmary. Or when he’d picked up her earring outside the Great Hall the evening of the Equinox.
Ridiculous, really. But she found herself brainstorming an excuse. And she only felt brave enough to move again when she remembered she had a reason. The Circle expected her to revoke Cal’s access to the sanctuary. So she would.
“Will,” she said, her voice floating through the heavy, damp air.
Will turned, his green eyes widening. For a fleeting second, his face transformed—a spark of genuine, unguarded relief that mirrored the warmth she felt bloom in her own chest. The eye twitch beneath her lid suddenly stopped.
“Look who’s slumming it on the South side. Who knew an O’Dorchaidhe could find us here?” Cal said, though the usual bite in his voice was replaced by a weary sort of recognition. “What brings the princess to the commoners’ court this dreary evening?”
Gwen forced her silver-edged persona back into place, though the performance felt brittle. “Time’s up, Whitley,” she said, stepping forward. “I’m officially revoking your ‘all-access pass’ to the Circle.”
She held out her hand, palm up, inviting him to submit. Cal let out a rough, humourless laugh, but he didn’t argue. He stepped toward her, and as his hand met hers, the sensation of the revocation snapped between them—a static shock that heated their palms.
“Heartbroken,” Cal muttered, withdrawing his hand. “Can’t I’ll miss the smell of unearned superiority. That place is a Victorian funeral waiting to happen.”
“It’s called tradition, something your family apparently traded for a permanent chip on their shoulder,” Gwen retorted, though her eyes were already sliding back to Will.
“Don’t,” Will muttered, rubbing the back of his neck where the obsidian marks trailed. “I’m not in the mood to be a referee.”
The courtyard muted instantly, a silence drenched and heavy with too many things unsaid. Cal looked at Gwen, surprisingly without sneer or judgment—only an exhausted, shared grimace of concern.
“He was just telling me about Eddow,” Cal confessed grimly, his voice low, eyes checking the cloisters surrounding them. “Apparently, being a hero comes with a side of probation. The Board wants any excuse to label the ‘Chosen One’ a problem. Will was this close to expulsion, even after I set things straight at the disciplinary hearing.”
Gwen stepped closer, moving into Will’s space. The scent of bitter coffee and the metallic damp of the Highland wind prickled her skin.
“What did he say, Will?” she asked.
“I’ve used up two strikes,” Will said, his voice a flat, tired rasp. “Your Ink Board blames me for the Dullahan showing up—like I had any control over that. And now I’ve given them a really fucking good excuse with casting a high-level curse.”
Will finally looked up, and the raw disappointment in his green eyes made Gwen’s stomach twist. “Eddow was… disappointed. Said I was reckless. Betraying the prophecy. Fuelling O’Dorchaidhe magic is a corrupting influence.”
Gwen’s blood turned to ice. “Corrupting influence?” She felt the Ink traitor label from the Red Letter vibrating in her mind. “That’s the talk of jealous cowards who are terrified of any power they can’t control with a leash and a collar.”
“You don’t get it, O’Dorchaidhe. You’re playing by different rules,” Cal said, looking at her with a strange, dark pity. “Inks get away with ‘grey areas’ because you are the institution.”
The undeniable truth of the comment was a silver needle to her heart.
“And it’s worse for Will,” he continued, his face scrunching with disgust. “There are things everyone expects…” He shook his head. “Look, the prophecy about the Chosen One? It says Will is supposed to be the Light that burns away the Shadow. Your family’s dark magic? That’s exactly the kind of shadow most people think should be burned away.”
Gwen’s stomach tightened. She’d heard that familiar rhetoric countless times growing up. The Hollow Lord—her once shining example of an uncle—had done more than create a cult of purity. He’d made O’Dorchaidhe magic the anthem of fanatics. The stain he’d added to her family’s legacy had bitterly inspired her determination to prove that ‘dark magic’ wasn’t moral recklessness, but simply a tool that could do great things in the right hands.
“I don’t think you had another choice,” Cal admitted with a stiff shrug, his non-sling hand shoved into his jacket pocket. “That doesn’t change what other people think. For the Chosen One to use an O’Dorchaidhe curse… something from the Hollow Lord’s bloodline…” He shook his head again, eyes tightened. “It’s a spit in the face of the good magic Eddow represents.”
Will’s shoulders slumped. He was crushed under the pressure of the ‘good’ he was supposed to be—the only definition of good popular demand allowed.
“That ‘bad’ magic saved Riley Lee and Harry Davies,” Gwen said, her voice trembling with a raw hurt that made Cal flinch. “I’m never going to regret that.”
Cal raised a brow, his lips pressed together. He couldn’t argue. He looked at Will, then back at Gwen, and his expression shifted into something uncomfortably knowing.
Gwen slid onto the fountain’s edge beside Will. The stone was bone-chillingly cold, but the heat radiating off his arm where it brushed hers was comforting. She reached out, her hand hovering before settling tentatively on the rough wool of his coat, just above his elbow.
“Forget what Eddow thinks,” she whispered, her intensity drawing his green, gold-flecked eyes to hers. “You saved people. Magic is just a tool. ‘Bad’ is a label people use when they’re too weak to handle the weight of it. You’re better than that.”
Will shook his head, his voice a pained whisper. “Gwen, it… felt like it didn’t want to stop. Like I didn’t want to…” He swallowed hard, the confession dying in his throat.
She remembered that feeling vividly. The siren song of the void, the way the power wanted to consume everything until there was nothing left but the flow. The precariously close loss of control was a frightening thing, to be led by want instead of logic. That didn’t make it bad. It wasn’t evil; it was just infinite.
“It felt like power,” she corrected, her fingers tightening on his coat, forcing him to meet her gaze. “You asked me once why I cared what people thought. Now I’m asking you. Do you care what a room of old cowards who’ve never faced the Rider thinks? Or are you proud that you stood your ground and perfectly invoked a spell that most masters couldn’t dream of casting?”
Will’s breath hitched. In the grey, dimming light of the South Complex, the world narrowed down to the heat between them and the smell of damp stone.
“You were amazing, Will,” she whispered, her voice losing its silver edge and turning into something soft, dangerous, and entirely too honest. “If they want to call you ‘bad’ because you scare them, let them. But don’t you dare apologize for being the only one who could do the impossible.”
For a heartbeat, neither of them breathed. The tension was a living thing, a violent gravity that threatened to pull them both into the fountain’s dark water.
Cal let out a low, awkward whistle, leaning back against a lichen-stained pillar. “She’s right about one thing, Will. That stasis spell? The ultimate flex. Time magic is forbidden for a reason.”
A slow, tentative smile tugged at Will’s mouth, breaking the spell. “You’re not bad at the pep talks, O’Dorchaidhe,” he murmured, his voice vibrating low in his chest. “Even if they are slightly terrifying.”
“I am an O’Dorchaidhe,” Gwen said, straightening her spine and angling away from him, though the loss of his warmth triggered a shiver. “I’m not ‘bad’ at anything.”
Cal rolled his eyes, finally moving away from the pillar. “Right. Well, I’m going to go pretend to be busy. You two… try not to curse anything.” He walked backward, a knowing, infuriating snicker on his face. “I’ll see you in the dorm, Will.”
As Cal’s silhouette vanished through the Romanesque archway, a heavy, expectant quiet descended over the courtyard. The October sun had finally dipped below the Highland hills, draining the colour from the lichen and stone, leaving the world in a palette of bruised purples and charcoal greys. The wind kicked up, carrying the scent of damp peat and the chilled promise of sleet, rattling the dead leaves gathered around the selkie’s basin.
“So,” Will said, his voice dropping into a register that made the air between them feel dense. “Did you get in trouble with your Ink cult?”
He shifted, the crossing of his arms brushing the rough wool of his jacket against her arm. Beneath the heavy fabric, a hint of rumpled green plaid peeked through—a pattern that Gwen found increasingly difficult to hate.
“The Aurelius Circle Council…” Gwen’s jaw tightened. She caught herself before she could offer a polished defence. “They agreed to dismiss the charges because of the circumstances. They were… reasonable.”
The word felt like a stone in her mouth. She knew the truth: if any other student had cast that curse, they would be banished across the loch before they pleaded their case. Her surname was a bribe she hadn’t realized she was paying until the receipt was signed by every hand in that Council room.
“Reasonable.” Will’s smirk was a strained flash of white in the deepening dusk. “Your reasonable Council was ready to throw me to the wolves while you were unconscious. They didn’t care why. They wanted a scapegoat.”
Gwen’s gaze dropped to her lap. Her fingers traced the antlers on her signet ring, beginning the slow, self-soothing twist of silver around her pinkie.
The Circle wasn’t what she thought it was. Or what she wanted it to be. Reason had nothing to do with it. It was all about telling a convenient story. The admission stripped away the last of her armour.
“I know,” she whispered. The cold wind prickled her cheeks, but the heat in her chest was worse. She closed her eyes to steady herself, the image of crimson envelopes and threats on Circle-embossed parchment a blur in her mind. “It’s humiliating. I’ve told you so many times that the Circle is this pinnacle of… And then they do this.”
A rapid blink cleared her vision. She looked at him, catching the vivid green of his eyes behind the slight fog of his glasses. “You didn’t deserve that, Will,” she said. “They should be thanking you—I should be thanking you.” She took a shallow breath, risking another touch as her fingers lay where his sleeve met a sliver of tan wrist.
She reached out, her fingers ghosting over his sleeve before finding a sliver of bare, warm wrist. The moment she touched him, their shared resonance—the violet and silver thread they’d spun together during the Stasis—hummed back to life. It was a low, vibrating thrum in her marrow that made her feel, for the first time all day, entirely awake.
“Thank you, Will,” she said, her voice catching. “For trusting me. I couldn’t have stopped the Rider without you.”
Will’s mouth parted, a question hanging on his lips. He searched her face, looking for the lie, the calculation. But she was too exhausted to lie. The breath of space between them felt like a precipice. The memory of what they’d been about to do on the balcony—the second before the world broke—sparked a low, dangerous heat.
Her hand snapped back, her brain finally catching up to rein in her feelings. Gwen stood abruptly, her heart galloping out of her tight control. The sudden movement made the world tilt. She was an O’Dorchaidhe; she didn’t do impulsiveness. She didn’t do this.
“You’re welcome,” Will said, his voice thick. He cleared his throat.
They both turned toward a sound—the sharp laugh from a group of students hurrying through the cloisters. They watched until they were alone again.
“I wish I could say I wasn’t surprised you stuck up for me,” Will said, standing to join her. “But… it was a good surprise.”
“Why is my integrity a surprise?” Gwen snapped, the hurt flaring up to mask the desire. “Do you think I’m so obsessed with my reputation that I’d let you take the fall for my decision?”
A pained, soft smile touched his lips. Quietly, he said, “Yes.”
The truth was a hollowing sting. Gwen looked away, her voice a mere murmur. “I wish you knew me better than that.”
It wasn’t that she wouldn’t betray someone to save herself; it was that she never, under any circumstances, wanted to do that to him.
Will stepped deeper into her space, closing the gap until she stepped back. Until her shoulder-blades pressed against the lichen-slicked stone of the pillar. But she didn’t look away. He flattened a palm against the stone beside her head, his sleeve brushing her ear, effectively pinning her between the centuries-old cold and the heat of his body.
“I want to be wrong here, Gwen,” he said, his voice vibrating with a dark irritation that pricked along her spine. “But it’s always two steps forward, three steps back. The only time you’re honest is when we’re alone, and even then, you’re usually trying to kick my ass.”
She kept the fact that she was never kicking his ass to herself. It was a deception that she could beat him. The only reason he thought her nearly that capable was because of how little he knew.
“I haven’t exactly given you reasons to trust me,” she admitted, her voice a breathy silver thread.
Up close, his resonance was a physical pressure—a thrumming, electric storm that begged her own magic to come out and play. She looked at his mouth, at the bulge of his throat as he swallowed, then back to his eyes. She was tempted—violently tempted—to be impulsive again.
“I want to know you, Gwen,” he urged, his verdant gaze dropping to her lips with a hunger that made her knees weak. “I’m just not sure you’ll let me.”
The collar of his coat was slightly askew, revealing the edges of his obsidian curse-mark. It looked like a dare. How could she resist as the very soul of temptation begged her to reach out and touch him? The Council’s expectations, her father’s plans, the terrifying Red Letters—they all felt like distant, intangible ghosts with Will Clark standing this close.
“You want to know me better?” she asked. She reached out, her fingers catching the rough wool of his sleeve and dragging his arm down until her hand met his. She felt the jolt of his pulse against her thumb—frantic and heavy.
“Is that really a surprise?” He pressed closer, the front of his jacket brushing the cashmere of her sweater.
Gwen tilted her chin, refusing to yield even as her heart did a thundering, embarrassingly unchoreographed dance. She let her gaze travel slowly down the line of his throat to his rumpled shirt, then back up to his intense, waiting face. She took his hand and placed it firmly on her waist, the heat of his palm searing through her layers.
“I’m not sure my reputation can handle being seen with someone…” she paused, watching his expression flicker with a shadow of doubt, “…in this much plaid.”
Will blinked, the tension snapping just enough for a half-smile to tug at his lips. “It’s a Highland staple, Princess. Get used to it.”
“How about I don’t?” Gwen whispered.
She pressed a single finger into the centre of his chest, tracing the line of his jacket up to a loose button. She followed the peak of the plaid pattern underneath, her hand sliding upward until her skin met the warmth of his neck. He shivered at the contact. Good.
“How do you suggest we get to know each other better?”
“I’m thinking of something,” he said. His hand at her waist moved to her back, pulling her flush against him until there was no room for air, let alone doubt.
“Think harder,” she teased, her fingers curling into his collar.
She didn’t wait. She didn’t plan. She simply tugged his collar with both hands, crashing her mouth against his.
The kiss wasn’t polished or graceful. It was a collision of friction and desperate, absolute need to have him. Now. Gwen’s world narrowed down to the taste of him—cold rain and dark coffee—and the soul-shuddering sensation of his curse-mark beneath her palm. It sent a jolt of metallic, freezing power through her that should have been terrifying, but instead acted as a conductor for the heat of his skin.
She barely felt the cold stone of the pillar when his hand slid beneath the hem of her sweater, his fingers moulding to the shape of her. The touch was electric, a searing contrast that made her ache. Her hands tangled in his dark curls, pulling him closer, deeper, as if she could drink the magic right out of him. Clothes shifted, hair came loose from her perfect plait, and she blissfully didn’t care if she looked like a mess.
She felt free. Lost in the sensation of touch, she was untethered from the O’Dorchaidhe legacy, a storm finally allowed to break.
They only wrenched apart when the sound of muffled giggling drifted from the cloisters. Like a bucket of ice water dumped over Gwen’s head. Their split apart was a jarring snap. Gwen’s skin ached the moment the contact was lost. They stayed pinned against the pillar, her chest heaving in a synchronicity of breathless panic with his, her eyes darting toward the archway. The footsteps of the unseen students faded, their whispers lingering like a taunt.
Will was grinning, his glasses knocked askew and his hair a dark, glorious mess. He looked like a man who had just survived a shipwreck and found a chest of gold.
“We could take this somewhere else,” he whispered, his voice thick with a low, vibrating promise that sent heat straight to Gwen’s core.
She pushed him back, her hands flat against his chest, feeling the frantic thrum of his heart beneath the plaid. His eyes widened, a flash of ashamed horror crossing his face as he misread the rejection. “I didn’t mean—I mean, I did mean—but we don’t have to—”
“Will,” she snapped, though it came out as a breathless plea. “Let me think. I need to… I need to think.”
He went still, his panic receding as he realized she wasn’t shutting him out—she was just Gwen. She needed a reset to contain the chaos he’d just unleashed in her nervous system.
She looked at him—standing there in his rumpled plaid, looking half-devastated and half-devout. Her brain worked to dissect the aftermath of his impulsive influence. Her original plan for the year had been a masterpiece of calculated ambition: excel in classes, secure her seat on the Council, and remain an untouchable, gilded icon.
That plan was now more frayed than thrifted lace. Completely irreparable.
She reached up, her fingers trembling as she attempted to shove a stray lock of hair back into her braid. His hands returned to her waist, and for a second, she wanted to stop thinking entirely. But she couldn’t. Gwenhwyfar O’Dorchaidhe survived on protocol, and right now, she was standing in a grit-stained courtyard in the South Complex, looking like she’d been thoroughly—and delightfully—undone.
It was time for a new pattern. If she couldn’t erase the feeling, she would have to weave it into her new plan.
Will moved forward again, plotting to distract her—but she pressed her hand firmly against his chest, creating a formal, uncrossable barrier between them. “No. I… I think you were right the first time,” she said.
“I think I’d rather be wrong,” he mumbled.
She rolled her eyes, finding strength in her own irritation. “About getting to know each other better,” she reminded him, her voice regaining its silver-edged control. “We’ve spent a month as a tutor and a student. As an Ink and a Vapour. We haven’t actually… spoken. In the right context.”
“Kicking my ass or preaching about the Circle,” he summarized, his eyes dancing with a light she couldn’t quite name.
“Before this,” she paused, her gaze flickering to his lips before snapping back to his eyes, “happens again, we should… we should do a date.”
Will’s eyes widened. The grin that broke across his face was brilliant, like the sunset had reversed to cut through the Highland mist. “A date? You and me? In public?”
Gwen felt a sickening drop in he stomach. Meeting with him so casually would make a statement. She needed to be careful. If a Circle member saw her, or worse, a hobgoblin reported the scene to her father, the Red Letter wouldn’t just be a threat—it would be a funeral notice.
The South Complex was somewhat neutral ground. Less likely to feed rumours she couldn’t explain away. Less likely to be witnessed by anyone relevant. She’d have to stage it here.
“You get one chance, Clark,” she warned, her chin rising. “Do not make me regret this.”
“Tomorrow?” he asked, the eagerness in his voice making her stomach flip in a way that defied all her logic.
“Fine,” she agreed, sliding away from the pillar with a grace she didn’t actually feel. “Meet me at Double Trouble. Seven o’clock. And for the love of the Founders, wear something that isn’t secondhand plaid. Buy me a flat white—extra shot.”
She was stalling. She knew she was stalling. But she needed a scheduled, supervised environment where she could analyze this Will Clark variable without her resonance melting into his whenever he touched her.
“Can I walk you back?” he asked, stepping into stride beside her.
She considered refusing. Walking back to the North Wing with him was a reckless display of affiliation. It gave every viper in the school a reason to look a little closer at what was happening between them. But then she remembered the words in the crimson envelope: Until William Clark is removed, we will call the Rider to clean our campus one by one.
Leaving him to walk alone in the dark, with the threat of the Dullahan and the risk of vigilante justice taking hold of the campus, was a risk she couldn’t take. The Rider comes for all those who threaten the Circle’s legacy.
“It’s safer,” she agreed, her voice tight. “But keep at least one full step away at all times. If we see anyone, I’m ‘escorting my pupil to a mandatory study session.’”
Will laughed, a warm, resonant sound that made the damp Highland air feel a little less biting. He shifted to give her the required distance, but his eyes never left hers.
“Whatever you say, Princess,” he murmured. “But since I’m the only one fully recovered, am I not escorting you?”
Gwen didn’t answer. She turned toward the tram station, listening to their echoed footsteps tap in disharmony. She had twenty-four hours to figure out how to make this work without devastating her lifelong goals.