A hand cramp forced me to put down my pen. Linus still wasn’t satisfied, and that made me dissatisfied too. None of the previous incarnations of this ward had earned his seal of approval, and I doubted this latest one would either, but I was beat. A bronze medal would have to be good enough for tonight.
I tucked away the cheat sheet I’d made to help me decipher the more complex sigils. Those doodles would live to fight another day. Not that they had done me much good since I’d yet to earn higher than a B minus. Linus was not pleased when I used my notes as a crutch, but I didn’t see the difference in what I was doing and in memorizing formulae for math class.
“Here.” I thunked my head onto the table and lifted the paper in the air for him to fetch. “Be kind.”
“Kindness won’t protect Woolly,” he reminded me, all prim and proper. “Grier…”
“Flunk me quick.” I rolled my head to one side, pressing my cheek to the smooth wood. “I can take it.”
“Your C plus wasn’t a flunking grade,” he said, amusement clear in his tone, “and neither is this.”
“B plus?” I ventured. “That would be an all-new record for me.”
“Maud schooled you well in protective wards, particularly those designed with Woolly in mind. She always meant for you to continue caring for her.” A sweep of his arm encompassed the stacks of papers, the notes, the quizzes, all of it. “You knew this. You were proficient in this. You were just out of practice.”
“What I’m hearing is this was all remedial, and the hard work hasn’t yet begun.”
Thinking back on those weekends cooped up in Maud’s study, he was right. Warding had been my best subject. One of the few Maud had taught me. Assistants could become proficient in this area. Even a few Low Society folks with talent could use them. I had been allowed this one thing, and Linus was right. It was only because the task of maintaining Woolly was always meant to be mine.
“Baby steps.” He wrote on the paper and pushed it across the table with his fingertips. “This is your final grade.”
Braced for the worst, I sat upright and pulled the grade closer. “An A minus?”
Linus studied me as he capped his marker, like he couldn’t read me. “Are you disappointed?”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I leapt to my feet with a whoop and tackled him with a hug. “This is the best grade I’ve ever made.”
“Oomph.”
“I’m not squeezing that hard.” I tipped my head back and laughed at his frozen expression. “You’ll live.”
Faint color blossomed under his skin, pinking his neck all the way to his hairline. “You startled me.”
“The whooping wasn’t your first clue? It’s like an early-warning system.” Neither I nor my excitement were subtle. “Next time you hear it, run if you don’t want to get tackled.”
“I’ll remember that.”
A few curt raps on the window nearest us startled me into squishing the breath out of Linus for real.
Boaz stood in the garden, a frown tugging on his lips, and raised his voice to be heard through the glass. “Am I interrupting?”
Linus tensed beneath my hands, the muscles in his back pulling taunt. Through the fabric of his shirt, cold bled into my cheek where it mashed against his chest until one half of my face went numb. He rested ice-block hands on my shoulders and set me back, away from him.
“Refine your design.” Mist poured over his lips. “We’ll start etching the foundation tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” I tried not to look like a barnacle chipped off the side of a ship and wondering where to cling next. “Okay.”
Without a backward glance, he vanished behind the stacked trunks he had yet to relocate.
“How can you stand being cooped up in here for hours with him?” Boaz had invited himself in and now leaned in the front doorway, his arms folded over his chest and his ankles crossed. “He’s as dull as dishwater.”
An instinctive defense for Linus rose in me, but I didn’t want to start a fight when we had plans. I could always pry open that can of worms after I’d been wined and dined. And probably dump them over his head.
“You’re early.” I linked my fingers and reached toward the ceiling, stretching out my sore back. “What about my session with Taz?”
“I hate to break it to you, Squirt, but Taz left an hour ago. She saw you two working and figured it was more important.” He watched the show like he was wishing for popcorn. “Besides, she knew we had plans tonight.”
“Fiddlesticks.”
A scowl cut his mouth that he aimed in the direction Linus had gone, like it was his fault I’d let the hour get away from me. “That is not what a guy wants to hear when he comes to pick his girl up for a night out.”
“You pout almost as much as I do, and you’ve got a fuller mouth, so you look better doing it.”
“You’ve noticed that, huh?”
The way a scar bisected his bottom lip, giving it an almost heart-shaped appearance? Or how that same pinkish line curved through his upper one, twisting the edge? Both injuries from a stunt gone wrong, one that had stopped my heart until he flashed a bloody smile at me and flipped up both his thumbs. Imperfections that made him uniquely Boaz. Had I noticed his lips? I would go to my grave with that answer. I had obsessed over them, what noises he might make if I bit down on that scar, what sounds I might make if he let me. But he didn’t need to know any of that. Ever.
“As much as you love to run your mouth?” I mimed him jabbering away with my hands. “It’s hard to look away once your gums start bumping.”
“Hmph.”
“I’m sorry I’m not ready.” I tidied my stack of papers, stuffed what I needed in my grimoire, and joined him in the garden, pulling the door closed behind me. “I wanted to look nice for you, but now I’m tired, and you’re stuck with me as is. I hope that’s okay.”
“He’s working you that hard?” Boaz threw a companionable arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the house. “I’m surprised he doesn’t keep a ruler handy for rapping you on the knuckles when you answer wrong.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I wedged my elbow between his ribs and dug in. “I like how you assume I answer wrong often enough he needs to keep it on him.”
“Do you always celebrate the end of class with a round of hugs?” He clamped me tighter against him, trapping my arm to avoid another jab. “Isn’t that a little kumbaya for you?”
“I’ll have you know,” I said haughtily, “I made an A minus on a warding test.”
“And that merited a hug?”
Jealousy was usually my thing, not his. I doubted he had envied anyone in his life. Until now. Until Linus. The green-eyed-monster look was new on Boaz. I wasn’t certain if I liked it reflected back at me.
“You have no idea how hard this is.” In a move that would have made Taz proud, I hooked my leg through his and sent him stumbling. “I have brain cramps from what I did today.”
“Goddess, Grier.” He managed to correct his balance before he ate dirt. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Well, it’s what I meant.” I refused to apologize. “I was excited. I don’t see the crime.”
“You’re playing with fire letting him get on your good side. He’s ingratiating himself to you.”
“Are you robbing me of my achievement by mansplaining that all the work I did today was a ploy? Are you insinuating that his plan was to undercut my confidence all evening then give me high marks to provoke a physical response?” I planted my feet and anchored my hands on my hips. “Do you think I’m being conditioned to equate higher marks with affection? That I would ever drop my panties for a passing grade?”
“He has a lot of power over you at the moment, whether you see it or not.”
“I see him clearly, Boaz.” I didn’t own a single pair of rose-colored glasses. “Stop acting like a jealous boyfriend. You don’t have that right.”
“You’ve been through enough,” he growled. “If I can protect you from one more thing, I will. No matter how pissed off you get, as your friend, as someone who loves you, that is my right, and I have earned it.”
The argument I intended to make spluttered in the face of his righteous fury.
“The Grande Dame locked you away, tossed you in a black hole, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it except clang on the front gate and get beat to shit by the guards.” His face reddened as he stalked toward me. “I watched Volkov take you, saw you curled in his fucking lap like a drowsy kitten, and I couldn’t save you.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the carriage house. “Now I see that viper’s son coiling around you when he’s the last person on the face of the planet you ought to trust, and you expect me to sit on my hands for a third time? Hell no.”
My cell in Atramentous was so small, so dark, I forgot sometimes that others had been in there with me. Not really there, not trapped like me. But Amelie and Boaz had been in my thoughts every single night, and I had been in theirs. We had all suffered together, though we had been apart, and those years had marked us in different ways. None of us would ever be the same again. We had each been broken into different patterns, the cracks deeper and sharper in some areas than in others, and expecting our jagged edges to fit the way they used to was the ultimate folly.
One thing remained true, though. Boaz coped through violence, sarcasm and suffocating affection. As much as I wanted to kick him in the shin and stomp away, I had to remember he was trying. That might not be enough in the end. But it was a start. It was enough to earn him a chance to prove this might work.
“I can handle Linus.” The moment I got in over my head, I would reach out. I would ask Amelie to sit in on our lessons or move them to Woolly. Surely she would allow Linus to trespass for a few hours as long as I was there to act as a buffer. “I know you mean well.” I walked into his arms and wrapped him up tight, his heart pounding furious and wild under my ear. “I know you’re protecting me.” I breathed him in, his scent so familiar I equated it with being home. “But I need him.”