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“So that means you’ll take me on as a student?” she clarified. “That you’ll teach me how to strengthen my gift so I can expand the range and share it with others?” She paused, realising that she’d never actually confirmed his ability to do so. “Youcando that, right? Teach something like that, I mean.”

“With the right level of dedication, almost anything can be taught.”

Again, that wasn’t exactly an answer. And he was now just repeating himself from earlier.

“Is that a yes?”

The man’s cloaked shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “It is not a no.”

Alex frowned at him. “Could you be less vague? The fate of the world kind of rests on your answer.”

“Tenacious you might be, but I see you also tend towards the dramatic.”

Closing her eyes and counting to ten, Alex waited until her urge to throw a burning log at his head passed before she spoke. When she did, her voice was hushed, serious. “You seem to know more about me than most, so don’t act like you’re ignorant of what’s happening out there and the role I have to play in it. Tell me right now—are you just wasting my time, or can you teach me what I need to know?”

A shuffle of material as he shifted in the seat. A long moment of weighted quiet. And then, “I can teach you what you need to know. However,”—he pointed a gloved finger at her—“whether you will learn is something only you can decide.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Alex whispered her promise.

“I know you will, Alexandra Jennings. You showed me that in ten hours, fifty-four minutes and thirty-two seconds. That dedication is the only reason I’m agreeing to help you. Because without it, you would fail before we even began. And I don’t need to tell you what that would mean for this world.”

Alex drew her legs up and, ignoring the throbbing pain, wrapped her arms around her knees, staring into the fire while slowly nodding.

“What happens now?” she asked, her voice hesitant.

This time, he didn’t make her wait. “As you have likely guessed, we are currently confined within the walls of the Library. But before you interrupt with the questions I can see in your eyes, no, I am not Chosen, nor have I ever been a headmaster of Akarnae. I am also not Meyarin, thus I am not in any way related to Eanraka. The reason I can wander these halls and utilise the secrets within is not knowledge you have yet earned, so do not ask.”

Alex hadn’t seen the man’s face, let alone learned his name, so while he clearly knew her secrets, she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t plan on sharing his own.

“All you need to know is, while in here, my authority supersedes yours.”

“Is that why I couldn’t open a door to leave the lake?” Alex asked.

A dip of his cloaked head was all the confirmation she received. “The Library, as you know, is sentient. As such, it understands that there will be times when you will have to struggle through obstacles to learn the things you need to learn.”

He leaned towards her, his posture demanding her full attention as he continued, “Make no mistake, Alexandra. There will be nothing easy about the tasks I set you.” He waved a gloved hand in her direction. “Consider your gift as a muscle. You cannot strengthen it without hard work, discipline and patience. It must be pushed to its limits—just as you will be.”

Alex drew even tighter into herself, uneasy about what she might have to endure under his tutelage.

“Now,” he said, sitting back again, “presuming you still wish to continue, I have one requirement and one rule. The requirement is that you tell no one about me. You may share that you are attempting to strengthen your gift, but you will give no other details about how that is being done or who is teaching you.” He hesitated before allowing, “The only exception is the Meyarin to whom you are mentally bound, though you must swear him to silence.”

Alex didn’t like the idea of keeping such an important secret from her friends, but if that was the price she had to pay, then so be it.

“As for the rule, there is just the one,” the man continued. “Break it once, and you’ll experience my displeasure. Break it twice, and you will no longer be my student.”

From her huddled position on the ground, Alex raised her eyebrows. “And that rule is?”

“Never question my training methods,” he told her. “Everything I do is for a reason, whether you comprehend that reason or not. I will suffer no demands for explanations. You either follow my instructions without comment, or we’re finished.”

Well. That was about as black and white as he could make it. No room for ambiguity there.

“So,” Alex said, “what you’re saying is, it’s your way or the highway?”

Predictably, he didn’t respond. Until he did.

“That, Alexandra, sounds very much like you questioning me.”

Crap.