Page 29 of Bonds of Magic (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #3)

NOAH

I felt many things the morning after my lesson with Cory, but chief among them was frustrated.

Frustrated that he’d kissed me again. Frustrated that I was somehow still giving him mixed signals. Frustrated that my feelings for him were growing, not lessening. And worst of all, frustrated that I hadn’t kissed him back.

I lay in bed that morning, staring up at the ceiling. God, I’d wanted to kiss him back.

It had taken everything in me not to pull Cory closer. Not to give into the kiss. Not to walk him to my bed, strip him naked, and give him everything he was so clearly asking for. But instead, I’d kept him at arm’s length and kept silent as I took him back to his room, not trusting myself to speak.

I had hoped some of the pent up desire would dissipate overnight, but it had only gotten worse. Usually when I felt like this, I generated some excuse to go to Pointe Claudette and find Lew. But I didn’t want Lew anymore.

In fact, I had been in Pointe Claudette last night, before my lesson with Cory.

I’d been trying to get my head on straight, and left campus hoping that some physical distance would help.

But as soon as I was sitting at the Balsam Inn, drinking with Tom, I’d just wanted to be back at Vesperwood.

Wanted as much time with Cory as possible.

Lew hadn’t even been there, and I hadn’t missed him.

I sighed as I got out of bed. I couldn’t have Cory, so my morning workout would have to do. If I punished my body enough, I could beat it into submission. Make it stop wanting.

Maybe.

***

I had dinner with Seb in his rooms that night. He was almost ready to return to teaching, but still found the refectory overwhelming for meals. So much commotion made him dizzy, he said, and I didn’t mind the break from my usual routine of eating alone in my cabin.

I was still stewing about Cory as I walked through the halls after dinner, so caught up in my thoughts that I almost didn’t see a door opening halfway down the hallway.

The slight squeal of the hinges was what caught my attention, and I froze as someone stepped out into the hall, carrying a small box in their hands.

Not just any someone. Teresa.

I moved automatically to obscure myself behind a large planter with a potted palm.

It wasn’t a perfect hiding place, but it was better than being right out in the open.

My eyes narrowed. This section of the manor was full of the triples and quads usually assigned to freshmen.

And I was pretty sure that room in particular belonged to Rekha Bakshi, Adenike Odediran, and Meredith Stein.

What was Teresa Molina doing coming out of their room?

She turned back to say something to whoever was inside the room. I held my breath, listening, but they were too far away for me to hear anything.

It wasn’t unheard of for professors to visit student rooms. After all, I met Cory at his room every time we had a lesson. But Teresa didn’t teach freshmen. I’d heard her voice her disdain for them in several faculty meetings. ‘ Too weak to be worth much ,’ she’d said once.

And yet, she’d had these student files in her study, Rekha Bakshi’s among them.

It was probably nothing, and yet…

Teresa began to walk down the hallway, away from me. The door closed. Teresa reached the end of the hall and turned right. And I made my decision.

I wanted to know what was in that box.

It wasn’t easy to follow someone through Vesperwood’s manor. There were so many twists and turns in the corridors, so many sharp corners and unexpected doorways that staying hidden from your quarry wasn’t the problem. The problem was your quarry hiding from you.

Every time Teresa turned a corner, I crossed my fingers that she’d still be visible by the time I reached it. But following her was getting me nowhere. If I wanted a peek inside that box, I needed to engineer a run-in.

So I did. Literally. In the middle of a corridor that led towards Hex haven, I called out, “Teresa! Did you see them?”

Before she even turned her head, I began barrelling down the hall, heading straight for her.

“Did they come past you?” I shouted, getting closer.

She looked at me, confusion painted across her features, but didn’t move out of the way. Excellent.

I raised my gaze, fixed it on a point farther down the hall, like I was searching beyond her.

“Did you see them go—” I began, and ran into her without finishing my question.

She fell to the floor with a thump, and the box flew out of her hands. I suppressed a smile of triumph as I picked myself up and went for it, before Teresa could untangle her skirt from her legs.

People like her could scoff all they wanted about Combat being a ‘ basic ’ skill—not specialized like magical instruction. But one of the first things I taught my students was how to take a fall, and how to recover from it.

“Oh, no,” I said, putting on a show of discombobulated dismay. “I didn’t mean to—here, let me get this.”

“No, leave it,” Teresa said, but it was too late. I’d already scooped up the box.

It was a small thing, about the size of a child’s shoebox. It was made of dark, polished wood with gold designs inlaid in the top. With my back to Teresa, I flipped the lid open.

My eyes went wide. Two necklaces lay inside.

One was made of silver, the other gold, both chains worked with the wands and stars of Hex.

A delicate pendant hung from each necklace.

The silver necklace bore a rich emerald with facets that glinted and hinted at hidden depths.

The gold chain held a heavy ruby that sparkled against the black velvet interior of the box.

I turned back to Teresa, who was still on the floor.

“What are—”

“I said leave it,” she snapped. “ Stop .”

She moved her hand as she spoke, and I froze. Not out of fear or shock. I actually froze as her spell fell on me. I couldn’t even move my lips. She’d frozen everything in place but my eyes.

She gave me a hard look as she pushed herself upright.

She might have been holding me in place with the force of her glare alone.

She dusted off her skirt and approached me, and I remembered Isaac’s instructions to investigate carefully.

If Teresa were working with Argus, she would have no problem using magic to get rid of me. She might even do it now.

Despite working at Vesperwood, my life had been fairly non-magical for the past seven years. I saw magic around me, but it didn’t have much impact on my daily life. It was almost never used on me.

Tonight was a reminder that compared to the rest of the faculty at Vesperwood, I was a lot less powerful. When it came to magic, at least.

I taught my students how to duck and dodge spells in combat, but I hadn’t been thinking about that with Teresa. I’d been so concerned about getting a look inside the box, it had made me reckless. I hoped my half-baked cover story would convince her she hadn’t been my real target.

She stopped a foot away from me and lifted her hand. I would have flinched, if I’d been able to move. Was she going to cast another spell on me? Was there anything I could do to stop her? The corridor was empty but for the two of us.

Instead, she slapped me. She wasn’t a tall woman, but she was stocky, and there was power in her hand. My head wanted to rock back with the force of the blow, but it couldn’t. Instead it absorbed all the impact, and pain exploded across my face.

But pain—pure, physical pain—was something I could handle.

“You oaf,” Teresa said, her voice dripping with disdain. “ Blundering through the hallways like a gorilla. I know I can’t expect much from you, mundane as you are. But I would have thought you would at least have the decency to listen to your betters.”

I wanted to laugh with relief. She wasn’t going to kill me. Just dress me down. It wasn’t fun being slapped—my cheek still burned—but I’d take that over a killing spell any day.

She ripped the box from my frozen hands, closing the lid and covering it with her hand protectively.

“I told you not to touch this,” she spat. “Do you have any idea what you could have done? No, of course you don’t. You’re a cretin with no understanding of the delicate magic you’re banging into.” She shook her head and looked like she wanted to slap me again. “A disgrace.”

I noticed she was wearing a necklace that looked similar to the ones in the box. Hers had a gold chain as well, but the pendant was a teardrop-cut sapphire, shimmering in the dim light of the hall. And suddenly I remembered the materials that had been on the table in her study.

I’d thought it was odd at the time. Teresa was one of those Hexers who thought theirs was the purest form of magic.

They didn’t sully themselves with material objects like Hands did.

Yet here she was, standing mere inches away from me wearing one jeweled necklace and carrying two others.

And I would have bet good money—more than I’d ever ante up at one of Nat’s poker nights—that she’d made them herself.

“Now tell me,” Teresa said imperiously, “what you think you were doing, rushing about through the hallways like a charging rhinoceros. Nothing excuses your behavior, but I still expect an explanation.”

I couldn’t tell her anything. Her frown deepened, and I tried to look down as obviously as possible, drawing her attention to my unmoving lips. Finally, comprehension dawned.

“ Free ,” she said, waving her hand lazily.

The force holding me in place disappeared, and I had to stop myself from sighing with relief. I didn’t want her to know how much she’d unnerved me with that spell.

“Well?” Teresa snapped. “Spit it out.”

“Students,” I said. “A group of freshmen, shooting at clay pigeons from the roof. I chased them down here, but I seem to have lost them. They must have ducked into one of their rooms.”