Page 3 of Hex Appeal (Grimm Mawr #5)

A few weeks into the semester, Ceries had almost convinced herself that her embarrassing first day was behind her. Almost. The magical rumor mill had mercifully found new fodder when Professor Vector's calculator had started sending him love notes during class.

She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder as she left the school, mentally reviewing her lesson on reversible hexes. After three straight classes of teenagers attempting to make objects temporarily invisible, she was ready for a long bath and possibly a drink stronger than tea.

"Escaping before the paperwork finds you?"

She turned to find Malachai locking up the main entrance. Even after a full day of what had to be administrative chaos—judging by the singed memo that kept flying around the building screaming about budget reports—his tie remained perfectly straight. She'd started measuring the stress of his day by how much that tie loosened. Today had apparently been a mere five-out-of-ten on the administrative nightmare scale.

And he was still unfairly attractive, damn him.

"Just finished convincing Naomi Bitterbridge that making her homework invisible wasn't a valid excuse for not turning it in," she said. "You're leaving early for once. Did someone cast a compulsion charm?"

"Trying to set a better example." His slight smile made her heart perform gymnastics that would've scored a perfect ten at the Magical Olympics. "Though I did bring half my office home with me." He gestured to his briefcase, which was making ominous groaning sounds under the weight of whatever paperwork hell he'd stuffed inside.

They fell into step together, but instead of turning toward the parking lot, Ceries found herself drawn toward the practice field where the school's field hockey team was engaged in what appeared to be controlled chaos with sticks.

"Sometimes I miss this," he said as they watched a lanky student narrowly avoid decapitation by a wildly swung hockey stick. "The simplicity of just teaching, before all the administrative responsibilities."

"What made you switch to the dark side?" She settled on the bottom row of bleachers, pleasantly surprised when he sat beside her. "Power? The thrill of approving bathroom pass requests? The sexy principal aesthetic?"

She immediately regretted that last bit as her hair betrayed her with a flash of appreciative pink. But his laugh—a real one, not the polite chuckle he used at faculty meetings—was worth the momentary embarrassment.

"Honestly? I thought I could do more good affecting policy than just teaching one class at a time." He took off his tie and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, a surprisingly casual gesture that made him look years younger. "Though some days I wonder if I was more effective in the classroom than drowning in incident reports about singing textbooks."

"I bet you were terrifying," she teased. "All perfectly organized lesson plans and color-coded homework assignments. Did you give gold stars shaped like tiny administrative memos?"

"Says the woman who keeps emergency lesson plans in her car, categorized by potential magical disaster scenarios."

"How did you—" She caught his amused look. "Right. Principal. You probably know everything about your teachers, including which ones hide chocolate in their desk drawers."

"Second drawer from the bottom, behind the reference books. You prefer dark chocolate with sea salt." He raised an eyebrow at her surprised expression. "Diana has an extensive intelligence network."

"The nurse knows all," Ceries agreed. "So if you know my chocolate preferences, what else have you learned about me, Principal Starcatcher?"

"Not nearly enough." He watched the team captain demonstrate a particularly complex play. "For instance, I still don't know what made you choose teaching over... what was your other option?"

"Magical law enforcement." She grinned at his surprised expression. "I know, hard to imagine now. But I was all set to join the academy after graduation. I had the tactical spellcasting scores and everything."

"What changed?"

"My little sister got sick during my senior year. Really sick. I spent months helping her keep up with schoolwork between treatments." The memory still ached, but the good kind of ache—like a muscle that had healed stronger. "Watching her face light up when she mastered something difficult, even on her worst days... that's when I realized I'd rather create those moments than chase bad guys and rogue magical creatures."

"Is she—"

"She's fine now. Teaching middle school, actually. Following in my footsteps, though she'll never admit it." Ceries smiled. "She uses my lesson plans but always changes one small thing out of principle."

They watched the team practice in comfortable silence for a moment. A stray hockey ball zoomed past them, narrowly missing Malachai's head before a student summoned it back with a hasty spell.

"Your turn," she said finally. "What's your real fear as an educator? Not the official one in your principal biography—the thing that actually keeps you up at night."

He was quiet so long she thought he wouldn't answer. "Failing them," he said finally. "Not the students—though that too—but the teachers. Being so focused on regulations and safety protocols that I forget to support the people making the real difference every day."

"That's not what I expected."

"No?"

"I thought you'd say something about maintaining proper filing systems or ensuring all the semicolons in the school handbook are consistently applied."

"Those matter too," he said with a straight face that cracked into a smile when she nudged his shoulder. "But not as much as making sure good teachers can do their jobs effectively. Even if their methods occasionally give me heart palpitations and create extra paperwork."

"I do not—" She caught his raised eyebrow. "Okay, maybe sometimes. But in my defense, that were-poodle incident was entirely Rhubarb Rumplekin's fault. I specifically said 'change the color ,' not 'transform into an entirely different species with a fondness for pink.'"

"The paperwork for that one required a form that hadn't been used since 1962."

"See? I'm expanding your administrative horizons."

The team was packing up now, their practice ending as sunset approached. Neither Ceries nor Malachai moved to leave. Something about the growing twilight made it easier to talk, as if the fading light offered a different kind of honesty.

"What about you?" he asked softly. "What keeps you up at night? Besides experimenting with potentially volatile hexes at two a.m.."

"Not being enough." The words came easier in the growing darkness. "Not reaching the student who needs it most. Missing the signs that someone's struggling until it's too late."

"I've seen you with your students. You don't miss much."

"I missed Tommy's anxiety about shield charms for two weeks."

"But you caught it. And now he's one of your strongest students."

She turned to look at him, surprised by the certainty in his voice. "You've been watching my class?"

"I watch all my teachers." But there was something in his tone that suggested maybe he watched her classes with particular interest.

The field was empty now, the last students heading for their cars. They should probably leave too, but Ceries found herself reluctant to break this moment of connection.

"What's your hope?" she asked impulsively. "Not as a principal, but as an educator. The big dream that made you choose teaching over something sensible like professional spell-breaking or magical artifact hunting."

"To build something lasting." He looked out over the darkening field. "Not just test scores or safety records, but a place where students and teachers feel supported enough to take risks. To fail sometimes, but fail safely. To innovate without fear." He glanced at her. "You?"

"To make a real difference. Not just teaching spells, but teaching students how to believe in themselves. To trust their instincts, to know they can handle whatever comes their way." She smiled. "Even if sometimes that means dealing with accidental toad transformations."

"Speaking of which, the lockers in the east wing are still occasionally singing the school fight song—and making up their own words to it."

"That was one time!" But she was laughing, and his answering smile made her breath catch. "And technically, it was an improvement. Have you heard our fight song? It's terrible."

They finally stood, heading back toward the parking lot. The conversation shifted to lighter topics—the mysterious food that appeared every Tuesday in the teacher's lounge that no one would claim responsibility for, the rumor that the school mascot had originally been designed as something completely different, the betting pool on when Professor Vector would propose to his calculator for real.

Ceries watched him as he got in his car and drove away, her traitorous heart doing that complicated little dance again. Why did he have to be her boss? And why couldn't she forget that night? She made a mental note to stop by the magical supply store and pick up some extra batteries. Her vibration-enchanted "personal massager" was getting quite the workout lately.

***

M ALACHAI HAD INTENDED to spend his free period catching up on budget reports. Instead, he found himself in the teachers' lounge, watching Ceries devour one of Diana's infamous "Love Potion #9.75" brownies. The "point seven five" was apparently because they weren't quite as potent as the original recipe, which had resulted in three marriage proposals, one very awkward faculty meeting, and the mysterious appearance of a peacock in the staff bathroom.

"These are ridiculous," Ceries mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate, her eyes closed in an expression of bliss that was doing terrible things to Malachai's concentration. "What's in them? Illegal potions? Enchanted cocoa beans? The distilled essence of pure happiness?"

"Diana won't tell anyone." Malachai took a sip of coffee, trying not to notice the way a tiny smudge of chocolate lingered at the corner of her mouth. "Though I suspect dark magic and possibly sacrificial rituals to ancient dessert deities."

Movement caught his eye. Alarick Blackthorn, the new maintenance wizard, was attempting to stealth his way to the brownie plate. Considering he was six-foot-three of flannel and tool belt, with shoulders that suggested he wrestled rogue magical architecture for fun, "stealth" was optimistic at best.

"That's your fourth one," Malachai pointed out.

"Fifth," Alarick corrected through a mouthful of brownie. "But who's counting? Besides Diana. Who keeps glaring at me. While making more brownies."

"Wonder why," Ceries said with a knowing smirk.

Alarick grabbed another brownie and retreated to his corner, leaving them alone again. Well, alone except for the stack of essays still grading itself in the corner, which had developed a concerning tendency to award extra points for dramatic handwriting and creative use of exclamation marks.

Ceries reached over and stole his coffee mug with the casualness of someone who'd been doing it for years rather than weeks. "I saw your car in the lot at midnight last night."

"Budget reports wait for no man." He watched her add a third sugar to his coffee, transforming his sensible beverage into something that would make a hummingbird vibrate into another dimension. "Though I could say the same about your classroom light at 2 AM."

"Modifying a deflection hex." She grinned at his raised eyebrow. "Don't worry, nothing exploded. This time."

From his corner, Alarick snorted into his brownie.

"Don't you have something to fix?" Malachai asked pointedly. "Perhaps a leaky pipe or a door that's developed sentience and started offering unsolicited dating advice?"

"Nope." Alarick grabbed another brownie. "This is way more entertaining. Besides, the door's advice isn't half bad. It suggested I try 'being less intimidating,' which according to Diana is apparently impossible because my very existence is a threat to proper medical conduct."

"You know," Ceries said, turning back to Malachai, "you don't have to stay here until midnight doing paperwork. The school won't fall apart if you go home occasionally."

"Says the woman experimenting with hexes at two a.m.."

"That's different. That's for the students. I had a brilliant idea about how to make shield charms more instinctive by linking them to emotional responses instead of just verbal cues."

"And making sure the school stays funded and functioning isn't for the students?"

She studied him over the rim of the stolen mug. "When's the last time you did something just for fun? Something with no educational value, no administrative purpose, just pure enjoyment?"

"I have fun."

"Reading the updated hexing regulations doesn't count."

His lips twitched. "I went to a concert last weekend."

"Really?" She leaned forward, interested. "Who'd you see? Please say it was The Hex Pistols or Charm Offensive."

"The Magical Philharmonic."

"Of course you did." But she was smiling. "Let me guess. You sat in the exact center of the theater, precisely eight rows back."

"Seventh," he corrected. "Better acoustics."

Through the window, they could see a group of students frantically chasing what appeared to be their transfiguration projects across the courtyard.

"Is that book pelting Agatha Abernathy with vocabulary words?" Ceries asked, but neither of them moved to help. The situation seemed well in hand, if by "in hand" one meant "total chaos."

Apparently someone's attempt at turning textbooks into study guides had backfired spectacularly. Now dozens of books were flying around with tiny paper wings, dropping random facts like ammunition and trying to forcibly educate anyone in their path.

"Your tie's crooked," she said suddenly.

"It is not." But his hand went to it automatically.

"Here." She reached over, fingers brushing his neck as she adjusted the perfectly straight tie. "Now it's perfect."

Their eyes met. The air felt charged, and not just from the academic assault happening outside. For a moment, Malachai could have sworn he saw a flash of midnight jasmine and cherry bombs in her hair color.

A scream from the courtyard was followed by what sounded like the entire Latin dictionary attempting to teach conjugations through aerial bombardment.

"I should probably handle that," he said reluctantly.

"Probably." She settled back with his coffee mug. "I'll just finish your coffee. And maybe another brownie."

"That's your third."

"Fourth," she corrected with a wink. "But who's counting?"

From somewhere outside, the potion professor, Minerva Everheart's voice called out: "Diana! Your brownies are affecting the library. The card catalog is writing romance novels about the reference section. Very steamy ones. With detailed descriptions of proper book handling."

"Duty calls," Malachai sighed, standing.

"Be careful taming the rabid textbooks." She raised his mug in salute. "Try not to get educated to death. Though if you do, at least you'll die smart."

He definitely wasn't thinking about how her lips had been on that mug as he headed out. Just like he wasn't thinking about how much he wanted to hear more about her past, or tell her about his own questionable decisions of his college years. Like the six months he spent in a wizard rock band called "The Incantations" where he'd played magical keytar and worn eyeliner.

And he absolutely wasn't thinking about how her fingers had felt against his neck, or how for just a moment, he'd wanted to catch her hand and press a kiss to her palm.

He had an academic uprising to quell. Everything else would have to wait.

Even if waiting was becoming increasingly impossible.

From somewhere outside, Thaddeus Shadowspire, one of the Herbalism department heads called out: "Diana, your brownies are making the entire Arithmancy class speak in iambic pentameter. Professor Vector just proposed to his calculator. Again. This time with sonnets."

"Have fun principaling," Ceries called after him. "Try not to get hit by flying knowledge."

As he left, he could have sworn he heard her say softly, "And maybe I'll see you at midnight in the halls again."

But that was probably just witchful thinking.