Page 80 of Spark of Sorcery

“Did you catch a rat, Blaze?” I ask the little dragon, who growls when he sees Thorne inspecting his kill and flutters that way, grabbing a piece of intestine with his mouth and shaking it about.

Something I did not need to see right before my lunch.

“Blaze?” Thorne asks.

“Yes, I named him.”

“But where did he catch a rat from?” Thorne asks.

“The roof’s infested with them,” I say, which makes Thorne frown. “But at least, I won’t have to worry about what to feed him.”

Thorne doesn’t smile at my joke, instead he twitches his fingers and his shadow magic rushes around the room, tidying up and repairing the damage. Blaze growls at the shadows too and spurts a tiny flame at one that rushes close by. The flames merrily flicker through the shadows, doing nothing to stop them.

They are mesmerizing to watch, shimmering as they swirl and swim and slide in front of me. I’m so tempted to reach out and touch them, even if Thorne says they are dangerous. But I don’t have permission and I can’t helpthinking it would be a violation. Just like with Thorne himself, I’ll have to be resigned to looking and not touching.

“Thank you,” I say, when the room is back to normal and his shadows are retreating. He nods. “I’d better hurry to the canteen before all the good food goes.”

“You could …” He looks at a point over my right shoulder, not meeting my gaze. “Come to the Shadow Weaver Dining Hall. Thralls are welcome.”

“Other thralls, probably not me,” I point out.

“What does that mean?” he asks, his dark eyes now flicking to mine.

“Oh, nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” he says, as Blaze somersaults in circles above our heads.

“Be careful,” I warn the dragon. Then sigh, and address Thorne again. “I think you three, and possibly my friends, are the only people in the academy who believe I should be your thrall.”

“That’s not true.”

“Erm, it is.”

“Does it matter?”

“No, but I’d rather have lunch with my friends than a roomful of people who resent and hate me.”

“They don’t know you.”

“You don’t know me,” I tell him, smiling. “We barely know each other.”

“I know you, Briony Storm,” he says.

“So Thorne Cadieux too, huh?” Fly says with a big grin, when I join him and Clare at the lunch table later.

“It’s not like that,” I say.

“He still doesn’t like you?” Clare asks sympathetically.

“Oh he likes her,” Fly says, “you should have seen the way he was looking at her out there on the landing. I bet her clothes were off within a microsecond of the bedroom door closing.”

“Well, you suppose wrong,” I snap, slicing a potato in two so aggressively one half skids across the table.

“Woah, okay,” Fly says, raising his hands in surrender. “Why so touchy about it?”

“I’m not touchy,” I say, chomping down hard on the same potato.

“Is it because you want to sleep with him but he doesn’t want to sleep with you?” Clare says frankly, adjusting her glass.