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My gaze leaps back to his. “You do?”

“It’s a firestone. They’re magical.”

“Do you … do you know what they do?”

He hesitates, then shakes his head. “Have you shown it to anyone else?”

“No, never. You’re the first one.”

His eyebrows lift the tiniest fraction.

“The thing is,” I say, “it started pulling me towards it again the night of the trial, and when I got back to my room, I found it was starting to crack.”

“It wasn’t like that before?”

“No, its surface was completely smooth before,” I say. “Now I think it’s cracking open and I don’t know why.”

“We should take it to the Head. He’ll know exactly what it is and why it’s cracking.”

I shake my head violently. “Uh, no. They’d take it away from me.”

“We don’t know for sure what it is. Or what it can do. It could be dangerous. It would be safer to–”

“–it called me, Thorne. It wanted me to find it.”

“That doesn’t mean it wants you to keep it.”

“It’s still pulling me now! It wants you to hand it back. ”

He nods like that isn’t crazy and rests it on the floor between us. I pick it up.

“The cracks are growing bigger and more prominent by the hour,” I say. “I think it’s going to crack open completely any moment now. That’s why I need to be here with it in my own room tonight.”

“I understand.”

“So you’re not going to force me back to your tower? Or go off telling everyone about this?”

“I gave you my word,” he says stiffly.

“Right,” I say, “good.”

We stare at each other.

“And you’re not going to try and convince me to hand it in?”

“I’ve given you my opinion. If you choose not to follow my advice, I accept your decision.

“Good,” I repeat, a little surprised. Beaufort and I would be having a mega argument about it by now. But Thorne respects my opinion and my decision.

We stare at each other some more.

“You can go then,” I say, “there’s no need to stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“But–”

“Like I said, it could be dangerous. I’m staying here to be sure.”

I glance towards my very narrow, very single bed.

“Oh,” I say.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he says quickly.

“You can’t sleep on the floor!”

“I can.”

“I don’t have any spare bedding or…”

He weaves his hand in the air and a thin mattress with blankets appears alongside the small space beside my bed .

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

He blinks. Things are different but they’re still really awkward.

I walk to my bed and rest the stone down on my pillow.

“I don’t even have any food or drink to offer you,” I mumble. “Can you magic those up too?”

“No,” he says. “Food and drink are essential factors of life. Weavers can not conjure them.”

“That doesn’t exactly make any sense to me, but a lot of things in this world don’t.” I flop down to sit on the edge of my bed with a sigh. “Like why the stupid Quarters and the stupid academy and the stupid system exist in the first place.”

“They exist because they protect us.”

“Tell that to the people living back in Slate Quarter,” I mumble.

“You would have things differently, then, I suppose?”

“Yes,” I say emphatically, “people would be free to decide where they lived and how they lived.”

“Sounds like a recipe for chaos to me.”

“It sounds like people would be free to choose their own fate.”

“Fate is a complex force,” he mutters. “None of us can be free of it.”

A creature scuttles in the thatch above our heads and we both look up.

“This room is a shithole.”

“It’s about a million times better than home,” I tell him.

“I find it hard to believe.”

“Three regular meals a day.” I smile and pat my belly. “It’s heaven.” I pat the mattress next to me. “You don’t have to spend the entire evening standing, you know. You can sit. ”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m not going to bite. I mean you are hot, of course, but I think I can control myself.” Alarm sparks in his eyes. “Oh, come on, like you don’t know about the little fan club that watches you train every morning. I bet you love giving them that little show.”

“What?” he says, sounding genuinely confused.

“Look, I think I can control myself. I’m not some nymphomaniac. I promise not to launch myself across the bed at you,” I tease.

“I’m fine,” he replies.

“Do I smell?” I lift up the neckline of my shirt and sniff. I’m pretty sure I smell okay. Nothing like Odessa, who probably owns bottles upon bottles of perfume gifted to her by her numerous admirers. But I don’t smell bad.

“I think Dray has made it clear that you smell good.”

“Do you think I smell good?” I ask. Am I fishing for compliments? Possibly. Thorne says he’d do anything for me and yet he’s never expressed any sort of admiration for me at all. In fact, all his body language has ever suggested is that he loathes me.

He doesn’t answer.

“You really confuse me,” I say, tracing the lines on the stone with my forefinger.

“You wouldn’t be alone.”

“Thorne Cadieux,” I say in frustration, “why do you say you’d do anything for me when you clearly don’t like me? In fact, I suspect you despise me. Is it to do with this mate thing?” I shake my head. “Is it out of obligation or–”

“I like you.”

“You do?” I say, those butterflies fluttering again. I don’t understand how these men do this to me. Why that simple confession has the blood stirring in my veins .

He stares at me.

I let out a little grunt of frustration and pull the blanket from the bed, wrapping it around my shoulders as cool air penetrates through the rafters.

“You’re cold,” he states.

“Always.” I sigh. “You know there’s snow on the ground half the year back in Slate Quarter. It’s hard to feel warm. I was hoping the academy would be a little better, and then I ended up in this room.” I’m waffling but it’s better than sitting in awkward silence for the evening.

Thorne, to my surprise, moves from his spot at the door and strides towards the small fireplace. He hunches over his knees, examining it for a few minutes, then clicks his fingers. A fire roars into life, bright red flames dancing in place and a heat permeating through the room immediately.

“Hmmm,” I murmur, “that is nice.” I close my eyes and let the heat play across my face.

When I open my eyes again, he’s peering over his shoulder at me.

“I have an idea,” he says, “bring the stone here.”

Almost immediately I understand. The fire. The stone. Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? If it really is a firestone, maybe fire is somehow important to it.

I climb off the bed with the stone in my hands and approach the fire, as I do Thorne steps away. I shake my head and kneel down in front of the fire. This close the heat is intense and I can hear the flames hissing and crackling as they twist through the air.

“Do you think I should put it in the fire?” I ask him.

“I don’t know. Let’s try in front to begin with.”

I rest the stone before the hearth and immediately it starts to glow a dark orange .

“Oh my gosh,” I gasp with excitement. “Can you see that?”

“Yes,” he says, bending a little closer. “Is it cracking some more?”

“Yes,” I say, “yes, it is.”

I tip my head back to meet his gaze and find his face mere inches from mine. The closest we’ve ever been.

“Oh,” I murmur, feeling his magic tickle against my skin, seeing the dark colors of his eyes, seeing the wetness of his lips. My stomach spins.

His eyes flick from the stone to mine and his pupils blossom wide, swallowing up what little color there was so I’m peering into nothing but darkness.

I want him to kiss me. I want to kiss him.

I don’t know why, what power is propelling me to want this, whether we truly are mates and fate is dragging me towards him, but deep inside me I know I can’t have it.

Thorne Cadieux doesn’t want it and I know what it’s like to be forced into things. I won’t be that person.

I won’t touch him unless he wants me to.

“Do you not like to be touched, is that it?” I whisper.

There was a small boy like that who lived a few houses down from us. He couldn’t stand to be touched. Even by his own mother. He’d howl and scream, kicking and biting. Is Thorne wired the same way?

He stands up straight, but his eyes don’t leave mine.

“I … I don’t know,” he says. “I haven’t been touched for a long, long time.”

“Can I …” I hesitate. Am I doing the right thing? “Can I touch you?”

He slams shut his eyes and his magic spikes violently, so violently it’s like a shock against my skin and I fall away from him .

“Shit,” he says, his hands suddenly pulling at his short hair, “shit, shit. I’m sorry.”

He tugs on his hair, his eyes screwed shut, his shoulders heaving.

“Thorne?”

He lifts a hand as if asking for a moment. Then gradually his breathing becomes more even, his hands fall away from his face, he stands rigid once more and opens his eyes.

“It’s too dangerous,” he says.

“What is?” I say.

“I can’t touch you.” His chest rises and falls. “I can’t touch anyone because it’s too dangerous.”

“Too dangerous? What does that mean?”

“I would hurt them, maim them.” He stares right at me. “Possibly kill them.”

My gaze falls to his hands. “The gloves,” I say, finally understanding. “It’s why you always wear the gloves.”

“It helps,” he explains.

“But,” I swivel round on the floor, “can I touch you ?”

That flash in his eyes again. I understand what it means now. He’s wrestling to maintain his control. “No,” he says simply. “No, you can’t.”

“Oh,” I say, disappointment spiraling through my stomach. I hadn’t realized just how much I did want to touch him until that choice was taken away. “Well,” I say grumpily, “that isn’t very fair.”

His mouth twitches. “No, but it’s what I deserve.” I think he’s going to say more, but then his attention is distracted by the stone. His eyes grow wide.

I swing my gaze that way too, just in time to see the stone breaking apart before the fire.