I Learned Magic for All the Wrong Reasons

Artemis moved Dante’s wrist away from the rising test liquid and covered the dish with a lid from the bench. She drew four blue lines above it, closed them into a square, and spoke the Korean words. The drawing flashed as bands of light fastened the lid down.

Tapping came from under the lid, but the liquid stayed inside. Dante asked whether she had fixed it. Artemis checked his dry dressing and explained that she had only stopped it reaching him; she still needed to find out why it had reacted to blood it had never touched.

She put the sealed dish in a glass cabinet and asked whether anyone had taken a blood sample from him. He kept his hand well away from the cabinet while trying to remember how an ordinary class had turned into another medical question.

He described yesterday’s assessment cut and Miss Vale’s bleeding wrists, including the parts that made him sound frightened. Artemis phoned Miss Vale, and they arranged a supervised assessment for Sunday morning before she returned both collected phones.

”Eat, rest, and stop performing for strangers, because being impressive won’t grow your skin back,” she told him, leaving him wondering whether asking if she was impressed counted as performing.

Posey waited downstairs with sandwiches, handing him one as he returned her phone. They walked to residence while he explained the dish, and she asked about his fingers instead of requesting another demonstration.

The residence common room had battered sofas, a blank wall, and a small man in a dressing gown inspecting syrup through enormous glasses. Posey explained that Mr Glint supplied their movies, then found them a seat while he argued about the wrong kind of payment.

Glint accepted a spoonful of honey instead of the syrup. Beams of light shone from his eyes onto the wall, turning it into a moving city, and Dante understood why nobody had bothered to buy a television.

”Name a film and stop walking through the bloody picture,” he announced when a passing student acquired a face on their backside.

Dante requested a terrifying villain, excellent coats and women who appreciated a complicated man, earning a snort from Glint. ”You want entertainment or a dating profile with funding?”

Posey laughed into her sandwich before moving her bag off their sofa. ”Could we try a comedy? I like hearing you laugh, and I’m not very brave about the scary ones.”

They settled on a vampire detective film, and Dante stretched his good arm along the sofa before losing the nerve to leave it behind her. Apparently his villain training had skipped women who actually wanted him sitting beside them.

Posey drew a blanket across their laps, settling her bare knee against his pants beneath it. Her soft cream sweater brushed his sleeve, and when she bent to tuck the blanket around his injured hand, he noticed how closely it fitted her.

He dragged his eyes back to the film, where the detective had removed his shirt to question a witness, which seemed an unfair reward for somebody else’s staring.

”You’re looking at me again. Is there something on my face?” Posey whispered when she caught him looking again, although her smile stayed as she tucked her feet beside his leg.

”I could move if you’re squashed,” he offered, desperately hoping she wouldn’t take him up on the worst idea he had ever voiced.

”Oh, please stay. I saved this seat for you, and I like having you here,” she said, slipping her fingers between those of his good hand beneath the blanket.

His heart knocked hard enough that he worried she could feel it through his arm. Blonde curls rested against his shoulder, smelling faintly of shampoo, and her thigh stayed warm against his while she watched the screen.

He had imagined this sort of thing with considerably more confidence and fewer concerns about where to put his thumb. When he finally brushed it across her knuckles, she squeezed his hand and moved closer, bringing the soft weight of her body against his side.

She glanced down at their hands before checking his face, and the nervous little smile she gave him made his chest feel tight. Somehow, she needed to know he wanted this too, when he would have fought the entire sofa for another inch beside her.

He pulled the blanket over her shoulder instead of making a joke, and she rested her cheek against him. For once, being quiet hadn’t made him feel boring. He wanted to ask her to stay after the credits, without needing another excuse.

Several minutes disappeared before Glint stopped the film and demanded extra honey for prolonged kissing scenes, prompting somebody behind them to complain that the detective hadn’t solved a single murder.

Posey turned as Dante looked down, bringing her blue eyes close enough that he forgot his reply. Her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth, and his hand tightened around hers before he could pretend he hadn’t noticed.

Neither moved away, although her lips parted as if she had something to say, and he leaned just enough to feel her breath against his cheek.

”Dante, Posey, I need you upstairs,” Anika said from the doorway, holding out her phone with none of her usual amusement.

The unknown sender’s message read, ”Stop asking about your brother’s placement, unless you want us asking him why you won’t listen.” Anika called Jett on the stairs, reaching voicemail while Posey stayed beside her.

Mrs Han, the dorm supervisor, had reopened Jett’s room with an archive assistant. The assistant introduced herself as Iris, pushing round glasses up beneath dark curls held with a silver skeleton clip. Her job tonight was checking the paperwork to see who had said Jett was moving out.

”The scholarship trust recorded him as leaving, but he never returned his key,” Iris said. When Dante asked what the trust was, she explained that it was a donor fund that paid for student placements and hired services around Blackwell. It was not simply another name for the university. Jett had gone to one of its appointments, and now its records claimed he had left.

Posey recognized Jett’s charger beside the bed, then heard a tablet chime beneath it. She pulled it out and gave it to Anika, who accepted the incoming call. The screen showed a frightened young man with shaggy dark-red hair and pointed ears. Dante had heard plenty about Jett; this was the first time he had seen his face.

”They took my phone,” Jett whispered. ”There’s a screen on this bed for telling the staff when something hurts. I found a way to call my tablet from it. Don’t ring back, because they’ll hear it.” Anika held the tablet close while Iris began recording the call.

He shifted the bedside screen on its jointed arm, showing a strap across one forearm while his free hand adjusted the camera. He knew only that the door was locked, with pipes overhead and a scraping fan outside.

Iris called security, and Mrs Han went to meet them outside the room. Posey closed the door so the noise in the hall would not cover Jett’s voice. Dante stayed beside her, staring at the strap around the arm of the man whose room he had nearly taken. This was someone who should have been watching the movie with them, not asking for help through a bed screen.

”Don’t tell them I called, because they’re checking whether I can still feel it,” he whispered as footsteps approached his bed, ”and I’ve been saying no so they’ll leave me alone.”