Ch. 2
I can’t concentrate.
My eyes flicker from the exam sheet to the front of the room, then back again. The words are hieroglyphics. They might as well be in Infernal. I know I’ve seen this room before. Lived in it. Felt things in it I shouldn’t have.
And now he’s here.
Professor Caspian Bellamy.
He stands near the front like a carved statue, ageless, untouchable. His presence drips like ink in water, spreading over every desk, every page, every inch of me until I feel branded. All I can hear is his voice from that dream. Velvet and vice.
It’s impossible. There’s no way I dreamed about him before I met him.
And yet…
My fingers tremble around the pencil. I set it down and fold my hands between my thighs, trying to steady my breath, trying not to remember the way his hands slid beneath Eleanor’s blouse. My blouse.
Gods.
The friction alone makes it worse. Heat coils low in my stomach. My thighs clench. I jerk my hands away and jam them deep into my coat pockets. Focus, Dezi. Focus. But the seed has taken root.
I’m failing, again. And not just this exam.
"Desk thirty-four," he says.
I freeze as I recognize my desk number.
"Is there a reason you’re not writing, Ms... Carlisle, is it?"
My voice cracks. "I just—I needed a break."
He pulls out a pocket watch, ornate and silver, the kind that probably tells time in multiple dimensions. "You have thirty minutes remaining. I do hope your little break was worth it."
His voice is exactly the same as it had been in the dream, and it affects me just as thoroughly.
I stare at him. I don’t mean to. I’m just… struck. Those piercing blue eyes rake across me, and I must look like a slack-jawed idiot, because his brow lifts in irritation.
"Ms. Carlisle," he drawls, low and unamused. "How about you come up here and show me what it is you're hiding in your pockets?"
I freeze.
"Now."
Chairs creak. Eyes burn into my back. I stand on stiff legs and make my way down the steps, one by one, feeling like each one is an execution. When I stop in front of him, I keep my gaze fixed on the floor.
He’s taller in reality than he had been in the dream. I didn’t think it was possible, but he’s more intimidating, too.
"Your pockets, Ms. Carlisle," he says, slower this time. "Empty them."
I squeeze my eyes shut. Of course. Of course, this is happening.
One hand turns out an empty pocket. The other… I hold up a tampon.
Snickers ripple through the room. A few people outright laugh, and I realize just how badly this looks. It looks like a stunt. Like some pathetic prank played by a sad girl in desperate need of some unwarranted attention.
He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, as if he’s thinking the same thing I am. "Please, return to your seat, Ms. Carlisle, and do us all a favor and stop wasting your fellow students' time."
I nod furiously, cheeks on fire, and scurry back to my desk, ears burning at the low jeers that follow me.
"To make up for the unfortunate disruption," he says dryly, "everyone will have an additional seven minutes to complete your exam. Everyone except Ms. Carlisle, that is. Please, proceed."
I want the floor to open and swallow me whole.
By the time I reach the cafeteria, my stomach is tangled in knots, and I’m praying that there’s a pot of hot chicken and ginger soup on the menu. There usually is during exams. The lunch line moves slowly, and I keep my eyes down until I hear snippets of a conversation behind me that piques my curiosity.
"Gods, he's so hot I could hardly focus."
Another voice chimes in, laughing. "Tell me about it. Do you think all the senior academy professors are that fine?"
"Only if you get into Class A or B. The lower you rank, the more rank the teachers are."
Giggling.
"Makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why the Caspian Bellamy is teaching here at all."
Pause.
"Is he famous or something?"
"In academia? Uh, yeah. He’s one of the empire’s top scholars; he should be leading symposiums at the Imperial Research Institute. What the hell is he doing teaching university-level history?"
I stop listening.
Because I’m wondering the exact same thing.
All through lunch, my soup goes cold. I can’t shake it. That dream. The fact that I saw that classroom before ever stepping inside it, or ever saw him.
Why now?
I don’t plan on it, my feet just take me across the sprawling campus and into the history wing, back to that room.
It’s empty now, and that much more hauntingly beautiful for it. I walk the tiered aisles slowly, hands trailing the wood of each desk I pass. The nameplates are still set up from last semester. That morning, I’d sat in a kid named Darius’ seat, and when I find the same desk from my dream, I already know what name I’ll find: Eleanor.
My breath catches.
I stare at it for a long time, a pesky spark of hope taking root in my chest.
This could be the start of some latent ability! Psychometry, maybe? Or, Precognition?
Those are rare. Respected. I’d finally be worth something.
I don’t have any magic of my own. Not even a spark. It’s the kind of thing that would normally get a kid shipped off to a state-run orphanage or dumped into a vocational program if they were lucky. But not me. When I was three, someone left me on the front steps of the Academy’s cathedral like a piece of unwanted luggage. For some reason, the Dean and the Board decided to keep me. Raise me. Let me study here, as if I belonged. I’ve been cared for by dozens of matrons, housed, fed, and watched like a live experiment. For fifteen years, I’ve felt like they were waiting—for what, I have no idea. I’ve never shown any aptitude, never manifested a talent. So whatever great purpose they thought I might serve, I’ve failed them. Again and again.
Maybe, now, all that’s changed. Only…
Then it hits me.
If what I saw was real... If it hadn’t happened yet... If it still will...
That means Professor Caspian Bellamy isn’t just some handsome face from my fantasies. He’s a predator.
He did something. Or will. With Eleanor.
And I saw it.
I’m still standing there, cold realization making my skin crawl, when a voice, deep and velvety smooth, cuts through the silence.
"What are you doing in my classroom, Ms. Carlisle?"
I turn slowly.
And there he is.
Dr. Bellamy. Again.
Looking just as dangerous. Just as devastating.
And this time, we’re alone.