The vaulted ceiling of the Magic Theory Hall was infinitely more fascinating than whatever old man Clive was droning on about down in the pit.
Celeste Devreux sat at the very top of the amphitheater, her legs swung carelessly over the back of the chair in front of her. She leaned back until she was practically parallel with the floor, a wide grin plastered on her face as she traced imaginary shapes in the rafters. Behind her, the rhythmic clack of the Head Instructor's cane and the frantic scratching of graphite from the Honor Class blurred into a dull, meaningless hum.
Boring. All of it, entirely boring.
Except for the prickle.
Celeste blinked, her luminous amber-gold eyes dropping from the ceiling. Someone was watching her. It wasn't a passing glance; it was a heavy, static weight. She tilted her head, her messy teal-cyan hair spilling over the desk like a vibrant ink stain.
Down in the dead center of the front row, the beloved "Saint" was writing with perfect, measured strokes. To the rest of the sheep in the room, Cedric Drevayne was the picture of focused academic grace. But Celeste's mind operated on raw, whimsical instinct. She saw the rigid line of his shoulders. She noticed that his pupils, though pointed at his notebook, were unnaturally still.
He was tracking her in his peripheral vision. For the entire period.
How funny, she thought, her grin widening.
"Review Chapter Twelve before tomorrow," Clive barked, his dry voice slicing through her thoughts. "I have matters to attend to."
The instant Clive's cane disappeared through the side doors, Celeste moved. She didn't bother using the aisle. She vaulted over the desk in front of her, her boots padding lightly as she skipped down the tiered mahogany stairs, slipping right through the collective, exhausted sigh of the class.
In a flash of teal, she materialized at the front row, leaning heavily against the edge of Cedric's table. She completely ignored the personal space of the students sitting on either side of him.
"Hey," Celeste chirped, her voice a lively, childish bell that easily carried over the quiet murmurs of the hall. "Why were you looking at me?"
Beneath the table, Arthur's fingers tightened into a rigid claw. How? The composure in his mind violently shook for a fraction of a second. How did she notice? I was certain I kept my pupils focused on Instructor Clive. My geometry was flawless. No one has ever noticed my invisible gaze before.
The panic flared, but the mask had to hold.
Celeste watched him blink. A perfectly calibrated look of mild, gentle surprise crossed his features. He offered her a warm, inviting smile that looked to her like it had been painted onto fine porcelain.
"I apologize if my eyes wandered in your direction and made you feel uncomfortable," he said, his voice a soothing, articulate baritone. "It was certainly not my intention to target you, Lady Devreux. My focus simply drifted."
Celeste stared at him. The words were polite. Deferential. Utterly, agonizingly boring. And a complete lie.
She didn't blink. She leaned in closer, radiating a suffocating, chaotic energy. "You're lying!" she sang out. There was no malice in her tone, only a bright, playful confrontation. "You haven't stopped looking at me once since the period began! You must want something from me!"
Arthur's heart slammed against his ribs. She knew the whole time?! His mind shifted into overdrive, rapidly calculating the blast radius of her words. If the class believed the "Saint" had been secretly staring at a peer, his reputation would fracture. He had to contain this.
"Again, I apologize if my involuntary actions have offended you. Truly, none of it was my intention," he said, dipping his head in a graceful nod. He locked eyes with her, projecting an aura of saintly patience. "Perhaps I could make arrangements to compensate you... after class?"
He infused the last two words with a subtle gravity, an obvious attempt to push her away from the audience.
Celeste ignored the suggestion entirely, her attention snagged by the sudden shift in the room's atmosphere. The amphitheater had gone unnaturally quiet, followed quickly by the frantic buzzing of insects.
"What's happening over there?" a boy whispered from the third row. "Are Rank One and Rank Two fighting?" another muttered, hungry for violence. "Wait, did she say Cedric was secretly staring at her?" a girl gasped.
"No way," a sharp, defensive voice hissed from the center aisle. The gossiping girl turned, demanding to know why, and the defender shot back, "Because I've been watching him since the class began. He hasn't taken his eyes off his notes. She's just making things up to start a scene."
Celeste rolled her large, amber-gold eyes. The whispering was so loud. So dull. These people were entirely too obsessed with this boy's saintly image. The playful spark of a potential fight fizzled out, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming wave of whimsical boredom.
She tilted her head, her toothy grin softening into a childish pout. She suddenly couldn't remember why she cared in the first place. The thought of arguing with a room full of defensive sycophants sounded exhausting.
She was about to turn around and leave him to his boring little notebook when she noticed it.
Cedric's shoulders. They dropped, just a fraction of a millimeter. His chest visibly loosened. He looked... relieved. He was glad she was backing down.
Beneath his saintly facade, the cold knot of tension in Arthur's chest finally unspooled. A direct conflict with the sole heir to the Devreux Grand Duchy—one of the most powerful lineages in the kingdom—would have been a catastrophic misstep. He hadn't studied the nation's war history for mere academics; his mind had long ago categorized the legendary Devreux Knight and Mage Order as a highly mobilized threat subject to the whims of her House. Inviting the scrutiny of a military apparatus capable of leveling cities was a surefire way for a commoner, like him, to die early.
I must suspend the investigation, he concluded, his mind retreating to its clinical detachment. Until I break through to the next tier of the Nameless Sword Arts—until my bodily control is absolute enough to perfectly mask the micro-twitches of my ocular muscles—she is simply too dangerous to monitor.
Celeste stopped. Her abstract mind didn't formalize the thought into words, but her instinct was immediate: He's hiding something, and he thinks he just got away with it.
That wasn't boring at all. That was fun.
Screeeech.
Celeste reached backward without looking, her hand clamping onto the heavy mahogany chair of the terrified student sitting directly behind Cedric. With an effortless yank, she dragged it forward, the wood howling against the polished floorboards.
She slammed the chair down right next to Cedric, her shoulder bumping his, and dropped into the seat. She crossed her arms on his desk, invading his carefully curated space entirely, and rested her chin on her sleeves.
The whimsical boredom vanished. Her grin stretched wider than before, and her amber-gold eyes locked onto his—bright, playful, and terrifyingly hungry for whatever chaos he was trying so hard to hide.