Page 28 of A Dusk Of Stars

“So I’ll get you to shift and be done with it,” he says flatly.

My eyes narrow. I’m still suspicious and the very thought of him succeeding seems absurd, but his whole attitude is actually working in my favor. “By all means,” I reply with a smile.

Feeling determined once again, I move to get in front of my desk and await further instruction, stopping the second I see him shake his head and motion at the chair behind me.

A little hesitantly, I walk back, take my seat and clasp my hands in front of me, going straight back to suspicious.

He shifts a little, but stays leaned against the desk with his hands braced along its edges. For one long moment, he just looks at me with a blank face. Then, finally, he breaks the torturous silence. “What’s your animal?”

It feels so stupid, to tell the truth, but what else am I supposed to do? “I don’t know,” I reply, a strain in my voice.

He squints. There’s the impatience again when he starts, “Wolf, bear, snake—”

“Listing them won’t help,” I cut in with a shake of my head. “I honestly don’t know which one is mine.”

“Get in touch with it and tell me what happens,” he orders.

As if I didn’t attempt that already. “Um, I can try, but—”

“Try then,” he coldly cuts me off.

There it is, the anger. My lips twitch in an effort not to tell him he’s being unnecessarily rude. I press them tight and close my eyes, trying to feel around my mind.

Nothing happens. “Hello?” I call out to the darkness behind closed eyelids. Still, nothing.

“I can’t,” I say. I open my eyes to find him staring at me. “It’s not working.”

It takes him a second to reply, “Fine. When itisworking, how does it make you feel?”

Feel? It actually hasn’t occurred to me — to ask myselfthatparticular question. Fighting the embarrassment, I say, “It seems to make my senses sharper.”

“You’ll need to be a lot more specific than that.”

“I don’t know,” I say defensively. “I’ve only felt it a few times and it wasn’t that strong.”

His face remains blank, but I do catch his eyebrows shoot up. “Well that’s easily the poorest connection I’ve ever heard of.”

It feels like a slap across the face. “Well that’s easily the least constructive feedback I’ve ever received,” I snap back.

For a moment, we just look at each other.

“What else?” he finally asks.

I raise my eyebrows in a silent question.

“Apart from making your senses sharper,” he demands with growing impatience in his voice, “how does it make you feel?”

This is where it becomes tricky. “Like…” I shrug, softly shaking my head. “It has needs.”

It surprises me, when he tears himself away from the desk to come to stand in front of me, arms folded and eyes narrowed. “What needs?” he asks in a lower, tenser voice.

Naked, the way he’s looking at me is making me feel completely naked. I let the silence stretch. “Why did you accept this position?” I find myself asking, in an effort to shift the focus away from myself I guess. “At Grimm Academy, I mean.”

He squints at me. “What do you care?”

“I don’t, I just want to make this feel less like an interrogation.”

“Itisan interrogation,” he snaps. Then he walks back to the desk and takes a seat on its edge. “So I suggest you stop deflecting. Unless you want it to be pointless?”

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