Page 143 of A Heart of Bluestone

My whisper barely has a moment to settle before the line clicks. Then it goes dead.

One long beep is all that comes from the receiver.

So I know that the lines didn’t drop. It would be absolute silence if interference cut the call.

Father hung up on me.

I hit the receiver onto the hanger and push up from the bench.

Swatting away my stray, stupid tears, I push through the curtains and stalk down the corridor.

23

Eric’s smile lifts over the edge of the paper. There are two edges to it, his smile, one sincere but the other forced.

He’s in two minds about my assignment, I guess.

In his teacher cloak today, he sits at the desk at the front of the classroom. The lesson wrapped up some moments ago, and I stayed behind to hand in the very assignment he has been tutoring me on.

Still, it’s not up to scratch. I know that because, when I was meant to finish it outside of tutoring, I made the mistake of calling home.

Hard to concentrate on meaningless essays and calculations that have no weight on my life, when my actual life and future is falling apart.

Eric sets the paper down on the desk. “It’s an improvement.”

True, but what he hides under the truth is ‘it’s still not very good’ and I think his standards are too high.

Just give me my upgrade and I’ll be on my way.

I could blame him. Tell him that it’s his own tutoring failure that created that assignment.

But that’s hardly going to lean in my favour.

I need to force my mind to focus on the bigger picture, beyond my exhaustion, past my pride. To see him as a potential future, not a teacher I want to ram a pencil into.

So let my most pathetic pout sadden my face. “I tried.”

And I did.

Being a deadblood, the prediction part to me is pure guesswork. I don’t have the inkling. Even witches who have prints outside of predictions have the niggle, the intuition, and they can learn how to read what is unintelligible to me.

I might as well be a krum for all that I can’t do.

Eric nods.

His eyes add, silently,but not enough.

A curt sigh escapes me before I roll my eyes. “I’ve been having trouble focusing.”

Eric lifts his frown to me.

“I talked to my father,” I add with a downcast glance at him in the chair.

He stiffens, somewhat, a slither of tension moving through him.

Mouth thinned, he holds still—as though this can go either way for him, and he’s just waiting on my reaction.

I fix the scales of balance between us. I confess I know all about his offer because, maybe, that will reflect kindly on my assignment when he grades it.

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