Page 5 of A Heart of Bluestone

The queue rustles into movement again.

I bend at the knees to gather up the bags.

“Just a little,” I say, standing, and there’s a sheepish tilt to my flat mouth. “You?”

His smile disarms me. It’s so slight, but warm.

“Same. Very last minute,” he confesses, and takes a step back with a sweeping look around the witch traffic. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

My mouth turns down with a frown.

The reminder of reality is a pin to my bubble.

Eric is a senior now at Bluestone. His final year of study, his final year to bear witness to all the mortification I’ll be subjected to.

It doesn’t offer me any relief that Eric is the one who will stop in the corridor to help me unstick my books from the ceiling, or the one who will offer me his hand after the rugs are magically tugged out from under me, literally, and I’m sprawled out on my bruised ass.

It doesn’t help that he’s kind.

It only humiliates me more that it even happens at all.

And it happens.

All the time.

In answer, I just give a lame nod-shrug hybrid.

I am the clear victor of small talk over here.

Bury me.

The queue rustles again.

I step forward with it, just two witches away from disappearing into the veil. The straps of the bags cut into my arms, sear at my flesh and pull my muscles like they are made of nothing more than saltwater taffy.

Hands in his trouser pockets, Eric takes a casual step back, keeping up with me.

“I won an apprenticeship,” he tells me. “So I’ll be half senior, half Master’s Aide.”

A faint smile paints over my face. “Will they cut you in half?”

His lashes flutter. A blink of surprise before he schools himself.

I decide I hate myself, my wretched attempts to be funny, and I might lob myself off the closest bridge.

“An apprenticeship?” I try for the polite conversation. But my heart sinks a little. He’s not the biggest crush I’ve ever had, but his smooth, tanned skin and chocolate-brown hair are to ritualise over. As faculty, even if only part-time, he’s untouchable. “Which subject?”

“Rituals and Sacrifices.”

I arch an eyebrow, a small smile playing on my rose-painted lips. “Is that your thing? Running around, slaughtering goats and whatnot to summon the devil?”

He laughs, but it’s a forced sound. Polite, and still, it sounds like bells.

Guess he’s heard the joke before, probably a dozen times already, and I’m not so original.

Or he just doesn’t think I am funny.

No, I decide that perhaps he just doesn’t think that Rituals and Sacrifices is a subject to be taken lightly. Only a very particular few witches can pull off rituals.

---