Page 76 of Gift from the Wing

She rummages through them and the lines in her brow become deeper the farther down the stack she goes. It’s quite a collection of work.

Request for class transfers, Geo’s correspondences, approvals for increases in lesson plans for certain advanced classes, current performance metrics for the final year students. Plus, all things Headmaster upkeep.

It all needed to be addressed prior to the students returning, and I had planned it out where I’d bust out as much as I could over the next two days while spending time with my Nexus.

“So you recall sitting here working but not actually flying through all of this?” she asks as she places the last page of my stack back in its place.

“Exactly. I don’t know where my mind went.”

She hums to herself, staring at my desk as if it’s the realm’s greatest mystery, and I run my thumb across my bottom lip to hide my smirk. I track her fingers as they run mindlessly in circles on my desk and the concentration etched into her features is the cutest fucking sight. This woman makes me melt at the simplest things.

Lovesick.

Something catches her attention, though, as her fingers stop their movement and she gently peels up the corner of my desk mat. A sudden, almost crazed laugh bursts out of her and my eyes widen with worry that she’s cracked like Caspian warned she might.

“Sneaky little shit,” she mutters as she begins clearing off my desk.

“Princess, everything okay?” I ask as she shoves my papers into my arms.

“I’ve found the cause of your hyper focus.”

“I don’t think the new desk mat made me work harder, Willow,” I say, placing the papers down, and grip her shoulders.

“Not the mat, what’s under the mat. CC left you a little surprise,” she says, flicking my hands off her and getting back to quickly clearing everything off my desk.

I don’t question her frantic insistence anymore and allow her to continue stripping my desk bare until there’s nothing left but the dark smooth wood and the navy rectangular leather mat that stretches across its surface.

“Would you like the honors? I’m fidgeting I’m so excited, so make your decision quickly.” She cheers, tapping her nails on the desk.

“The honors of what?” I ask. Still confused and a tad bit more concerned with her behavior.

She huffs and rolls her eyes before pointing to the mat as if I should already know what she’s so worked up about. “Remove the mat. You’ll see. Come on, just trust me, please.”

She shoves my chair out of the way, then grips onto my arm and pulls me until I’m standing center of my desk. The excitement that’s thrumming through her bleeds into my chest and I look down at her with a millionquestions running through my mind, but I settle on believing if she’s this excited and wonderstruck, there’s something to be seen.

Probably faster and more anticlimactic than she would’ve made it, I snatch the mat off the desk.

The leather slips from my fingers and hits the ground with an audible slap as I stare with my mouth gaping open at the surface of my desk. It’s not wood as I would’ve sworn, but glass. Underneath the thick clear layer are green, red, marbled, and purple stone shards laid out in the shape of the sun on a large slab of blue crystal.

Placing my palm in the center, a wave of calm focus spirals its way through me, and my mental to-do list begins to organize itself clearer than I’ve ever seen it before. It’s as though all distractions have fled and left behind an unwavering mindset.

“I just learned about these,” Willow whispers, trailing her fingers down my hand.

“What is this, princess?” I ask as I remove my hand from the glass and suck in a sharp breath as the power releases me.

She begins explaining her amplifier room in quiet detail as her fingernail traces the outline of the sun. Yesterday, she was shaken up by whatever she saw and didn’t want to talk much about the room other than it’s a room full of crystals. Now, I listen with keen fascination as she describes the rare, powerful stones that represent the many strengths we as individuals and a Nexus, have.

It’s intriguing, to say the least.

My uncle thought things down to damn stones.

Crazy.

“They’ll enhance your gifts more and more with time, from what I understand. You’ll start being able to control this boost rather than it controlling you. Or at least I hope that’s the case.”

The slight waver in her voice that she tries to hide has my hand reaching out to pull her closer to me without any thought. Her sight has given us more advantages than we’d have any other way, but I hate it. I’m grateful for all the things my uncle gave her but not that.

“Gift, princess. I only have one.” I chuckle as she rolls her eyes, then as I run my fingers down her spine, I say softly, “Plus, it didn’t enhance my gift just now. It…I don’t know. Enhanced me.”

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