Page 29 of Elemental Affections

Chapter 11

Lowinteractionindeed.Ezzynseemed to be taking the theme to heart, and Dae couldn’t decide if it was purely to spite her or if he really preferred such avoidance. The chill between them carried over into the seminar, where he treated her with the barest amount of civility. Greetings and answers to questions as required, which Dae reciprocated, and for her part, she sought out the other professors whenever possible.

More nettling was her time spent as his research assistant. He was often out when she arrived. For the first week, that suited her fine. She may or may not have timed some of her shifts for when she knew he would be occupied at a weekly meeting amongst his fire cohort. Her days consisted of collecting her latest task list and reviewing any comments on her previous work. If nothing required immediate correction, she went about her new directives.

At first, it was a lot of collecting materials and transcribing Ezzyn’s various notes and reports. Pleasant enough; gave her reason to explore more of Sylveren’s campus. Her own classwork rarely saw her go beyond the water domain of the Towers. The job rarely called for her to go farther than the Grove for soil samples, but Zhenya was in more often than not for a quick hello. Then it was back to the lab with its passive-aggressive silence.

Blighted marshland samples,she wrote on a card next to an arrangement of sealed glass jars.Kindly remember to open a window before you burn them.

Upon her next visit to the lab, she opened the door and was hit in the face with an overwhelming amount of air purification enchantments. They were almost enough to mask the stench of burnt swamp.

Red ink marred the top of a memo she’d prepared summarizing the results of one of his experiments.Kindly check your mathematics.

She returned it with her own note and the marked-up pages of the source material.My mathematics is fine. Kindly improve your penmanship or provide a key for your chicken scratch.

Dae supposed she should’ve seen it coming, with that last note, that he would add managing project-related correspondence to her responsibilities.

Kindly attend budget meeting and resupply materials cabinethad her off to the Dome to meet with the upper-tiers’ bursar and supplier. Two harrowing hours of haggling and outright pleading later, she’d staggered back to Ezzyn’s lab, and for once he was present at the same time.

Foregoing their usual correspondence, Dae deposited her crate of enchanted glassware and various reagents on his workstation. She fixed him with a frosty glare. “Kindly locate your spine and account for your poor budgeting yourself next time.”

A ghost of a smile formed on his lips before he turned away. “Noted.”

And so it went. It should’ve been monotonous, or at least awkward, the way they danced around each other. It wasn’t. She enjoyed their barbed notes back and forth. They put her at ease. With Brint surprisingly keeping his word, only popping up at sporadic moments to be obnoxiously friendly, Dae found herself relaxing, settling, having no need to keep her guard up. It left her mind free and clear. Or rather, it would have, if not for having such proximity to Ezzyn on a regular basis. It was an unfortunate side effect, how his closeness was apt to keep him in her thoughts.

As a second week passed, and then a third, Dae became familiar with his work. Intrigued, too, for though he had a fire mage’s penchant for thinking brute incineration was the first answer to everything, his research drew her in. He was tireless in pursuing every manner of combatting Eylle’s poison. Seeing some results, too, if nothing lasting. No matter how the poison was treated, cleansing was never complete. Inexplicably, it crept back into what should’ve been inert, sterile soil.

Dae started taking notes of her own, writing down questions and theories for her work, ignoring for the moment that it seemed unlikely she would ever have the chance to voice them. She understood—though didn’t necessarily agree with—his decisions to burn first, examine results later. Fire lent itself so well to purification, but it wasn’t the only school of magic that could achieve such results. And while he worked with the grovetenders on soil samples, the spellwork was compartmentalized rather than synchronous. Perhaps there was a reason, but she wasn’t versed enough in Rhell’s defensive procedures to be sure. Pity they weren’t speaking to each other. Weren’t friendly enough to be peers.

With her mind already full of his work, it left openings for other thoughts to creep in. She could’ve sworn his gaze had been lingering on her at random moments when she wasn’t looking. Which she only knew because she’d found her eyes seeking him out far too often. He always seemed to have just looked away.

It consumed her. She wasn’t supposed to care about him or where his eyes might have been at all. The month had evaporated out from under her, fall officially arriving and midterms approaching much too close for comfort. She was supposed to be on her way to meet with Professor Vaadt, but instead of running through her mental list of talking points, Dae lingered on memories that weren’t seeming to dull with age.

Ezzyn had cupped his chin in his hand during the seminar that morning. A normal, banal thing to do. Only, his gaze had flickered over her before he’d answered one of Zhenya’s questions. Dae spent a disgraceful amount of time remembering how his fingers had felt on her chin, how he’d tilted her face up to his. His offer ofassistance,and oh, the irony—or perhaps not, perhaps it was purposefully done—of those words. She was a fool to not have noticed.

But it hadn’t been a mocking, barbed offer at the social. Ezzyn hadn’t kissed her like it was a joke. Or a chore. He had been the one to instigate everything. And … he’d known. Known what he was doing, with whom, from the start, as Eunny had pointed out.

I won’t hurt you.

A promise. Not that she’d put herself up for breaking. Hadn’t known her masked mage and had no real expectations of him. That he turned out to be Ezzyn shouldn’t have mattered. His wanting to satisfy some long-held curiosity shouldn’t have hurt.

It did, a little, once she got over her annoyance that he considered her such, like a box to tick. In the end, it felt like a decision she’d been excluded from, told about only once it was too late to matter.

She’d thought her days would be filled with avoiding Brint and forcing herself to ignore his peacocking. Having Ezzyn and the paradox of his night self and day self hovering at the edge of her thoughts was proving to be … difficult. Confusing. Drew on energy and brain space she should’ve spent elsewhere. Worse, it eroded her anger at him, the conviction she’d leaned on in the face of his lie. Brought to mind Eunny’s comment about her and Ezzyn being ripe for … something. Made her think, maybe, a miniscule amount of her might be interested, too. He was still a rat bastard for tricking her, of course, but sometimes she thought she might be convinced to forgive. But it would take a lot to earn said forgiveness, and Ezzyn had given no indication of considering any actions in that regard.

Professor Vaadt was perusing a stack of papers when Dae arrived. They gestured Dae toward a chair, plucking a paper from the stack and sliding it toward her.

Dae read it. “Spring field study?”

“There’s a field opportunity in Rhell next spring, and very limited funding for Adept level projects,” Vaadt said. “I think you should apply.”

“Me?” Dae’s stomach clenched. “I don’t…”Know how to do anything.“I don’t have nearly enough experience.”

“We don’t expect Adept levels to have much of that.” Vaadt made a dismissive motion. “We’re looking for ideas and ability.”

“Don’t have much of that, either,” Dae muttered.

Slowly, Vaadt’s eyebrows went up.

---