Page 43 of Class Studies
I blinked. “Do I look like your maid?”
“You look like someone with no class first bell.” Beryl grinned.
“I’m nipping this in the butt right now.” I pushed away from him. “I will never clean up after you.” I put my hands on my hips. “On second thought, maybe you can stay in your dorm.”
“Too late.” Beryl wiggled his eyebrows. “You already asked and started my day with a literal explosion. There’s no going back.”
“Beryl,” Nitis barked. “We’re burning daylight.”
Beryl kissed me again before he tore down the stairs, Nitis just in front of him. I wasn’t sure how this was laying low or staying away from his friend, but I trusted Beryl.
Ashe stepped forward to close my door, but I beat him to it, running my fingers along the hinged side.
A simple piece of paper slipped into my grip: Before GS, behind the greenhouse.
I handed it to Ashe, pushing the door shut with my foot.
Ashe scowled. “What are you paying him with?”
I grinned and tiptoed to my shoes, pulling out the socks. “With my scales.”
Ashe narrowed his eyes and took them from me, probably feeling for the tracking magic he’d put on them. “Do I want to know how you fucking got them?”
I ran my fingers through my hair, unsure how to explain my new pseudo-friendship with the woman blackmailing me. “She gave them to me. Sorta.” I toed the ground. “I’ll tell you the full story later. Abe’s confusing.”
Ashe took a deep breath. “She didn’t strip the tracking spells off.”
I shrugged. “She did trace them back to you.”
“Fuck, I need some better ones.” Ashe stomped to his coffee maker but didn’t turn it on. “Kitten, if you really don’t want me to track the fucking scales. I’ll tell you I’m not.”
I repeated what he said in my head. He’d tell me he wasn’t, but he’d track them anyway.
“No.” I looked up at him. “I don’t want you to lie to protect me. Track them. I still don’t know what I want, but Professor Garnet said knowledge is power. And he’s right.” I furrowed my eyebrows, picking at the hem of my hoodie. “Maybe someday I’ll want to know more about my past. I shouldn’t cut off my options now.”
Ashe’s face lit up, cutting through his mass of facial hair. He pulled me into his chest for a bear hug. “You’ve no fucking clue how much I wanted to hear those words.”
I hugged him back, a weight drop from me I hadn’t known I carried. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to know, but having the choice to find out freed me.
Trying to picture parents and siblings only brought up memories of Damon. Although my past didn’t overwhelm me with grief, I still didn’t want to dwell on what I couldn’t change. I pushed out of Ashe’s arms and walked to my workstation. It only took me a minute to add the supplies I’d need to replicate Abe’s invention to my list. The magic of email sent it to her office. Not a minute later, her apprentice responded. They’d be ready in ten minutes.
The woman was ten steps ahead of me, and I didn’t even know what game we were playing.
“Ashe,” I said, not turning from my tablet. “I need you to go to Abe’s office and pick up my supplies.”
Ashe stepped to my backside. “Do I look like your errand boy?” He growled playfully.
I spun and swatted him on the butt. “You do!”
Ashe rolled his eyes and pulled me in for a coffee-flavored kiss. “Fucking hell, anything for you, Kitten.”
I furrowed my eyebrows and bit my lower lip.
He groaned. “Don’t fucking overthink it.”
He kissed me again, but it was too late. He would do anything for me. He had done everything for me, and I’d fucked Beryl in the bed I promised he could sleep in while he took the couch.
Ashe was too good for me, and we both knew it.