Capitulum XXII

I flinched just as a hand materialized, wrapping around my wrist and yanking it from the cage door. Another hand came up over my mouth, stifling my yip.

The light leaking through the windows was just strong enough for Professor Faun's cross expression to take shape in front of me.

"You scared the shit out of me," I whispered when he released my mouth.

"I'm disappointed," he sighed. "I really thought you'd turned over a new leaf."

I pulled my hand free and crossed my arms, trying to seem irritated and not scared shitless. "Whatever, I'll just go."

I went to pass him, but his hand rested against my hip, holding me in place.

"Is this about Last Hope?" he asked, and my expression must have been answer enough because he continued. "Why? What's really there for you?"

I was surprised anger flared in my gut. "What's there for me? You think my daughter is just nothing?"

"She can't see you. You can't touch her. Going there will only prolong your torment."

"Maybe I want to be tormented."

"It will also lead to your expulsion. If you're not careful, you might never see her again."

"I might never see her again, or you'll never see me again?" I challenged.

His jaw flexed.

"Is it so wrong of me?"

"There's seriously no one you ever risked it all to see?" When he didn't respond immediately, I continued, "If you had a wife—or whatever when you were alive—it won't make me jealous."

"You find committed partnership to be an unavoidable fate?"

I gaped at him.

"But you're hot. You couldn't at least manage to keep a fuck buddy around?"

He chuckled. "I didn't die a virgin if that's what you're asking."

I leaned back against the bars and crossed my arms. "Huh."

"Don't seem so shocked."

"I'm just trying to figure you out. You never loved anyone while you were alive?"

"I was in academia," he said, and when I didn't look convinced, he added, "it was competitive."

"Likely story."

"I'm sorry you find my mortal life so underwhelming."

"I guess I'm just surprised, is all."

"Well, even now, you can see how love hasn't exactly worked out in my favor."

I smacked him in the chest. "Stop saying you love me like it's a bad thing."

He caught my hand, pressing my palm into the curve of his pectoral muscle to feel it move with his every word. "Stop making it so painful for me."

"It's not my fault you don't understand what I'm dealing with."

For a moment, he scanned my face in the darkness. "How much about my mortal life were you able to wring out of Professor Arnold before I got there?"

"Not much. Why?"

"My entire life, I was tormented by the existential dread that weighed down on me every day. It turned me into a recluse. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to live knowing I was going to die, and there was no way to know what was waiting on the other side. So, I went into academia, searching for an answer. I probably would have become a monk or a priest, except I could never settle on one religion. It felt like such a ridiculous assertion to make. And the celibacy, of course." He shot me a wink. "I think we both know that's a weak spot in my self-control."

I snorted. "So, what you're telling me is that you've always had control issues?"

He shot me a somber look, pursing his lips. "If that's how you choose to perceive me."

"Why do you even like me?" I asked. "You're always acting so frustrated by me. How am I not your worst nightmare?"

He cupped my face. "I recognized that same misery in you last year. It was something I hadn't ever seen in anyone but myself."

"Has it ever occurred to you that you're wrong? I actually had something to live for, something I will have to go without for eternity. What you saw in me was grief, not misery." I had to take a steadying breath. "You talk a big game about understanding me and caring for me, yet you felt entitled to keep my own secrets from me as though you had any chance of understanding them."

He grinned humorlessly, "You know now, don't you? And, yet here you are, still miserable, still searching. It will never be enough."

"Don't act like that absolves you of anything. You didn't tell me because my ignorance suited you."

He rested his forehead against mine, letting out a long sigh. "Actually, I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to feel indebted to me. I couldn't live with myself if you... if we... I mean... just because you felt I would tell you what you wanted."

"I wouldn't have."

"It wasn't a risk I could bear to take. I couldn't live with myself if I thought there was any question of me using that feeling against you."

I leaned my head into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me. Despite myself, the flame behind my sternum sputtered and faded. Despite my anger, I found myself wondering if he was right. I missed who I was before I knew, craved that ignorance nearly as much as he did sometimes. In an ideal world, that might have been enough, but it just couldn't be for me. I wasn't sure he'd ever understand that.

"I thought you said you died in a hunting accident?" I asked to break the silence.

I felt him chuckle through his sternum. "Right. That's a little joke between Professor Arnold and me."

"What?"

"We had similar curiosities for the nature of the meaning of life. He agreed to help me if I agreed to come back and tell him what I found out if it was at all possible. And let's just say we both held up our ends of the bargain."

I lurched away from him. "Are you telling me Professor Arnold killed you?"

"Please don't..." he said, pulling me back to him. "I promise it was my idea."

"I'll fuck him up."

He laughed. "It's what I wanted, Agnes. I couldn't live without answers." He cleared his throat again, the sensation rumbling into my ear. "Sometimes, it's the things you believe will make you whole that destroy you in the end."

"I'm not..." I began, leaning back to look into his eyes once more, but he didn't let me continue.

"I understand that risking yourself for your daughter or your friends might feel like the right thing to do. But if you don't think through the true, actionable outcomes of what you're doing, you very well could end up making everything worse for everyone."

I wanted to agree with him. I wanted the depth of his worry to satiate me.

It seemed like it should've felt like love, but it felt like something else, something without a name.

"Why is it that you always assume that I haven't thought things through? You're the one who's admitted to having a biased interest in my safety above all else."

He grabbed the sides of my face, angling my eyes so they had no choice but to meet his. "Because you deserve it, Agnes. You deserve to have someone value you as much as you value others."

"I hate you," I hissed, but as the words passed my tongue, I knotted my hands in his shirt and pulled him against me.

He resisted, but heat flared in his eyes despite his words. "You know that's not a good idea."

"Shut up and value me or whatever."

I pinched his shirt's top button open, leaning on my toes to press a small kiss into the V of skin below his neck ribbon.

He let out a long sigh. "Don't do this to me."

I fingered the next button. "You'll have to be more specific."

"This is cruel."

Another button popped open.

"Really?"

"Yes."

Another button.

"You can tell me to stop, you know."

Expecting words, I was surprised when his hand slid up the back of my head and fisted the roots of my hair. He peeled my head back until we were nose to nose.

"Unfortunately for the both of us, I really don't want to."

His mouth crashed against mine, pressing me hard into the metal bars. In an effort to get closer to him, I began tugging up my heavy wool skirt. His hands followed mine, but instead of pulling the fabric away, his fingers hitched under my thighs and lifted me into the air.

I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me over to a nearby chair and sat me down. He got onto his knees on the wood floor and pulled my hips to the edge of the chair.

He pulled my sweater and shirt free from where they were tucked into my skirt, bunching both articles over my chest, trailing kisses through the valley between my breasts and down my stomach.

When his head dipped below my waist, I let out a gasp, and his hand shot up over my mouth to suppress the sound. His quiet chuckle vibrated between my thighs.

But just then, a rustling came from outside the window, and we froze. I'd only just realized windows were cracked, seemingly to avoid the air growing stagnant when it wasn't in use.

I was half a second from tugging my clothes back down around myself when Professor Faun's hands tightened around me, holding me in place.

He peeked up from under my rumpled skirt, whispering, "I'll handle it. You stay right here."

I nodded, expecting him to get up. But instead, there was a light pop and further instructions to "hang on."

Digging my fingers back into his hair, I suddenly felt the weight of his head press into my hands as his body pulled free and got to its feet.

"What are you—"

He nipped at my inner thigh, then said, "Multitasking."

His body walked slowly over to the windows, pulling them shut. All the while, I was barreling closer and closer to the edge, doing my best to maintain my grip on his hair while I held him in place.

Despite trying to keep quiet, my panting grew louder, more ragged. Just as I was about to come, his body walked back over to where I sat and secured a hand safely over my mouth.

When I came, I nearly lost hold of him, having to squeeze my thighs around his head to hold him in place as I came undone.

When I was finished, he released my mouth and retrieved his head from where it was still pressed between my legs.

I watched as he repositioned it on his shoulders and smiled down at me. "You should probably head to bed."

"That's it?" I asked, sitting up and pulling my top down.

Smirking, he wiped away the moisture that glinted from his lips. "Greedy." He helped me up so I could reposition my clothes.

My cane was still discarded by the cage door, but when he moved to pick it up for me, I stopped him.

"I've got it."

I limped over to it slowly while he buttoned his shirt. Bending down to retrieve the cane, I gripped the cage handle, giving it a quick squeeze. It didn't resist at all, finally giving me an answer to my question. I could get inside.

Satisfied, I let go, picking up my cane and walking back over to where Professor Faun stood.

"Sorry I suffocated you at the end there."

"No apology necessary," he said, shooting me an amused look. "You should probably go ahead of me. Try and get some rest. You look worn out."

As I slugged him on the shoulder, he caught my hand, pulling me in for one last kiss before nodding toward the exit.

I didn't argue, slipping outside into the whistling night air. As I walked toward my room, a shuffling sounded behind me, like someone was shifting their weight on the frosted earth.

I spun around, catching the tail end of a tall silhouette before it disappeared from view.

~

After I told the group the first part of the plan was officially in action, the weekend was decently normal. The only thing out of the ordinary was that, very abruptly, a loud squeaking from overhead stopped.

In Transformation on Monday, I found most of the desks had been pushed back, and the professor's desk had two large fish bowls filled with paper slips.

"Good morning, everyone," Professor Faun announced, eyes not even touching me as he scanned the room. "Today, we will begin sparring as preparation for the midterm assessment."

He pointed over his shoulder to the bracket drawn on the chalkboard. Then he set one hand on the glass bowl to his right.

"I will be drawing two names to come to the front." He put his other hand on the other glass bowl. "Then I will draw a random creature or object, and whoever can transform into the most convincing form of said item will go on to the next round."

Nervous murmuring filled the room.

"Don't be worried. You're not going to be graded on any of these. It's just to get you used to transforming on the spot. In the mortal world, you won't be able to sit there and think about it. You'll need to be able to change on the fly. Any questions?"

When he wasn't met with an answer, he pulled out two names, and a couple of begrudging students went to the front of the room.

"Ready?" he asked.

I couldn't look at him, so I listened to the flutter of paper as he dug his hand around in the bowl.

"Frog!"

The two students looked at each other in surprise as if waiting for the other to go first. Then the girl's mouth suddenly spread, pushing her face around as her skin began to go slimy though not quite green.

The guy next to her wasn't going much better. His eyes bugged out of his head and turned a poppy red as he shrank. He didn't quite reach frog-sized, but the girl was too fixated on getting her skin to the right texture and resembled a swamp monster more so than a frog.

"Time!" Professor Faun yelled. "I think I'm going to have to give this one to Wesley."

Wesley was nearly out of view, and while still distinctly human, he'd managed to shrink his limbs and distend his belly enough to resemble something akin to a frog. Vera balled her fists together, wincing when the suction cups on her fingers stuck to the skin of her palms.

"Good job to the both of you, though."

The next duo didn't have a much better time of it. When Professor Faun yelled out "Ostrich!" their bodies jerked around in curiously opposite ways.

One seemed to remember the proportions of an ostrich but not the texture, while the other was more fixed to the opposite. Professor Faun had us chime in on whether the person with the long neck, curved spine, and massive feet should win versus the one covered in willowy grey feathers and scaly raptor skin.

Most people voted on the latter.

The pair after them got much closer. When he yelled "Teapot!" both shrank immediately, skin going hard and shiny. However, by the end of it, one ended up looking more like an ancient fertility statue and lost to the person who'd accidentally left their tongue hanging out of the spout.

Then I finally heard my own name, and my stomach dropped.

I got to my feet without looking at him, only to stop when the second name caught on his tongue.

He cleared his throat. "Sorry." I looked over to find his eyes on me, though they quickly flicked back down to the paper. "Rigel."

It took exceptional strength not to audibly groan, but I wasn't that concerned.

As he rose, I limped up to the front, leaned my cane against the desk, and stared straight ahead as he sidled up to me.

"Ready?" Professor Faun asked, voice having lost much of the softness it'd had during the first few rounds.

Assuming Rigel must have done the same, I nodded because papers rustled before Professor Faun said, "Fox."

My mind raced immediately. How big were foxes again? Not that large. The color was relatively easy, but with only thirty seconds, would it be better to focus on the form?

I forced my body down until I was on my hands and knees, fingers receding into my palms until they resembled paws. In the corner of my vision, I could see my nose elongating into a snout, forcing me to close my eyes to avoid getting nauseous.

"Whoa, hey, stop," Professor Faun called suddenly, bringing me out of my concentration enough to realize most of the people in front of me looked confused.

I was sure I'd done something embarrassing, maybe given myself giant dangling gonads by accident or the like.

But they weren't looking at me. They were looking at Rigel, which wasn't a massive shock. It was inevitable he would be better, and everyone knew it. That did beg the question of why so many people were looking around like they were being pranked.

"Rigel," Professor Faun said in a warning tone, circling his desk.

That was when I finally looked over to see what the fuss was, but instead of Rigel, Cass was staring down at me.