Chapter 4

Swiping my hands down the front of my white Royal College uniform, I took a seat in the back row of Professor Cross’ classroom and waited while he had a long, in-depth discussion with the flubbing dean of faculty (there were four associate deans at the university besides the dean) as well as several other professors from the history department.

During our two day absence, my hour one class, Historical Studies in Relations to Politics, had been reassigned to a substitute. At least I got to sit there with the rest of the students, fidgeting and sighing and gossiping. There was an air of excitement about the place—how could there not be with all the extra guards on campus—but nobody seemed to know what, exactly, it was all about. And certainly no one was looking at me, which was nice.

As I dutifully ignored Professor Cross’ discussion in the back of the room, I noticed a gold-blonde head in the front row and felt my eyebrows go up. It was Felixa of Haversey, the only other person in this room (well, her and her handler) who had any idea about what’d happened up on that mountain. As if she could sense me watching her, she whirled around, her blue eyes widening in surprise before she—

“Yep, she’s coming over here,” I groaned to Jas, putting my face in my hands and wishing with all my heart that Vexer was here by my side. He’d tell Felixa off with a little growl, shift those big, beautiful wings of his, and then take my hand in his while I tried my best to catch up with the lecture. The Royal College moved fast. Missing two full days was a pretty big deal.

But, of course, Vexer and Trubble were back the house. There was always the risk that a shadow whisperer could show up, but I felt that leaving made it less likely. I wasn’t trying to protect or hide anything, right?

I’d just have to trust Dyre’s brother. I mean, he had a vested interest in keeping me out of trouble and on the case. I already knew he was betting on me resurrecting his brother for him.

“What in Hellim’s Hell are you doing here?” Felixa asked, sitting in the seat beside me and locking gazes like she was a basilisk, intent on turning me to stone with her stare.

“Attending class?” I asked, like it was a question. Her brunette handler was now sporting a headful of raven-dark hair, taking the seat beside her and holding both their heavy book bags on his shoulders.

“Don’t play dumb with me. I was there, remember? I saw everything.”

“You were knocked out by a wolf,” Jasinda said, and although I couldn’t place Felixa’s location or actions during the fight, I knew Jas had taken note for a reason. “And he,” she continued, referencing the handler whose name I couldn’t remember for the life of me, “was too busy defending your comatose body to notice shit.”

I cringed at Jasinda’s cursing, but at least I didn’t lose any feathers.

“Where the … fudge have you been the last few days?” Felixa growled at me, and I knew then that she really was fishing for information. She’d seen the start of the fight, but she hadn’t witnessed the sleep whisperers putting me and Jas under, hadn’t known the queen was there or seen Dyre die. She really was in the dark about all of this.

“We had injuries that needed to heal,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “Obviously the Royal Flesh Whisperer fixed us up, but it was that bad that we needed days of rest.” I lifted my chin in a way that would make Airmienan proud and sniffed derisively. Felixa didn’t even remotely look like she believed me nor did she make any move to get up and return to her seat.

No, she sat there until Professor Cross moved to the front of the room and sprinkled silver spook dust over his own head.

Huh.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the dean of faculty watching him with narrowed eyes. Even though he was bound to me, he was still teaching the class? I turned back to the front and listened as he made up some ridiculous excuse for his absence and then smoothly transitioned into an introductory lecture about the class.

“The substitute wasn’t particularly well-prepared, so for the last two days, all they’ve talked about are the ingredients the students found during the orientation assignment. Useful information, but not part of the curriculum,” Matz said, turning around in the seat in front of us to relay the news. Jasinda could barely look at him, reminding me of my own fateful kiss, of Vex’s mouth dragging me out of that strange nightmare and back to the world of the living.

Without thinking, I touched my fingers to my lips and both Matz and Jas turned neon red and looked sharply away in opposite directions. It was an effort not to roll my eyes.

Instead, I focused hard on Professor Cross and took notes in the leather-bound journal Jasinda had purchased for our classes. It was spelled to open only when I touched it. I should be excited to open the damn thing up, to finally get started on my Royal College experience and yet, it was tainted from whatever’d happened up on the moment.

“Don’t be discouraged. Everyone hates this class,” Elijah whispered in my ear. Felixa bristled at the sight of him, but she kept her eyes focused on the front of the room, scribbling so many notes I figured she must be making them up. Professor Cross wasn’t even talking that fast. “Just remember, it only gets better from here.”

He flicked his tongue against my ear, making me both shiver and blush before he disappeared again. I took a quick glance around to see if any other spirit whisperers had noticed me getting my ear licked by a ghost … and found the dean of faculty staring right at me.

Great.

My second day of school and one of the associate deans just caught me kissing a ghost.

Talk about a crappy start.

At lunch, I sat with Jasinda in the courtyard closest to our house. There were six of them in total, and each one catered to a specific year. Pretty sure this one was the sixth year courtyard, but I didn’t particularly care about that because every time I checked my schedule, I heard Talon’s voice reading it aloud.

“Lunch Hour—very descriptive—is followed by Hour Five: Spirits and Shadows. Seems redundant, but okay.”

My head was resting on my forearm, but I paused to lift it up and look across the table at Jasinda. She was picking cherry tomatoes off the top of a purple salad—made with only purple leafy greens from the Royal College greenhouse. The food here, it really was top notch.

“I can’t stop thinking about Talon,” I said, sending out little magic feelers for the other spirits attached to me. Elijah, Airmienan and now Professor Cross and Dyre. They were all keeping themselves hidden except for Mr. Cross. No, he was making small-talk with other staff members and making me ridiculously uncomfortable with the idea of having a gods-damned (bye, bye feather!) teacher attached to me for the rest of the year. I hadn’t had a chance to give it much thought yet, but holy Haversey’s boobs! How was I supposed to do anything fun with a freaking staff member latched to my soul?

Come to think of it, he deserved a good tongue-lashing. He’d bound himself to me without asking, without any consideration as to how it’d make me feel. Just because he was a teacher, and just because we’d gone through shit on the orientation day assignment didn’t mean he was off the hook.

“Talon,” Jasinda said, giving up on trying to stab the last cherry tomato with her fork and popping the shiny red veggie into her mouth with her fingers. “I’m sorry about what happened to him, Brynn, but he’s gone.”

“He’s not gone,” I growled, causing Jas to raise her eyebrows at me. “He’s inside the belly of a razor wolf.”

“Yeah, and far beyond our reach,” my handler continued, reaching out and pushing my own salad a little closer. I hadn’t touched it and I was starving. But I was also too overwhelmed to eat.

“He’s not beyond our reach,” I continued, sitting up straight and glancing in the direction of the snow capped mountain where we’d lost him. I didn’t see any soldiers or whisperers up there now, but it made me wonder. What the flub was the bleeding queen doing up there in the first place? I’d seen her just before that sleep whisperer knocked me out. “He’s right out there, just a sword slice away from being rescued.”

“You can’t be serious,” Dyre said suddenly, reappearing on my right side. Jasinda jumped and fingered the spirit charm around her neck, but I just glanced over at his scowling face and tried to remind myself that no matter how abrasive he was, that he’d saved my life. Just like Talon, he’d sacrificed himself for me. “Did you see how much trouble we were in up there? I died, Brynn of Haversey. I am dead and I have a fucking brother and a dying kingdom that need me.”

“Then why’d you do it?” I asked him, watching him tap his katana on the surface of the table. It went through it several times before he finally got it together enough to make it bounce off like it was real. “I saw you look at me just before. You had a choice and you picked me.”

“What kind of prince would I be if I put myself first?” Dyre scowled, turning away from me and leaning his, admittedly, really nice butt against the edge of the wooden picnic table. He went through it though and fell half inside the white stone that lined the streets of the faculty and sixth year apartments. Up through fifth year, all students shared a room with at least one roommate and stayed in the dorms. But during sixth year, they got to move into posh digs on the same street as the staff.

I stifled a small smile and pretended that Dyre’s smooth move hadn’t totally flopped.

“A living prince?” I hazarded as he stood up back up and cursed in Vaennish under his breath. “Your life has gotta be more important than mine …”

“That’s stupid,” Dyre growled, giving me a look through narrowed eyes. I could almost imagine the copper color shining through as he stared at me. “You have a resurrection spell to perform. If you do this successfully, you become the most important person in Europia. Maybe the whole world.”

A slight flush colored my cheeks as I glanced around and wondered how many spirit whisperers were watching us. Yes, we were in the shade of a large oak tree, but Dyre really should’ve been acting as careful as Air. The queen hadn’t said anything about his death to me yet, but I’d imagine she wouldn’t want the world knowing the last living royal from Vaenn had died during an Amerin college assignment?

“You should hide yourself,” I muttered, just as I spotted Felixa flouncing into the courtyard. She sat at a table bathed in bright sunshine and locked her eyes on mine. I had no idea how she could see me through the shadows and yet, somehow she did. When I flicked my eyes over to where Dyre had been standing, he was gone. “I’m not giving up on Talon,” I muttered, and I swear, I heard Air curse somewhere in the direction of the pond on the other side of the willow tree. “He gave his soul up to save my life.”

“Yes,” Jasinda said as I dragged my eyes away from Felixa’s and refocused them on my handler. “He saved you because you have a higher purpose. Don’t throw both his and Dyre’s sacrifices aside.”

“You want me to leave Talon out there, knowing his fate?” I asked, feeling this hot, angry little spark flare to life inside of me. I pushed my salad away and raked the fingers of both hands through my white hair. “You want me to leave the guy I had my first kiss with to spend two hundred or more years trapped in some carnivore’s belly?”

“You’re awfully stuck on that first kiss thing,” Elijah said, appearing by my side and sitting down. He was the only one besides the professor who could freely show himself. Everyone knew he was dead anyway. I wondered how that would work then, if I were to resurrect him. Everyone would know. And once they did, word would spread far and wide.

Remember that Double Blessed whisperer who was promptly killed when word got out?

I would be promptly killed three times as fast. Five times. Ten.

Now that I really thought about it, other countries would go to war over something like this.

That’s when I started to feel really fucking sick inside.

A black feather drifted down to land on my salad as I stared blankly ahead, a sudden surge of fear and panic spreading through me. The queen wanted Air’s death kept secret for a reason—and not just because he was the last living heir.

Because she didn’t want anyone to know what I could do.

She wasn’t going to let Elijah or Talon or anyone else that was supposed to be dead come back to life, was she? My heart started to pound inside my chest and I felt suddenly dizzy. If I did this, if I actually completed this spell, my life … wouldn’t ever be my own again, now would it?

“I need to go home for a minute,” I said, shoving myself up from the table and heading directly for the front door of our house. I fumbled the key out of my pocket and unlocked it, shoving my way in and slamming it behind me. It was close enough to the courtyard that my spirits didn’t have to follow me.

But Air did anyway.

“Are you alright?” he asked as I ran for the staircase and darted up it, slamming into Vexer’s hard, warm chest and coming to a sudden stop with his hands on my shoulders.

“Everything okay?” he asked as Air came up the steps behind me and paused on the landing. I glanced back at him and then over at Vex’s gray eyes … and Trubble’s bronze ones. They were impossible to ignore, curled up as he was around the big man’s shoulders.

“The queen is never going to let me go if I actually figure this resurrection spell out.” The words escaped in a rush, just as I heard the front door open.

“Brynn?” Jasinda called out just before I heard her footsteps on the staircase behind me. “I had to throw our salads in the compost bin. What are you doing in here? I thought we agreed it was best not to come back here today?”

“The queen is never going to let go of me,” I repeated, pushing past Vex and moving into the room with Air’s coffin. I hadn’t come in here since moving in, but as I stood there and stared down at his not-so-sleeping face, it finally dawned on me how naive I’d been. “If I successfully complete this spell, she’d be a fool to let me go …”

“Let you go?” Air asked, pausing on the opposite side of the room and giving his body a look. He never went near it either. It made all of this shit feel too … real. It was so easy to pretend like being dead didn’t matter if we were talking or screwing or hanging out. But this? This was hard, cold reality. “We’ll be married. You’ll be queen.”

“Your mother is never going to let me be queen,” I scoffed, putting my fingers on the glass of the coffin, smearing it with fingerprints. “I mean, not the queen, but I guess if I was a part of your harem, that’d be a good place to keep me.”

“What are you talking about?” Air asked as the bells in the tower rang, signaling the end of lunch. He was looking at me like a crazy person, but then, he’d never been able to see his mother’s faults.

“Felixa, she said she was promised as your first wife, Air.”

“Felixa is full of shit,” he told me as Eli slipped through the wall and into the room. Dyre and Professor Cross at least had the common sense to stay out in the hallway, but Jasinda and Vexer squeezed in to watch. “I don’t want a harem, Brynn. I only want you.”

“You’re saying Felixa was never promised to you as a wife?” I whispered and Air made a frustrated sound low in his throat. Gods, he was beautiful in that dark tunic and breeches, just as ethereal as he’d been the night of All Haunts’ Eve. And it’d be the last outfit he’d ever wear if I didn’t get this spell right.

“My mom made promises to Felixa’s family, sure, but I don’t care about any of that, Brynn. I’m the only heir that she has left. What is she going to do if I refuse Felixa? Disown me?”

“Maybe she wants me to resurrect your sisters so she can?” I said, pushing off the coffin to stand up straight. I gave Air a very pointed look.

“So what? Then I’ll marry you anyway,” he said as I slipped the ring from my pocket and rolled it around between my fingers. I was carrying it with me wherever I went. Probably should’ve threaded it onto a necklace or something so I didn’t lose it. “Even if I did want a harem—I don’t—then I’d never choose Felixa, not when I know you hate her so much. Brynn.” Air moved over to me and put cool hands on the black leather shoulders of my jacket. “Cheer up. I won’t let my mother hurt you.”

“That’s a nice sentiment,” Vexer said, his voice low and grumbly. Pretty sure he hated the prince which totally sucked since I liked them both. But compeers who didn’t get along … well, that spelled disaster for everyone. And why was I even thinking about husbands and married and compeers anyway?! “But you’re dead. Honestly, it’d probably be better for everyone involved if Brynn never even tried the damn spell. If she succeeds, her life … it’s over.”

“It’s … over?” Air asked, like it hadn’t really occurred to him either. His cousin stood nearby, pale blue eyes narrowed in thought.

“I guess I’d never thought about it before,” Elijah said, echoing my own inner voice. “Everyone knows I’m dead. If she brought me back, with no body mind you”—Eli tapped the coffin with his hand—“there’d be wars to get a hold of her.”

“I can’t talk about this right now,” I said, glancing at Vexer. He had a sympathetic expression on his face, but Trubble looked downright pleased by all the drama. What a dick. Another feather popped off, but I ignored it. I already had bald patches from that assault by the spirits freed from the razor wolves. What were a few more? “I have, uh, Spirits and Shadows for Hour Five. I shouldn’t have brought any of this up anyway. We have other ship to worry about first.”

I paused next to Vexer, wondering if he’d reach out and touch me … He did. He took my hand in his and squeezed it. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on between us, but I liked it. And clearly, he must like me if was able to break that spell.

“Stay strong, okay?” he said softly, and I nodded, jerking to a halt as he yanked me back by the hand and into his strong, muscular arms. He folded me close and kissed my mouth in the most possessive, alpha male way possible.

And I liked it.

Eww.

I so totally liked it.

“You are so ridiculously monogamous, huh?” I asked when Vex finally let me up for air. Speaking of air … The prince was standing behind me along with Elijah and they both looked furious. I guess they weren’t quite as fond of the big griffin man as I was.

“Where’s my kiss?” Trubble asked, flicking his tails and looking like a smug little prick. Sorry, but it was totally worth losing a feather for that one.

“Go, enjoy your classes. You deserve it.” Vex let me go and stepped back. I didn’t bother to check anyone’s expressions as I headed back down the stairs and outside with Jasinda following along behind me. As soon as she caught up, she tossed over my book bag and gave me a look.

“You have a lot of men to juggle, Brynn,” she whispered as Professor Cross caught up to us and gave me a very pointed sort of look.

“I can’t say I approve of a twenty-eight year old man hiding in your campus housing with those sorts of thoughts running through his head.” The professor started fussing with his messy tie and unbuttoned shirt, flashing some of those incredible tattoos. I’d seen what they could do now, and I was thoroughly impressed.

“What sort of thoughts?” I asked as Jasinda and I walked to class. Even though this was technically our second day of school—and everyone else’s fourth—this was the first time we’d ever been to this particular classroom. It was on the opposite end of campus from the building Professor Cross used to haunt.

“Lascivious ones,” he said, his sapphire eyes going wide. His dark hair was forever spiked up in a crazy sort of way, permanently disfigured from the hundred plus times a day he ran his fingers through it. “Dirty ones.”

“Oh?” I asked as Jasinda elbowed me in the side. I ignored her and focused my attention on Professor Cro— Spicer. I was going to start calling him Spicer. Maybe that would make having him around less … creepy? Stifling? Weird? “Were they explicit?”

“Terribly explicit,” Spicer said with this oddly enamoring charisma. He was a little sloppy, a little unkempt, but definitely interesting. I just wished he’d thought to ask before making me his point of binding. “Borderline pornographic.” The professor paused for a moment and tapped a finger against his lips. “No, not borderline. Definitely pornographic.” He slid his eyes over to mine, that little ring of turquoise setting him apart from the thousands of other Amerin citizens with pretty blue eyes. “Vexer of Reisender is a … very visual person, I must say. And if he hasn’t seen you naked yet, then he’s got an extremely vivid imagination.”

“Professor Cross,” a voice ground out from our right.

Ah, flub. It was the dean of faculty again.

“You might be a … non-living member of the Royal College faculty, but I’ll have you remember that the rules remain the same.” The woman was shorter than all of us—even me—but the way she glared with those dark brown eyes of hers made me quiver in my academy issued boots. “Did I just hear you discussing pornography with a student?”

“Of course not,” Spicer said, smooth as silk, straightening his tie and offering up a benign little smile to Tiukka of Haversey. The dean of faculty was from some distant island whose name I could barely pronounce. She was almost rumored to be the strictest professor on campus … and the teacher for my next class.

Fantastic.

My luck just never ran out, did it?

“We were discussing an art piece done by a student in one of Brynn’s classes, that’s all.” He stepped through the door and into the classroom, leaving me outside with the dean herself. Her eyes flicked over my shoulder, to the cluster of other ghosts straining against the eighty foot limit we were metaphysically restricted to. She knew they were there; the queen had probably had the entire staff briefed somewhat on who I was and what I was up to.

But Tiukka—at least I knew her name was pronounced tee-OO-kuh—didn’t seem particularly happy to see me.

“I’m looking into this nonsense with Professor Cross.” She zeroed in on me and raised one perfectly arched brow. “I’d like you to stop by my office sometime this week and discuss what, exactly, happened to bind him to you. If I find any instance of misconduct, he’ll be terminated and exorcised.” Pretty sure my mouth dropped open at that one. I mean, he was bound to me, right? That meant he was sort of my spirit. I should get to decide whether or not he was exorcised.

“I’ll stop by as soon as I can,” I choked out as the woman looked me over, straightened her purple academy jacket with the epaulettes, and let herself into the classroom without even bothering to hold the door for me and Jas. Professors were able to choose their own color from the six years of college uniforms: white, red, purple, silver, gold, and black, respectively. “This doesn’t bode well for my future grade in this class, does it?” I asked Jasinda as she opened the door and let us into a cold, creepy old building. It used to be a temple, this place, back when worship was still a big thing.

This wasn’t a Haversey temple though … it was one of Hellim’s.

Spiritual signatures were splashed all over the walls and ceiling, and shadows skittered across the rafters. As soon as the door swung shut behind me, I thought I might puke.

“Are you alright?” Jas asked as I stumbled against the wall and put my palm up to the cold stone. As soon as I touched it though, I regretted it.

“As promised, I’ve made a seating chart. Each seat has a name on it. Please find yours and sit down. This isn’t a secondary classroom.” Tiukka was yelling at the relatively small class, but to me, her words were merely a whisper.

I could hear so many other things though … pleas and screams and whimpers. Something was growling nearby while up above us, another shadow wailed. The cacophony swirled around me, pressing in on my eardrums until I felt like they might burst. Nobody else seemed to notice or be bothered by all of the activity.

“Brynn, are you okay?” Elijah was asking, putting his hands on either side of my face and trying to get me to look at him.

“I’m going to be sick,” I said, tearing myself from his grip and stumbling back outside. I collapsed on the cobblestones and threw up, my head spinning, magic sparking from my skin like an electrical storm.

“She’s Double Blessed, is why,” Professor Cross was saying as he came outside with Professor Tiukka on his heels. “She can’t handle the overload of spirits and shadows.”

“Brynn,” she said, kneeling down next to me. “Do you need to see a flesh whisperer?” I shook my head, but my stomach was still turning over and I wasn’t sure how many more times I’d have to throw up before I’d stop feeling so damn nauseous.

As I leaned down, the pair of necklaces hanging from my throat swung down and caught the light. There was no way in Hellim’s Hell that Professor Tiukka didn’t know about my double blessing, but maybe it hadn’t hit her until just now because she reached out and touched them both with reverent fingers.

“We haven’t had a Double Blessed on campus in … years, and certainly never a child of both Haversey and Hellim.” She released the silver stars and on impulse, I felt myself reach up to grab them. Somehow, it felt like a violation, having her touch them like that. I hadn’t felt that way when either Air or Vex had done it. “But no matter. That classroom has been used to train spirit and shadow whisperers for centuries. We can’t make any exceptions, not even if you happen to be both.”

“You can’t be serious?” Elijah said with a scowl, appearing directly in front of me. He seemed to have zero qualms about back talking an associate dean. “That classroom is intended to stretch a spirit whisperer’s or a shadow whisperer’s limits. It’s supposed to be uncomfortable. For Brynn, it’s probably unbearable.”

“You, Elijah of Haversey, are still a sixth year student as far as I’m concerned.” Tiukka rose to her feet and brushed off the knees of her black breeches, her long hair hanging in thick curls on either side of her face. The rest of it was piled in a bun atop her head, an interesting contrast against wings the color of the sky above us, a frigid blue-gray speckled with clouds. The sun came and went, but it looked like it might actually snow one last time before winter finally quit. “And I don’t take orders from students. Brynn of Haversey, you either need to visit a flesh whisperer or you’re well enough for class.”

Jasinda was kneeling beside me, her jaw clenched in frustration. I gritted my teeth, but I pushed up to a standing position and shifted my ebony wings behind me. I might be clumsy as well, and a mediocre spirit whisperer at best, but I wasn’t about to stand here and be insulted by some … some … bleeding motherflubbing blatherer son of a blitz.

Whew.

I swiped my palms down the black pleats of my skirt and lifted my chin.

“This is ridiculous,” Eli said. Usually, he had this sort of lazy, languid cockiness to him. But apparently, when he got angry, he got pissed. “A double blessed student has completely different needs, needs that the Royal College should do everything in its power to nurture and bring to fruitful fucking maturity. This is clearly harassment.”

“I have to agree with Elijah of Haversey,” Professor Cross said, his mouth pulled down in a tight frown, the living ink on his skin shifting between the unbuttoned halves of his shirt.

“This is my class,” Tiukka said, looking straight at me and nobody else. “And my rules. Either come in and take your seat or take it up with the dean.” She turned and started back for the classroom door before pausing. “Or the queen, perhaps?”

She went inside and let the heavy wood slam shut behind her.

“Tiukka always had it out for me, too,” Elijah said, casting a sympathetic look my way, his white wings curling forward and giving me what the angels call a seraphic embrace. It was an intimate little gesture, and it made my cheeks flame. Still, I curled my own wings up and brushed them lightly against his.

“She never much liked me either,” Professor Cross said with a sigh, slicking his fingers up his poor, messy spiked hair again. “Alive or dead. I’m afraid the odds are stacked against you.”

“I can do this,” I said as Jas made a small sound in her throat.

“Brynn, you’ve been through a lot lately. You heard what she said. We’ll just talk to the queen and—” Without waiting for my handler to finish, I stormed up to the classroom door and let myself in, my boots loud on the stone as the room went silent and I stalked up to one of only two empty chairs in the room.

Jas’ name was on the first, while mine was up close to the front, right next to where Professor Tiukka was standing. Our eyes met just before I slid into my seat … and found Felixa glaring at me from across the surface of the table.

Shi—p. Ship, ship, ship.

Sounds and sensations pressed down on my shoulders, making me shiver and shake. My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides as Elijah boldly stalked up the aisle and gave me a hug from behind before disappearing.

“Are you settled now, Brynn of Haversey? Or shall I hold up the rest of the class until you’re ready?”

“Go right ahead,” I growled out, sounds and sensations pressing down on me from all sides. I felt like my heart might beat right out of my chest, my eardrums might explode, my skull might crack in half. Pretty sure I didn’t hear a damn word of that lecture. But I stayed awake.

Oh, and I managed to walk my bum out of that classroom before I passed out.