The Matchmakers

SIXTEEN

IT HAD BEEN SIX DAYS since the Devoir Gala. Six days since Sophie's talk with Keefe. Six days since Sophie had talked to Keefe; and she was getting more and more anxious with every passing hour. She'd caught a brief glimpse of him during lunch on Wednesday, but he'd bolted the other direction as soon as she'd met his eye. She was starting to think he was deliberately avoiding her.

But that was ridiculous. Wasn't it?

Ridiculous or not, she was determined to find him today. Still, in order to confront him she would have to get through the school day. That meant getting through her Telepathy session.

Tiergan wasn't in class on Tuesday—offering some quick excuse about Black Swan business at the beginning of class before leaping off campus—delaying his inevitable lecture about being too young for marriage, and not liking Fitz, etcetera, etcetera. Sophie and Fitz had used the borrowed time to study. While she helped him with his Universe notes, he helped her with Elvin History.

Yes, Sir Faro was still as big a pain in the rear as he had been at the beginning of the semester. And with midterms less than a week away—and Sophie still failing to travel through time—he was cracking down hard on the quality of her projection.

See, it wasn't enough for Sophie to recreate the images he gave her. Oh no. Sir Faro expected her to breathe new life into them, to make the images come alive, like the viewer--in other words, Sir Faro himself--could step through the page and into the scene. He expected nothing less than perfection. She could feel his expectations suffocating her, and her worry was her constant companion, weighing her down.

Despite—or perhaps in spite of—all the art classes she had taken throughout her years as a human, Sophie was no artist. And sadly, neither was Fitz. If she needed to ask anyone about art, she should have asked Keefe.

But with him not around...well, she couldn't exactly beg a favor from a ghost, could she?

Either way, Sophie had used all her luck up on Tuesday. Thursday, Tiergan was waiting in the classroom when she and Fitz arrived, sitting rather rigidly behind the Mentor's desk. He rose to acknowledge them, but there was a rigidity to his posture that had Sophie itching to tear out a loose eyelash.

"I didn't get a chance to offer you my congratulations at your Devoir Gala last weekend," Tiergan told her. She didn't miss the way he'd phrased his sentence, as though "congratulations" and "condolences" were interchangeable.

The tight smile on her mentor's lips didn't reach his eyes. Tiergan had never liked Fitz, and he'd never made much of an attempt to hide it either. So this was some shaky ground on which they were treading. Hoping he was done with the subject of her Devoir Gala, Sophie offered a quick "Thank you" and forced a grateful smile.

"I also didn't get a chance to ask you what in Exile you're thinking!" Tiergan exploded. Even though she'd been expecting it, Sophie flinched at his anger, feeling the knot of emotions in her stomach tense. "You're only seventeen! You don't need to get married right away, you have an eternity ahead of you. Why rush something as paramount as an engagement?"

Sophie felt a flash of gratitude for her fiancé when Fitz clenched his fists and stood up for her, gritting his teeth as he told Tiergan, "We didn't have a choice--" Before he could even finish his sentence, their Telepathy mentor turned a death glare on him and Fitz fell silent in an instant.

"You're on my list, Fitz," Tiergan threatened, his expression downright fatal. "You'd better thank your lucky stars that Sophie is your Cognate, or you wouldn't be getting anywhere within ten meters of her."

"Hey!" Fitz exclaimed, his raised hands mimicking his eyebrows and proclaiming his innocence. "This isn't my fault!"

Tiergan practically growled, "But you didn't exactly reject the proposal, did you?"