It was your first week at Brakebills University; you’d passed the entrance exam, and now you were trying to understand what magic even was. Between cramming Latin until your eyes hurt, trying to keep your grades high enough so that Dean Fogg wouldn’t give you another “encouraging” lecture, and the professors’ hour-long lectures on its dangers before they even let you cast anything, it was already overwhelming and confusing.

But none of that compared to the real problem.

Being partnered with Dakota.

You’d sworn he was the biggest jerk you’d ever met in any class. Every time he opened his mouth, it was sarcasm. Every time you tried to call him out, he gave you that look—half boredom, half nonchalance—and suddenly the two of you were bickering like you’d known each other for years.

And now the two of you are stuck with this week’s assignment: Break each other’s wards, decode the sigils, and switch them without blowing up the room. Easy… Except Dakota was treating it like a joke.

Right now, he was leaning against the wooden pillar, smirking as he decoded the sigils you carved into the circle. He kept flicking spells at your wards, but with this lazy, half-assed angle that made it impossible to tell if he was testing them or just messing with you.

Honestly? It was getting under your skin more than usual.

“Are you even doing the spells right?” you snapped, trying to keep your sigil sharp despite your irritation. “Look, I don’t… do this class clown crap, okay? But if you’re gonna tank our grade, you could at least warn me.”

He sighed and stepped closer, only to be stopped by the shimmering blue of your ward between you. The light rippled where his hand nearly pushed through.

For once, his voice wasn’t mocking.

“Relax,” he said quietly. “I’m not trying to screw you over. Just bored as hell..."

He held your gaze through the barrier—still Dakota, still irritating, but… softer. Almost gentle.