Weysh waited until the end of that week to seek Yenni out, in dragon of course. He called to her from outside her residence, and waited close to an hour, but she refused to appear. All the next day he tried to speak with her, but she dodged him, taking her meals at home and avoiding the library. Finally Weysh camped outside her Practical Application of Magic for Battle class and waited for her to come out. When she did, she took one look at him and marched the other way.

“I never took you for a coward, Yenni Ajani,” he called after her. It hit the mark, as she paused, though she kept her back to him.

“I am not a coward,” she snarled.

“Truly? Because you certainly run like a coward.”

She whirled around and marched up to him, hitting him with a plume of peppery irritation. “I am not a coward!” she shouted.

“Then why do you refuse to face me?”

She threw up her hands. “What is there to say that has not already been said?”

“Well, to start, you could admit your feelings for me.”

She took one short, sharp intake of breath, and that terrible scent of sadness, like algae, swam past his nostrils. He was about to reach for her when her scent changed, alarmingly quick, to acrid, smoky rage. Yenni darted her eyes left and right, taking in the nosy crowd forming around them from the dismissed class.

“Come with me,” she said, and marched off. Weysh jogged to catch up with her.

“Where are we going, lovely? If you give me a moment to change I can get us there much faster—”

“No,” she snapped.

Weysh clenched his teeth to keep from snapping back. She certainly wasn’t easy to deal with when she got this way, but he used the memory of her upturned face, her long lashes brushing her cheeks, her velvety lips against his, to help him hold his tongue.

She led him to the rows of outdoor study nooks on the lawn east of the training sands. They were comprised of stone tables and benches enclosed by matching stone partitions covered in creeping ivory. Yenni stomped under the archway to one of the benches and slid roughly onto the seat while Weysh smoothly took the seat across from her. Yenni placed her palms on the table and her eyes flashed at him. Weysh had never seen her so undone.

“We. Cannot. Be,” she said through her teeth, as if it was all she trusted herself to say.

Weysh met her glare unflinchingly. “We already are,” he said. “Honestly! Do you really plan to spend the rest of your life like this, in longing, denying what you feel? Why torture yourself?” And me, he added silently. “Do you feel for this other man the way you feel for me?”