Kerrigan listened, rapt, as everything she’d thought that she knew about history was carefully dismantled by a small, bubbly historian. By the end of the lesson, her mind was whirring a thousand miles a minute, and she had three parchments on the Irena Bargain to write before next week.

They all groaned as they got out of their seats to head to magic training.

Bastian clapped his hands once. “I came to inform you that Mistress Zahina is gone for the week, so there will be no air lesson this evening. You are on your own. Use your time well.”

Roake whooped. “Might actually get to bed before midnight.”

Audria laughed as she looped arms with him. “This calls for cake.”

“Everything calls for cake.”

“You have never said anything more right,” Noda said with a laugh.

“Kerrigan, if I can have a word,” Bastian said as she passed him behind Fordham.

“Of course,” she said, waving Fordham on with the others.

“I’ll be in the library. Come find me later,” he said.

She nodded and then turned her attention to Bastian.

“Walk with me, Kerrigan,” he said and waited for her to fall into step beside him. “That was quite a lesson. Mistress Movanna is energetic.”

“She is. It was fascinating.”

“She’s constantly dredging up new information about the founding of the Society. You’ll get to more modern times, and she’ll stop caring,” he said with a laugh. “She considers the Great War modern.”

“That sounds like her.”

“I must confess that I showed up to your lesson for a reason,” Bastian said with a smile. It stretched the side of his face that had been burned from an accident as a child. He grew up in a village in the south, where the closest healer was miles away. It was what had sent him to participate in the Society and try to help those who most needed it. She respected that about him. “I heard a rumor that you were at a recent protest in the city.”

Kerrigan gulped. So much for no one telling anyone that she had been there. “Sir?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not here to stop you. I understand your reasoning for doing it. I was the one who signed the form that sanctioned the protest in the first place.”

“Oh. Well, that was nice of you.”

“It was legal. But there are others who, shall I say, would prefer to quash the protests entirely. I believe they would not look favorably on you attending them.”

“I understand.”

“I want you to be careful. We need people like you in our ranks.”

“I’m being careful.” But was she? She’d shown her face on purpose. It could have gotten back to anyone.