And that Monday, I went to school like nothing had happened. I wasn’t surprised to find David in the newspaper room. No one else was in there, and I stood in the door for a while, watching his back as he sat at the computer, typing. “I know you’re there, Pres,” he said at last.

Smiling, I leaned against the doorjamb. “Could you sense me with your awesome new superpowers?”

He snorted, but didn’t turn around. “No, I could actually feel you staring at me.”

Wheeling around in his chair, he gave me a truly sad excuse of a grin. “No one’s stare is quite as piercing as yours.”

When I folded my arms and gave him a look, he sighed. “I knew you’d come. And not because I saw it. I mean, I did see it, but . . . ” He trailed off, tugging at his hair.

I walked across the room and covered his hands with mine, gently pulling his loose from the top of his head. As I did, he watched me very carefully, and I felt that same fire, the one from the Cotillion, curl in my belly. We held each other’s gaze, our hands still tangled up as I stood in front of him.

“You know what’s awkward?” David asked, the corner of his mouth lifting.

“Our entire existences?”

Now the grin was real. “That,” he acknowledged. “And when you make a big, dramatic gesture because you think you’re going to die, and then you—”

“Don’t die,” I finished for him, and he nodded.

“Exactly. Not that I’m not one hundred percent psyched that we didn’t die, but . . .”

“I get it,” I told him. “So . . . that’s why you kissed me, then? Because you thought we might die?”

“More or less,” he said, dropping my hands and turning back to the computer. “It was a heat of the moment thing. I mean . . . you and me, as a couple? Could that even work?”

He typed for a few more seconds, and when I didn’t answer, he turned around. There was still the teeniest speck of gold in his eyes, but you had to look for it to know it was there. “Do you . . . Pres, do you want it to work?”

Saylor had said that Blythe’s spell could make David dangerous. It could mean I’d have to kill him for his own sake. But he’d controlled it the night of Cotillion. He’d used incredible amounts of power, and he was still here, still David.

The gold dot in his eye seemed to flame brighter for a second, and I felt a little shiver.

Still, I straightened my shoulders and looked into his eyes. “I’d like to try.”