Alarm bells rang out in her head. “How do you know where I live?” she demanded.

“Well, I…ah…followed you from there to here,” he said.

“You were following me?”

He raised both hands, looking around the crowded street as if worried about being overheard. “I’ll explain. When we talk.”

Raisa imagined going back to her dormitory and the prying eyes of the Gray Wolves. Not to mention the possibility of encountering Amon Byrne.

Likely no one would return there for hours. Still, there was no guarantee. “I want to talk to you too, but we can’t go back to Grindell.”

To Raisa’s surprise, Cuffs asked no questions. “We could go to my place, and use the common room there,” he suggested. “I stay at Hampton Hall, across the bridge.”

“Hampton? I don’t know that dormitory. Which quad is it on?”

He cleared his throat but kept his eyes fixed on her face, as if he didn’t want to miss anything. “Mystwerk House.”

“Mystwerk! But that’s…the school for wizards.” Her head ached from the banging against the wall. Maybe she’d misunderstood.

“A lot has happened,” Cuffs said. Fishing under his cloak he pulled out a glittering jewel on a chain—a serpent carved from green translucent stone. He closed his hand over it. The stone glowed through his fingers, taking on power.

Raisa took an involuntary step back. “You’re a wizard?”

He nodded, almost apologetically, and quickly tucked the amulet away again.

“But—but—how can that be?” Her voice rose, and Cuffs flapped his hands, trying to shush her. “Who sent you here?” Raisa demanded. “Did you come here to find me?”

“No,” he said. “Like I said, I came here to go to school. It’s…complicated. I’ll explain, but”—he looked around again—“not in the middle of the street, all right?”

“Well, I can’t go to Hampton,” she blurted, undone by this revelation. “I don’t want anyone at Mystwerk to see me with you.”

He flinched, his expression closing tight, and she realized he’d taken it the wrong way: he thought she was ashamed to be seen with him.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said, touching his arm. “I mean—is there someplace we could go where we could talk in private?” she said. “Just the two of us?”

He raised his eyebrows, studying her face as if to read her meaning in it. “Well, I got a place in the library over on the Mystwerk quad,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to get to, but it’s private, anyway.”

“In the library?” That seemed safe enough. “But isn’t the library closed?”

“Not to me.” He smiled the wicked smile that had charmed her from the start. “But we got to trust each other. I got to trust you won’t tell anybody about it. And you…well, you’ll see.”