Luscin didn’t take long to pack, two changes of clothes, soap, comb, and water flask go into a pack and she’s ready. She straps her pack to her back and heads out on her last errand.

She wants to let Teum know she’s leaving, but she isn’t looking forward to leaving him behind. He’ll want to come with her, worse he’ll want to help. That sweet boy has no idea how horrible the real world can be. The worst thing to ever happen to him was getting drugged and chained to a wall. He tore down the wall and had the man arrested.

Compare that to Luscin being sold out by her best friend to be fed to some crazy witch. She had to kill the woman, then find her way out of the house filled with hundreds of decomposing bodies, and she looks at that incident with less revulsion than her family life. Teum gets sad because he thinks his sister and dad are mad at him. Luscin was almost forced to marry her own father to make an heir for her mother’s sick family legacy. Teum is strong but innocent of the real world. Seeing the ugly, twisted world would ruin him.

Standing outside his door, she raises her hand to knock.

The door opens, Teum is standing there looking down with a huge grin on his face, “I did it! I saw it was you on the other side of the door!”

Luscin isn’t much impressed. Everyone can do that with minimal training.

“I know what you’re thinking, everyone can do that. But how did I know to look before you knocked?”

This is why she likes him so much. He’s strong, which is what attracted her in the first place. He’s smart too, people underestimate him because he’s so open and honest they assume he’s simple. Best of all he’s cute with those grey eyes and that narrow-crooked nose. She looks around with her sight and notices a series of thin lines of kinetic energy spanning the hall to either side of his door. “You made a machine to alert you of someone approaching? Clever.”

“There’s one other thing. Look at the door.”

Luscin takes a glance at the door and sees an inverted plane of fuzzy energy.

Pointing to it, “what does that do?”

“When you went to strike the door with your hand, that inverted plane converts potential energy into kinetic, that I was able to feel as if you were about to strike me instead of the door. I need to charge it every few knocks to keep the potential up. I can show you how sometime.” Teum is beaming with happiness at sharing this with Luscin. There’s nobody that makes him feel the way she does. He likes her so much it hurts when he thinks about it. His happiness doesn’t last though. As Luscin noted, he’s smart and realizes she’s come to his door, packed for travel, and is here to say good-bye.

“Luscin? When will you return?”

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Gushing with pride that he didn’t make her say anything, “Soon, I have to clean up a little mess I left behind in Thuma. I’ll need a few days to find the mess, fix it, and come right back. I bet I’ll be back in under a week. You won’t have time to miss me.”

“Thuma is a long way from here, don’t tell me you’re going to fly.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“You don’t know how. Terius doesn’t teach that to students until their 5th year; if they even can fly.”

“I saw him do it once, it doesn’t look hard.”

“You saw him take off. Did you see him land? What about all the stuff between takeoff and landing?”

Luscin’s mood is starting to sour, “I’ll figure it out. If I don’t, add six months to my estimated return.”

Teum smiles at her, “Yeah, I know you’ll figure it out. I just don’t want to lose you. Promise you’ll come back safe?”

“I promise,” that did it she was going to hug him. She leans in and manages to get her arms a little more than halfway around him.

Teum gently closes his arms around her, lightly squeezing their bodies together. He doesn’t let go until she gives him a little squeeze and relaxes her arms.

She takes his giant hands in hers and stands up on her toes to give him a kiss, which lands on his chin.

Teum holds onto her hands and lowers himself down so their kiss can be better aligned.

A minutes later, Luscin is dizzily wandering away from Teum’s room.

A voice interrupts the wonderful moment, “Luscin! I’ve been looking for you. The entire faculty is waiting to talk to you in the library.”

Luscin sighs to herself, then says out loud, “Oh wonderful, another page butting into my business.”

Page Leven doesn’t let her comment bother him, he bumped into Sanne and was given a summary of their encounter. “I had nothing to do with that. Sanne is the gossip not me. I’m just an errand boy.”

Luscin looks up in surprise at the boy with the crazy purple hair with black stripes, “She told you I said that?”

“Yes, she did. You’re not wrong. Our job is to run errands, so it’s hard for me to be offended by that label.” Leven continues, “None of that matters now, all of the study masters are gathered and prepared to help you. I know what a runaway looks like. Remember, I was once one too. You don’t have to do this alone. There’s a room full of real-life Defenders that just dedicated three days to formulate a plan waiting in the library to help you. You’d have to be as crazy as Teum says to pass that up.”

Deadpan, “Teum, says I’m crazy?”

“No way, he’s too smitten to see it. It’s everyone else who thinks you are,” Leven grins.

Incredulously, “Now everyone thinks I’m crazy?”

“Oh yes, Cuyle thinks you’re crazy smart. Jef, Mies, and Rik think you’re crazy pretty. It’s only Griet, Sanne, and Antje who thinks you’re nuts. And that’s only because you don’t let them know you.”

Leven waits to see her reaction, “Let’s go to the library and find out what’s really going on.”

Luscin suddenly feels tired. She allowed herself to react to the news of the letter instead of taking the initiative. She chose to battle Sanne when her real opponent was the author of that letter.

“Leven, you are good. I’d tell you you’re as good at influencing people as this guy I knew back in Thuma but comparing anyone to him is an insult. He was gifted with words, but garbage in every other way. Let’s go see what old Fallon has to say.”

“Fallon? Oh, you mean Headmaster Gale? Does he really let you call him by his given name?”

“No, stupid-face, of course not. You’re not the only one that can use words to mess with people.”