Free Web NovelChapter 771: It Is Time
Liam seemed to decide he had said enough. He turned away from her and stepped off the platform, his movements calm and unhurried as he headed toward the door. As he passed Dylan, Sasha, and Anna, Sasha suddenly seemed to remember herself, and her cheeks flushed again as she leaned slightly into his path with a shameless smile.
"You know," Sasha said, twirling a strand of blonde hair around her finger, "if you ever want to teach someone else with that serious voice, I’m very available."
Anna’s face immediately twisted with secondhand embarrassment. "Sasha."
Liam looked at Sasha once, his expression unchanged. "I’m not interested." freewebnovёl.ƈom
He walked past without slowing.
Sasha froze with one hand still in her hair.
Dylan followed after Liam, laughing softly as he waved back at the girls. "Bye, little first-year storm cloud. Bye, responsible one. Bye, shameless one." Then his gaze shifted toward Gabby, who was still standing on the platform. "And you too, Asher Two-Point-Oh. You really did try your best. Don’t worry, that’s what people say when you lose badly but with spirit."
Gabby’s eyes snapped toward him.
Dylan grinned. "See? That glare. Definitely Asher Two-Point-Oh."
"You are incredibly annoying," Gabby said.
"I get told that by very talented people," Dylan replied, sounding pleased with himself. "It’s how I know I’m doing something right."
With that, he followed Liam out of the hall, the door closing behind them a few moments later.
For a while, Sasha simply stared after Liam, her mind clearly somewhere very far away from the spar they had just witnessed. A dreamy smile spread across her face as she imagined how nice it would be to have those calm red eyes focused on her, or to be held tightly by those arms with all that quiet strength.
She sighed softly without realizing it, and Anna immediately snapped her fingers in front of her face.
"Come back before I make good on the reset threat."
Sasha blinked. "What?"
Anna stared at her. "You were drifting."
"I was thinking."
"That is what worries me."
Sasha pouted, then turned toward Gabby with concern finally returning to her face. "Gabby, are you okay? He was really harsh with you. I mean, he was also very attractive while doing it, but still harsh."
Anna closed her eyes briefly. "Please stop speaking."
Sasha ignored her and hurried toward the platform with Anna following beside her. "If he scared you, I’ll make sure he pays," Sasha said, though her expression immediately became conflicted. "Well, maybe not pays too much. I don’t want him hurt. But emotionally? Maybe slightly. In a way that brings us closer."
Anna grabbed Sasha by the back of her collar and pulled her a step back. "You are not helping."
Gabby did not respond immediately.
She was still staring at the door Liam had walked through.
Then Sasha and Anna saw her face properly.
Gabby was smiling.
Not softly.
Not shyly.
It was a hungry grin, sharp at the edges, almost insane in the way it brightened her eyes. The kind of grin that did not belong to someone crushed by defeat, but to someone who had found exactly the kind of wall she wanted to climb.
Anna’s concern shifted into wary understanding. "Oh no."
Sasha blinked. "What?"
Anna looked at Gabby. "She’s not scared."
Gabby’s grin widened.
Anna stepped closer and shook her by the shoulder. "Gabby. Come back. Don’t start planning something reckless before you can even breathe properly."
Gabby blinked once, then finally seemed to snap out of the trance. She looked at Anna, then at Sasha, then back toward the door. "I’m fine."
"You do not look fine," Anna said.
"I’m fine," Gabby repeated, and this time there was a heat in her voice that had nothing to do with her affinity. "Next time, I’ll show him."
Sasha smiled, though hers was far more romantic than competitive. "Yes. Show him. Impress him. Then maybe introduce me again when he’s in a softer mood."
Anna slowly turned toward her. "You need professional help."
Sasha shrugged. "Probably."
Meanwhile, Liam and Dylan walked through the hallway toward the library, the atmosphere around them calmer now that the spar had ended. The corridor was quiet, sunlight falling through the tall windows in warm strips across the floor, and for a short while, neither of them said anything. Dylan lasted less than a minute before his need to talk overpowered the silence.
"You know," Dylan said, glancing sideways at Liam, "I never thought I would see the day where Liam Hunter became a mentor to a cute little junior."
"That was not mentoring," Liam said.
"It absolutely was."
"It was a spar."
"You corrected her technique, gave her advice, crushed her pride just enough to motivate her, and walked away looking mysterious. That is basically the academy definition of mentoring."
Liam kept walking. "It was not."
Dylan nodded as if Liam had agreed with him. "Honestly, it suits you. Very cold mentor. Very difficult to please. The kind who says one sentence and makes the student train for six months out of spite."
Liam did not answer.
Dylan continued anyway. "And Gabby definitely took it that way. Did you see that look? That was not a defeated student. That was the face of someone about to make you her life goal."
"She already reminds me of Asher," Liam said.
Dylan laughed. "Exactly. Asher Two-Point-Oh. Smaller, angrier, and probably less likely to set an entire field on fire by accident. Probably."
Liam let him talk.
There was no point stopping Dylan once he had found something entertaining. More importantly, the noise was easier to tolerate than the silence that might invite his own thoughts back too strongly. The spar with Gabby had been unexpected, but not useless. She had talent, flaws, and enough stubbornness to turn both into something better if she survived her own pride long enough. That, at least, made the time spent not entirely wasted.
As they approached a corner near the library corridor, they almost ran directly into Assistant Headmistress Lucia Greydon.
Lucia stood with her clipboard held close to her side, her posture formal and composed as always. She seemed to have been walking from the administration wing, but stopped as soon as she saw them. Liam and Dylan both halted, though Dylan did so with a small flourish that made Lucia’s eyes narrow slightly.
"Assistant Headmistress," Liam said calmly.
"Miss Greydon," Dylan greeted with a bright smile. "Lovely day for not being in Nalim, isn’t it?"
Lucia looked at him for a moment. "Wellington."
Dylan’s smile remained. "That sounded almost affectionate."
"It was not."
"Still taking it as progress."
Lucia wisely chose not to engage further and shifted her attention to Liam. Her expression became more official, though not severe. "Liam Hunter. The Headmaster has requested that you come to his office immediately."
Liam did not react outwardly.
But inwardly, he understood at once.
It was time.
The conversation he had known would come since returning from Nalim had finally arrived. Thion had waited two days, perhaps to let him recover, perhaps to let the atmosphere settle, or perhaps because he wanted Liam to understand that the academy had not forgotten anything shown on that screen. Whatever the reason, the result was the same.
Liam gave a small nod. "Understood."
Lucia turned without another word and began walking back toward the administration wing. Liam followed beside her, calm and silent, while Dylan remained near the library corridor with his hands at his sides and a thoughtful grin beginning to form.
He watched them go for a moment.
Then he turned toward the library alone, already thinking about how much story he now had to tell the others about his day.
