Page 12 of A Barista's Guide to Love & Larceny
On that count, at least, McKenna was absolutely correct.
The day went much more smoothly than it had yesterday. Bolstered by the coffee McKenna had brewed and the stale pumpkin breadshe’d pilfered from the café last night, Dani made it to all three of her classes on time and even managed to participate in a discussion on subversions of the traditional symbolism in the High Priestess card.
Her trepidation about her upcoming appointment with Silva never fully left her, though, and it resurfaced with a vengeance as she was packing her bag at the end of tarot class.
She was already in the oracular studies building, so it only took a few minutes to descend all the way down into the basement, where oneiromancy was. With its stainless steel surfaces and posh seating, all of which visibly outshone the budget of most other OS disciplines, the lobby displayed the popularity and feverish growth of the department in the last few years. It was packed with students talking animatedly among themselves or tapping away on their quartzpads.
Dani ducked down the hallway that led deeper into the department. An enormous window took up the majority of the wall, offering a view of a lab just getting started; half the students were settling down on cots while the other half prepared to observe. As she passed, the window frosted over, obscuring the class from view.
She felt that all-too-familiar sense of being excluded. Not that she really wanted to be sedated so that her peers could poke around in her subconscious. She just wished, like she’d expressed to Kass the other night, that she knew what she wanted to focus on—what she wanted to be when she grew up. Everyone else here seemed like they had it all figured out, whether they were following in their parents’ footsteps, pursuing a passion, or blazing some exciting new trail. It was as if they’d arrived at Fox’s Leap with a road map already in hand, while Dani had come here specifically to find one.
“It’s open,” said an accented voice. Dani realized she was now standing in front of room number six—Silva’s office—and that the door was ajar. The scene crystallized before her: Silva in a smart teal pantsuit and heavy jewelry, unloading parcels from a brown bag onto her desk. An enchanted skylight much like the one in the library castspelled sunshine—antithetical to the cloudy day outside—onto her impeccable office and pristinely shaven head. Her scalp was so shiny it looked like it’d been buffed. “Stai bene, signorina?”
“Oh,” Dani said. “Yeah.” She hoped she was answering that right. “Sorry, I spaced out for a second. I’m just tired, probably.”Definitely.
“And no wonder, with the kind of schedule you must keep.” Silva bobbed her head to beckon her in. Dani stepped across the threshold, acutely aware of her Doc Martens squeaking on the floor. “I picked up some lunch for the both of us. Do you like hummus?”
“Oh.” Dani sat, blinking at the sandwiches. She didn’t know what to do with the professor’s thoughtfulness after how serious she’d been in the library yesterday. Was she trying to disarm Dani before she brought out the real threats?
“I wasn’t sure if you ate meat, so I erred on the side of caution. Plus, the campus deli’s cuts are nothing short of disgusting.”
“Guess I hadn’t noticed,” Dani said slowly, still trying to calibrate herself to the woman’s mood.
“I got you some coffee, too. Black, I assumed.”
“Black is perfect.” Dani had never met a style of coffee she didn’t like. She took the proffered paper cup and knocked it back.
“It’s hot,” Silva warned, but the coffee was already halfway gone by the end of her sentence. “Well, it’s that kind of afternoon, I suppose. Please help yourself to a sandwich. I’m just going to close the door so we aren’t disturbed.”
Dani was too busy digging in. It didn’t matter that she was anxious, or that Silva might think her rude. Her parents had taught her when to accept free food, and that wasalways.
She was nearly finished before Silva had shut the door and seated herself on the opposite side of her desk. With a delicate awareness of her talon-like nails, the professor peeled away the paper from her own sandwich but didn’t pick it up. Instead, she placed her elbowson the edge of the desk and leaned toward Dani with an expression that gentled the sharper features of her face.
It’s pity, Dani thought. Self-conscious, she swallowed the last bite of sandwich and set the crumpled wrapper on the desk. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Silva said. “I told you to help yourself.”
“Thank you for lunch. You didn’t have to.”
Silva waved a hand. “I should be thanking you. I appreciate you devoting some of your time to meeting with me.”
Dani had been so busy eating, she’d almost forgotten to worry about what the professor was about to say to her; but her fear crept back in now, a lioness stalking its prey.
“Before we go any further, there’s something I have to address.” Dani’s stomach clenched. “I must ask for your discretion when it comes to what we discuss today. If you could, I’d prefer you share as few details as possible with anyone.”
Well, that was confusing. If Silva was going to report Dani or the rest of the la ruota crew, she wouldn’t be asking to keep it a secret. It didn’t rule out possible blackmail as an option, though. Not only that, but it seemed to Dani that Silva was exercising massive restraint in her word choice, speaking carefully, like she was resisting the pull of Dani’s ability.
“Okay,” Dani said. “If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s keeping things to myself.”
Silva tilted her head and studied Dani like she’d uncovered an intriguing artifact. “That may well be,” she said, “but that isn’t true of anyone else you talk to, is it?”
And there it was. Dani’s muscles tensed, fingers curling into her palms. She had the sudden urge to walk out of Silva’s office. The professor reached out a soothing hand.
“I should have clarified this earlier,” Silva said, “but you’re not in trouble, nor do I think you did anything wrong. I’ve just never seen anything so subtleandeffective. My little, ah, outburst aboutmy grandmother happened almost without me noticing, and I could tell your classmates were behaving differently after you arrived, but it would have been easy to miss if I hadn’t been watching closely. How exactly did you manage it?”
For a moment Dani sat like a coiled spring, weighing her options. Silva’s assurance that she wasn’t in trouble should have made her feel better, but it didn’t. Dani couldn’t go back to being used. She’d gone to great pains to hide her ability from everybody, minus McKenna. It was isolating this way, but safer.
Yet Silva already knew, more or less, what Dani could do. Better that she got the full picture than think Dani was doing something underhanded, like using a spell to manipulate her friends. She swallowed her hesitation, wet her lips, and spoke.
