The Fake Dating Spell novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Margins

The Spellwrights' Guild hall was the oldest building on Candle Street, and every wall of it had been scorched by someone's first mistake.

Wynne climbed the front steps at ten in the morning with her chin high and a stranger's hand at the small of her back.

The stranger was Tavish, who had decided, without a word of discussion, that he would walk behind her.

"I can do this alone," she said.

"You can't. You'll be ten paces away in the first corridor and it'll feel like a hot needle."

"I meant the part where I get my work back."

"Then do that part," said Tavish. "I'll do the standing."

The great room was full.

Forty spellwrights sat at the long tables with their ink and their seals.

At the head of the room, in the master's chair, sat Lorcan.

He still wore the blue robe.

He had not slept either, she saw, and it pleased her more than it should.

In front of him, on the table, lay her school notebook.

"Wynne," he said, warm as bread. "There you are. I was worried."

"You stood in the snow outside my window."

"Your window?" He glanced around the room with a small, puzzled smile. "That is the Warden's house. Wynne, you cannot honestly mean to stay there."

"Give me my notebook."

"It is mine. I found it in my study. It contains my spells."

The room made a low noise.

Wynne's hands went cold.

She had known he would say it.

She had not known she would feel it.

"Those spells are mine," she said. "I wrote them in school, before I ever met you."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Fake Dating Spell from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.