“I’m trying to pay attention.” The girl gestured weakly toward Professor Bergmann, then folded her arms again.
Cheyenne heard Messy Bun’s heartbeat racing between short, shallow breaths. That girl wouldn’t make it through a programming career if she had no interest in figuring out who’d sent her the message.
“And that’s what I…can I help you?” Mattie paused in answering somebody else’s question to lean sideways toward the door into the computer lab.
“Sorry. Wrong room.” The guy didn’t sound sorry or flustered for having stepped into someone else’s class. He didn’t sound anywhere near the same age as the other grad students, either.
A prickle of suspicion rippled along Cheyenne’s neck, and she turned in her chair for a look at the guy. But he’d already left, and the door shut again.
Mattie cocked her head with a confused smile. “Gotta love the second week of class. I swear, it takes first-graders less time to get used to a new schedule.” The students chuckled, and Professor Bergmann continued lecturing.
Cheyenne didn’t miss the look her professor shot her, even as Mattie kept speaking with zero indication anything might be wrong.
Why do I feel like something’s about to blow up in my face any second?
That feeling of being watched, either in person or through any computers she had access to, came back stronger. Cheyenne signed out of everything on the lab’s computer and turned her laptop off too.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Through her second class, she still felt watched. It made her itchy, and more than once, she found herself zeroing in on the memory of deer in the woods instead of trying not to fall asleep while her professor droned on about cybersecurity and why it was important. They should be teaching people how to hack into these systems instead of coloring inside the lines. You want a high-profile technology firm to protect their assets and keep their private data locked up, you hire the best hacker you can find. Nobody seems to get that.
None of her professors bothered to ask her to stay after class to discuss why she was skipping during the second week of grad school. They didn’t have an argument, because the work Cheyenne had sent via email before being absent was perfect. They all knew it.
She stopped at the Student Center for a lamb gyro and two bottles of water. Even here, with students and administrators of every age and academic subject milling around in a haze trying to get used to being in school again, the drow halfling couldn’t shake the feeling someone had eyes on her. She couldn’t find a single person who appraised her with anything more than superficial judgment.
There’s no way I’m just imagining this. Paranoia isn’t my style.
Her stomach had different ideas. Cheyenne wrapped the rest of the gyro and shoved it in her backpack, then downed a bottle of water and bagged the other one before heading to the IT building and Professor Bergmann’s office.
Useless classes and less-useless training. However, Mattie’s been on this side long enough that she’s bound to know something about how magicals find each other here. If there is someone following me.
It took her by surprise to see Mattie Bergmann behind her desk wearing yellow sweatpants, a navy tank top, and sneakers with her hair in a high ponytail. She looked more like another college student than a woman getting paid to teach them.
“Right on time.” Mattie stood when Cheyenne stepped through her office door. The professor clicked out of something on her computer.
“Going to the gym or something?” Cheyenne closed the door behind her but didn’t drop her backpack yet.
“What?” The professor glanced down at her out-of-place attire and chuckled. “Oh. Well, I might. I’ve got the rest of the day to do whatever I want. After office hours.”
“So you changed just in case.”
“It’s not that weird.” Mattie eyed her student before offering a halfhearted shrug. “I don’t suppose you’d be up for going on a run with me, would you?”
Cheyenne grimaced. “I thought I already told you I don’t do laps.”
“It’s not a lap when it’s across campus and back.”
“Yeah, the only way you’re gonna get me to run is if you blast magic at me.” The halfling smirked. “So, I don’t suppose you’re ready for that duel, are you?”
“You’re a pain in my ass.” Mattie grinned, wagged a finger at her student, then stepped away from her desk. “No duels and no run.”
A few seconds of silence stretched between them, then Mattie’s eyes narrowed.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Cheyenne bit her lip and tried to ignore that itch of suspicion crawling across her back. “Hey, did you know the guy who walked into the lab this morning?”
Professor Bergmann’s joking smile faded, and she cocked her head toward Cheyenne. “Just another lost college kid. Why?”
Not the answer I was hoping for. “I’m allowed to be curious.”
“But you look suspicious. Of me.”
Cheyenne shook her head and smiled to push the other woman’s curiosity out of the room. “You look like a cat and hide it with an illusion spell. Why would I suspect you of anything? Pfft.”
“You’re trying to diffuse this with a bad joke?” Mattie lifted one foot behind her thigh to stretch her quad, then did the same with the other. “Probably should leave the bad jokes to me. Just so we’re on the same page, if there’s something going on in your personal life that makes you suspicious of random students stepping into the wrong classroom, whatever that looks like, I’m putting it on the record you can talk to me about it.”
“I thought you didn’t do therapy sessions.”
Mattie puffed out a dry laugh. “Point taken. I’ll back off. So. After yesterday’s little display with the jar, I can’t imagine you haven’t picked up something new to show me. Let’s see it.”
“It’s not as impressive.”
“Please. Modesty is wasted on someone who knows how good they are.”
Cheyenne smirked and shook her head, dropping her backpack at the foot of the bookshelf beside the door. “I’m still
