“Titus, Gavin snatched my electrolyte drink,” she began immediately, her voice shrill, “and helped himself to, I don’t know, a quarter of it! It’s the one with the lemon juice and honey and salt. I don’t know if it’s safe for him to ingest so much sodium—”

  “Sorry,” he said, lifting a hand up against her. “Could you slow down? I just woke up.”

  “Slow down? Gavin drank my electrolyte water! Do you need to take him to get checked, or—or—”

  At that, Titus used the chair’s backrest to heave himself up into a sitting position. Blythe watched anxiously as he scooped Gavin up with his other hand and deposited him on his lap. Gavin, whose eyes had been closed during this whole hullabaloo, opened his eyes while he was being transported.

  Instead of opening Gavin’s mouth or examining Gavin’s body, Titus narrowed his eyes and said to the doe-eyed raccoon in his lap, “Is that true? Did you steal her drink?”

  Blythe’s jaw dropped. “Titus, that is not the point right now!”

  Gavin made sad little noises and looked down.

  “I’ve heard it all before, Gavin,” he said, his other hand coming down from the backrest to hold onto his animal properly. “And even if I hadn’t, that’s not a convincing excuse. You’re going to apologize to Blythe now.”

  He turned Gavin around so that he was facing Blythe. Gavin looked up at Blythe pitifully and made some sounds she couldn’t understand.

  “He says he’s truly sorry and knows that he was wrong for stealing your drink,” Titus translated. “And I apologize on his behalf as well. Would you like me to bring you another one from the dining hall?”

  “Um, hello?” Blythe blurted out. “Shouldn’t you be checking on him first? Can he even drink so much sodium?”

  As he regarded her, he raised an eyebrow. “It was just the lemon electrolyte drink the school serves, right?“

  “Yes?”

  “Then he’s fine.” That instantly put her at ease. “Beasts bonded to their tamers have an expanded tolerance for the things they can consume. Regular raccoons can’t handle too much salt, but Gavin should be fine since he didn’t drink that much. How much did he drink again?”

  “Maybe a quarter?”

  Titus nodded. “He’s alright. I’d take him to the animal infirmary if he’d drunk more than a full bottle, but this shouldn’t be an issue.”

  “Really? That’s great.” She sighed in relief, leaning against the railing behind her. “Gavin, you really scared me!”

  Gavin made another sound.

  “He says he’s sorry,” Titus said. “And he says thank you for worrying about him.”

  Blythe had to rein it in to keep from showing her excitement. She wished she could talk to animals.

  “I forgive you,” she told Gavin.

  “I have to say,” Titus commented, giving Blythe a once-over as if to confirm it was her, “I’m very surprised you’re more concerned about him than the fact that he took your bottle and drank from it. I thought it was odd you picked him up in the pool the other day, but I attributed that to the heat of the moment.”

  She raised her eyebrows at the unexpected flash of green light.

  “Well, yeah,” she said, frowning. “I can just get a new bottle from the cooler, but you can’t just grab a new Gavin if anything happened to him. I know you could get another raccoon, but it’s not the same.”

  He blinked. Although Titus said nothing, Blythe could guess how he felt by the second green light she got.

  “Interesting to hear you say that,” he said, but he said nothing else as he got his feet and tucked Gavin into his arm. “Looks like my morning nap’s over. Where’s your bottle? I’ll return it and bring you a new one.”

  She wasn’t going to turn his offer down. It would be nice to have another bottle, especially since she wasn’t done with her exercises yet.

  “It’s downstairs.” She scrambled to lead the way, ignoring her screaming calf muscles. “I left it on the floor before I, uh, chased Gavin up here.”

  His smooth, pleasant laugh followed her as they went down the stairs. “Too in the way?”

  “I’m not a great runner,” she admitted. Not yet, anyway.

  Another green flash.

  “That was nice of you to run up here for the sake of checking on his health, then.”

  The heat already in her cheeks flared in intensity. Had her panting been that obvious? That was seriously embarrassing.

  She listened to Titus reprimand Gavin for running off while he took a post-jog nap and threaten him with losing his nightly treats for the rest of the week.

  “How long have you had him?” she asked curiously. “He seems hard to train.”

  She’d only been in this world for three weeks, and this was already her third time witnessing Gavin being admonished for doing stuff he wasn’t supposed to do.

  “I’ve had him for three years now.” He sounded surprised. “Weren’t you there when that commotion outside the royal ballroom occurred? You said he was a filthy animal and that I shouldn’t touch him.”

  She wanted to kick herself for slipping up yet again. The original Blythe wasn’t an animal lover. Got it.

  “Right. Yes. I, uh, apologize for that. I shouldn’t have said that. He’s a good little raccoon.”

  She wondered what had happened the night Titus had obtained Gavin as his beast.

  A soft answering noise came from Gavin.

  “He’s a thieving little raccoon,” Titus said, his tone incredulous now. “He just stole and had some of your drink.”

  “Fine. He’s an adorable little raccoon. Past me had been too hasty in passing a judgement on him.”

  Titus laughed.

  Maybe all she had to do to get his favorability up was to praise Gavin some more. This made sense to her. Back in her original world, pet owners loved it when praise was lavished and heaped upon their beloved critters. The one time she’d heard someone call another person’s dog ugly in public, they’d gotten into a verbal altercation on the street and had to be held back to prevent any physical escalation.

  “He has been hard to train,” Titus said. “He’s improved a lot over the years, but he’s still too impulsive.”

  They got to the bottom of the staircase and crossed the training hall together.

  “Even though it’s been three years?”

  “It’s difficult for people without the beast-taming ability to understand how much effort goes into training them out of habits they’re used to. Everyone’s too accustomed to seeing the beasts that our professors have. I don’t fault Gemma for not having her squirrel fully litter-trained by now. They’re a lot more resilient in many ways and live a lot longer once they’re bonded to you, but their impulses become stronger too.”

  She felt a little bad for Gemma now. Everyone else around her had made it sound like a major failing on her part that she continued to struggle with her squirrel’s litter-training.

  After Blythe pointed it out to him, Titus picked up the half-full bottle on the floor.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “You’ll still be here, won’t you?”

  She nodded. “I should be in the corner over there.”

  His gaze swept over the area she was vaguely waving at. “Now that I’m more awake, I’m surprised you’re even here. What happened to abhorring exercise?”

  “I don’t anymore.” She left it at that, figuring she’d stick her foot in her mouth less if she kept her mouth closed most of the time.

  If Titus had any questions about her strange behavior, he didn’t ask any of them.

  He simply smiled before turning to leave. “I’ll be right back.”

  ???

  Blythe made it to her History IV classroom before Magnus today, allowing her to choose a desk that was a good distance away from where he and Cole usually sat. When he later arrived, she involuntarily met his eyes while he was surveying the situation from the doorway.

  Dread pulled at her stomach as she dropped her gaze. While she understood why he did it, the fact remained that his near-constant hostile stare was getting unbearable. It reminded her of lugging around a heavy backpack. It was fine when she was leaving the house, but it gradually felt heavier and heavier throughout the day as she had to keep it on her shoulders even though its contents hadn’t changed.

  Surprisingly, he went for his usual desk instead of heading in her direction. He didn’t look her way for the rest of third period. Cole, of course, took a cue from his good friend and sat by Magnus when he entered the classroom.

  Much to her relief, Magnus didn’t automatically attach himself to her side like an unwanted germ after class even though it was lunch period.

  Instead, he and Cole left the classroom together. The latter did shoot Blythe a few curious glances over his shoulder, as if to silently ask what had happened, but that was it. Blythe studiously avoided eye contact with Cole as she trailed behind the rest of the classmates filing out of the room.

  “You must be so happy,” Sophie said at their lunch table, touching her fork-speared cherry tomato to her lips. “I heard that Leah didn’t even try to approach Clyde yesterday. And Clyde didn’t go out of his way to look for her either.”

  They’d reconvened for dinner last evening, during which Jessica told them in excessive detail how her chocolate-giving experience had gone. Clyde had received her romantic chocolate with some delighted surprise on his part. After expressing that he wanted to get to know her more, he had also promised to give her some special return chocolates on White Day. That bit about wanting to learn more about Jessica had caught Blythe off-guard, because she’d been under the impression Jessica and Clyde were better acquainted than that.

  Jessica couldn’t stop smiling all through dinner. Personally, Blythe hadn’t thought it sounded like something to celebrate, but Sophie had made a huge deal out of congratulating Jessica.

  With a light sniff, Jessica nibbled at her own forkful of lettuce. “I heard she gave Frederick her romantic chocolate this year. Good for them. They can have each other and leave the rest of us out of it.”

  Sophie shuddered. “They were so absurd last year. I can’t believe she got caught up in all that love triangle business with Clyde and Frederick. She’s not even that pretty. You’re much prettier.”

  Jessica preened and patted the back of her hair with her free hand. “I know.”

  At this point, Blythe still had no clue what Leah looked like.

  “Sophie’s right,” she said anyway, knowing that what Jessica really wanted was validation. “You’re way prettier.”

  Naturally, she got a green light for that.

  “Thanks, Blythe.” Jessica beamed before making puppy-dog eyes at Blythe. “When we’re done eating, can we visit the stadium, please?”

  Giggling, Sophie covered her mouth. “Oh, I wouldn’t mind going to the stadium either.”

  Blythe stared at them. “What’s at the stadium?”

  The good thing about both of them being aware of her ‘amnesia’ meant that Blythe didn’t have to get one of them alone to ask for more information.

  “The Hunting Race is on Friday,” Jessica explained. “The stadium will be set up for the next few days so the participants can get some extra training in before Friday. Most of the boys will be polishing their archery skills during their spare time, either during lunch or after classes. Clyde will be there.”

  Sophie sipped at her glass of water. “A lot of cute boys will be there. They are all nice to look at. Well, the ones in our year anyway.”

  Jessica huffed out a laugh. “They have to be fit, since their applications were approved.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “His Highness Prince Magnus and His Highness Prince Marcel should be there too,” Jessica said, working her fork and spoon through her duck breast salad to pick up more ingredients at a time. “I’m not sure if they’ll be there during this time, though. Not everyone wants to sacrifice half their lunch time for practice, but most of them will show up after school.”

  “They were there during lunch last year,” Sophie said. “We can sit in the stands and do some studying too.”

  So it was basically the same as sitting in the viewing gallery when the boys were sparring in the training hall below.

  “Alright,” Blythe said. “Why not?”