Disclaimer: I don't own the Young Wizards series.

Nita Callahan hummed to herself as she walked through campus, her backpack slung over one shoulder. It was a beautiful day, the sun shining merrily, the trees abloom.

"Nita! Hey, Nita!"

She stopped walking and turned to smile at Kit Rodriguez as he sprinted towards her.

"Hey Kit," she said. "How was your summer?"

He grinned and together they meandered in the general direction of Lowenstein Hall. "It was productive," he said, something shifty in his voice.

She sighed. She liked Kit, she really did. Despite being a year younger than she was, he had been in a number of her classes over the past few years. He was clever, funny, and genuinely seemed to like her, which was nice. For reasons she couldn't explain, Nita had never had many friends. And, somehow, his presence always managed to alleviate some of the sadness that seemed to live in her very soul, a restless sorrow that no amount of therapy or drugs had ever been able to lessen.

But there was something about Kit that set her on edge. It was in the way he sometimes disappeared without notice, leaving class in the middle of a lecture or even skipping out on a lunch date; the way he sometimes looked at her with longing in his dark eyes; the way he always redirected the conversation whenever it turned to what, exactly, he did with his free time.

"What class are you heading to?" he asked, oblivious to her thoughts.

"I've got a pre-med seminar," she said. "You?"

"Electrical engineering."

"Want to meet up for dinner after class?"

He hesitated, glancing at his messenger bag, which she knew contained the strange book he carried with him everywhere.

"Can't," he said regretfully. "I've got a thing. Tomorrow?"

She shrugged. "Sure." Other than homework, it wasn't as if she had anything better to do.

They parted ways at Lowenstein. Nita climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked down a dimly lit hallway, squinting at the room numbers until she came to 309. The handle turned easily under her hand, but the door creaked as it swung open.

The classroom was tiny, easily the smallest she'd had in her three years at the university so far. There was a round table in the center of the room, with six chairs squeezed in around it. Only two of the chairs were occupied. Even as she sat, the door opened and another student scurried in.

She dimly recognized the other students from her classes—pre-med was a relatively small group, after all—but she didn't know any of them by name. She checked her watch and found that there were a few seconds left before class was supposed to start.

The door opened one last time and the professor stepped in.

Nita had just a moment to wonder what kind of teacher he would turn out to be. Then she got a good look at him and all of the air seemed to whoosh out of her lungs.

He was tall, with red hair and a face like a Greek god. His age was difficult to guess—he could have been in his late twenties or his late forties. He wore a simple black button-down shirt and black slacks which elegantly draped over his frame. His lips were curved in a faint smirk, as if he were amused by some joke the rest of them hadn't heard.

"Greetings," he said, standing behind the chair directly opposite to Nita and resting his hands on its back. His voice was smooth and melodic, teasing her ear with a strange familiarity. "I'm Professor Leonard Palmer, and this is the senior seminar Entropy and Biology: Delaying the Inevitable."

Nita lost time after that. She couldn't take her eyes off of the teacher, couldn't help but lean forward in her chair, mesmerized, as his words washed over her. She had no idea what he was saying. The next thing she knew, chairs were scraping against the floor and her fellow students were hurrying out the door.

"Ms. Callahan, please stay behind," Professor Palmer said. He'd sat by now, and his eyes—a peculiar shade of gold—were glued to Nita's face.

She bit down on the inside of her lip, trying to force herself into alertness as the door swung shut behind the last student, leaving her alone with the teacher.

"You wanted to talk to me, Professor?" she prompted after several long seconds had passed and he'd said nothing, just continued to look at her as if he could see through her skin and skull into her brain.

His lips twitched before settling back into his constant smirk. "I'd like to know why you signed up for this class," he said.

She swallowed, nervous under his unnerving attention. "I'm not really sure," she said haltingly, painstakingly honest. "I guess I felt like it—called to me? Entropy, I mean. I want to know more about it."

"Why? To try to stop it?"

She blinked, tilted her head. "I thought entropy can't be stopped."

He laughed softly. "No. It can't." He stood and wandered around the table to her chair, pulling it out for her as she stood as well.

He held out his hand for her to shake. She gasped as her skin made contact with his, a spark of electricity zapping her. Once he'd let go, she flexed her hand and looked at him from beneath her eyelashes, wondering whether he'd felt it as well.

"I've heard a lot about you from your other teachers," Palmer said, his expression giving nothing away. "I look forward to having you in my class."

There was something about that seminar. Nita couldn't put her finger on it. She had the class twice every week for two hours. The readings were fascinating, so presumably the class was too—but, despite herself, she could never seem to concentrate in it. She was always too busy watching Professor Palmer, entranced by his smooth gait as he paced, or the movement of his full lips when he spoke, or the gleam in his eyes on the increasingly frequent occasions when they locked with hers.

"Ms. Callahan, please stay after class," Professor Palmer said.

Those words managed to sink in. Nita groaned inwardly. It was three weeks into the semester, and she'd yet to say a single word in class. He must think she was a total moron.

This time, when they were left alone Palmer didn't hesitate to rise and walk over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Once again that electric spark leapt from his hand straight through her shirt to her skin, making her twitch. He squeezed her shoulder gently, as if to soothe away the pain.

"These settings are a bit…academic," he said. "Would you be interested in accompanying me to a coffee shop for our talk?"

"Yes," she said, without hesitation. It wasn't that he was irresistible, she comforted herself by thinking. It was that he was a mystery she needed to solve.

He pulled her chair out for her and handed her her bag. Then, one hand on the small of her back—and his touch burned, burned the way monsters sometimes burned Nita in her dreams—he steered her out of the classroom and down the hall.

They ended up going to one of Nita's favorite coffee shops, a good distance from campus. They walked together in companionable silence, Nita drawing some strength from the warmth of the sun on her face.

After they ordered—he got a simple decaf coffee, she a white chocolate mocha—he paid for their drinks and led them to an empty table in the corner.

"Tell me about yourself, Nita," he said once they'd sat. "I can call you Nita?"

"Please do."

His smirk this time showed the tips of his very white teeth. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd call me Leonard."

She nodded slowly. It wasn't unusual for professors to ask students to call them by their first name, but she still felt slightly uncomfortable at the prospect.

"So, Nita. Tell me about yourself."

She shrugged. "There's not a lot to tell. I'm from Long Island. I don't do many extracurricular activities. I'm in the midst of med school applications." Put that way, her life sounded really, really boring.

So why did he look so pleased?

"What about you?"

He raised an eyebrow and sipped at his coffee. "Me? I was a professor at Harvard Medical School until a slight altercation with several of the other teachers resulted in me being transferred here."

She winced. "That's rough."

"Actually, I'm quite happy to be here. I had grown tired of teaching the same basic anatomy and biology classes over and over again—it's a real pleasure being able to teach a subject of my choice. Such as entropy."

"It's a grim topic," Nita said.

"Grim but fascinating, am I right?"

"More like…grim but necessary."

For the first time since she'd met him, he seemed surprised. "How so?"

She licked the lips, choosing her words carefully, wanting to impress him. "Things have to end," she said at last. "It's the potential for loss that makes us value what we have."

He gazed at her, unblinking, for a long moment before inclining his head slightly. "True."

"But that doesn't make it any less painful when entropy sets in before we want or expect it." She swallowed hard. "My mother died when I was in high school. I felt—it always seemed to me that she'd been stolen from me. That was entropy at its worst."

Palmer—no, Leonard—didn't react to the anguish in her voice. He didn't offer his condolences. He simply nodded and said, "I'm sure you did everything you could for her."

Nita thought of her mother's last days, thought of how she'd searched in vain for a miracle cure.

She cleared her throat. "What's your take on entropy, Prof—Leonard?"

He rubbed his chin. "Necessary, as you said. Necessary, and, when it's done right, beautiful. But also tragic."

"That's a little broad," she said cautiously.

A smile—more genuine than his smirk—flitted across his lips. "It's a complicated subject."

Nita hesitated. "I'm sorry I haven't been talking more in class." Or at all, she added silently.

"I don't care if you don't talk in class, as long as you find some time to talk to me," he said. "The other students are rather…naïve. You aren't. It doesn't surprise me that you find it difficult to interact with them."

She shook her head spasmodically. "How do you know me so well?" she demanded, fighting to keep her tone light, as if it were a joke, though it wasn't.

He set aside his coffee cup, which was still mostly full. Very seriously, he said, "No better than you know me."

She realized with a start that it was true. She knew this man, knew him the same way she instinctively knew Kit. It was as if she'd encountered them before, in another lifetime, though the idea was preposterous.

Then he reached out and touched her hand, held her hand, and that spark sizzled and raced up her arm, making it ache, making it burn, and her heart began to pound.

"So then Leonard told Jerry that he obviously hadn't done the reading, and he shouldn't try to participate until he had. I could tell that Jerry wanted to lie and say he'd done it, but he didn't bother, since it was obvious that He knew the truth."

"You're doing it again," Kit said.

Nita chewed and swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. "Doing what?"

"Capitalizing pronouns when you talk about Professor Palmer."

He sounded frustrated. It made sense, she thought—she'd been spending less time with Kit, now that Leonard had begun to invite her to dinner on a fairly regular basis.

"You're imagining things," she told him. "Why would I capitalize pronouns when I talk about Him?"

Kit frowned. "I don't know, but I don't like it. What's a professor doing spending so much out of class time with a student anyway? Something's not right, Nita. These dates of yours make me uncomfortable."

Now she was getting annoyed. "You're not my boyfriend, Kit. You don't get to decide who I spend time with."

He flinched as if she'd struck him.

"And for that matter, these aren't dates. They're student/teacher meetings."

Except that, even as she spoke the words, she wasn't sure they were true. The fact was, her dinners with Leonard had never really felt all that innocent. Oh, their conversation was never inappropriate—they talked about entropy, mostly, and about politics and the news, as well as how their weeks were going—but there was always an almost tangible charge in the air, a sense of heightened expectation Nita couldn't account for.

There was a part of her that was disappointed Leonard hadn't kissed her yet.

It was later that same day that Nita went to Leonard's office hours to ask him a question about the reading. The door was closed, but she could hear voices from within. She was about to take a seat on a chair in the hall and wait it out when one of the voices rose and she was surprised to realize it was Kit.

Anger at his intrusion swept over her and wiped away any guilt she might have felt at carefully turning the doorknob and opening the door a crack to better hear what they were saying.

"I want You to stay away from Nita," Kit said sharply.

"Be careful, boy," Leonard replied, with a hint of menace that Nita wouldn't have expected from him but which didn't surprise her either. "You're coming dangerously close to disrespect."

There was a short pause. "You know that I respect You, Fairest—but I'll fight You if I have to, and You know that, too. Nita's not a part of this any longer. Leave her alone."

Fairest? And what did Kit mean, saying she wasn't a part of this? A part of what? And how had she been involved before?

There was a low chuckle. "Kit, Kit, Kit. Nita made her choice, and by making it she bound Me to her forever. If you wanted to protect her, you should have stopped her. You should have made the choice yourself. I offered it to the both of you."

Kit's voice was low and pained. "I tried."

Leonard laughed, a harsh sound that sliced through the air like a cleaver. "You always tried, little wi—"

Static filled Nita's ears and she couldn't hear the rest of the word.

He went on, "You always tried to protect her, but you never could, could you?"

"Your words are poison," Kit said, but he no longer sounded angry, just resigned.

"Nita knows what she wants. She'll do what she thinks is best. Try to stop her if you wish; I will not."

There was a faint rustle as Kit picked up his messenger bag to leave. Nita raced down the hall away from the office, not ready to face either of them just yet.

All the while, her mind was racing.

What the hell was going on?

She and Leonard had plans to go to dinner that night. For the first time, her steps dragged as she went to meet him, her heart filled with dread.

She was very quiet as she perused the menu and ordered. When their waiter brought them a basket of garlic bread, she took a slice and began to rip it apart with her fingers.

"Is something wrong, Nita?" Leonard asked. "You seem distant tonight."

Nita took a deep breath and set down her slice of bread. "How do You know Kit Rodriguez?"

Leonard blinked, the slow blink of a lizard. "You were listening outside my office. I thought you might be."

"Answer the question," she snapped.

His eyebrows narrowed at her tone. She glared back, never one to be intimidated. Her defiance seemed to amuse him. He smirked, relaxing in his chair.

"We have several mutual acquaintances. Some of them have given Kit a rather poor impression of Me, I'm afraid."

"I want to know why You were saying those things about me. You said I'd made a choice. What were You talking about?"

"Why, your decision to spend time with Me instead of Kit, of course," he said.

A warning bell sounded in her mind. Lie.

"Tell me the truth," she said. "Tell me the truth, or I'm leaving."

Leonard regarded her from under hooded brows. "I don't know what you want to hear."

Nita stared at him. Waited for him to change his mind. When he simply gazed back, she nodded curtly and pushed out her chair.

"Where are you going?" he said, sitting up straight.

She shot him a look of contempt and headed for the exit.

"Come back here," he said, and though she was halfway to the door, and though he wasn't shouting, his voice seemed to come from right beside her.

She shook off the words the way one might shake away a nagging bee. Outside, it was raining. Nita stepped off the curb and partway onto the street, one hand above her eyes to keep off the rain, her other hand outstretched to hail the next cab that came along.

"Don't you dare walk away from Me," Leonard's voice hissed in her ear—though he was nowhere to be seen—and after that, things happened very quickly.

A car which had been zooming down the street three lanes over from Nita suddenly hit a patch of water and lost control, swerving straight at her, its tires screeching, accelerating as if the driver's foot were on the gas. Watching it come, Nita saw her own death, and though she was terrified there was also something about this situation that felt right.

Then someone shoved her, hard, sending her flying to land painfully on her back on the sidewalk, and in a blur of confusion she saw Leonard standing where she'd been, his handsome face twisted in rage—at her, at himself—and then the car hit him and it was the car which shattered against him, while he stood tall and invulnerable, and then Nita blinked and Leonard was still standing where she'd been, but the driver had regained control of his car at the last second and swerved to avoid hitting Him.

The immediate danger averted, Nita let her head fall back against the pavement, panting harshly.

She blacked out.

She woke on a king-size bed in an unfamiliar bedroom with black walls. He was lying on the bed beside her, propped up on one elbow, watching her.

"You saved my life," she said, and wondered why that sentence sounded so improbable.

He reached out to brush a strand of dark hair from her face. His fingertips brushed against her cheek, and as always His touch both thrilled and pained her.

"I decided it was not your time," He said, his brow furrowed as if in puzzlement at his own words.

She should have wanted to ask what had happened. She should have wanted to continue their conversation from the restaurant, to demand answers.

But there was an emotion in His golden eyes she could not identify, and she realized with dawning interest that she was naked and so was He, and looking at the perfection that was His body she thought that she wanted to hurt Him, and she wanted to heal Him, and she wanted the latter more than the former.

She rolled toward Him so they were facing each other and placed her hand on the side of His face, ignoring the now familiar pain.

His lips curved and He touched her face, mirroring her.

She took a deep breath, leaned in, and kissed Him.

It was as if a fire had ignited in her mouth. She gasped, unprepared for the strength of the burn, and made as if to pull away, but then His hand was on the back of her neck, holding her to Him, and He was plundering her mouth with an agile and demanding tongue.

Tears leaked from her eyes even as she kissed Him back. He tasted of ash, of the sweetness of decay, of lust and halting tenderness and a terrible longing.

They kissed deeply, leisurely, exploring, as if to learn from each other's bodies everything they did not already know about each other's souls. Her breasts were crushed against His chest, her legs straddling the lower part of his torso, just above a tantalizing, ominous heat.

He rolled them over, never pulling His lips from hers. He was far heavier on top of her than someone of His slender build ought to be, crushing the breath out of her. He let go of her neck to interlace His fingers with hers, stretching her hands above her head, and then kissed His way down her cheek and chin to her neck. He nipped at her skin, His sharp teeth cutting her just enough to start a slow trickle of blood, and in retaliation she reached down and squeezed His buttocks as hard as she could.

He jerked under her touch, pulled back from her neck. He laughed, His teeth red with her blood.

"What?" she demanded, flustered by his sudden good humor.

He moved off of her and sprawled on His back. Her eyes wandered involuntarily to His erection.

"Oh, please, Nita," He said, mock-simpering as if He were a damsel in a tower. "Please lay hands upon my person again."

His phrasing seemed strange to her, though once again a peculiar sense of familiarity niggled at the back of her mind, but she shrugged it off in favor of doing something she'd never done before, for anyone.

She scooted down the bed, took a deep breath, and licked His penis.

His breath hitched infinitesimally.

"Again," He ordered.

Grinning to herself, she did it again. When He failed to react this time, she hesitated only a moment before sucking him as deeply into her mouth as she could.

He screamed. His spine bowed and His head pressed back into the mattress, His hands tore a sheet¸ His hips thrust into her face, forcing Him further down her throat, making her choke.

He froze at the strangled noise she made. He let His hips fall back to the bed. She pulled away and slumped on the bed beside Him, rubbing her throat, feeling soreness inside it.

They lay there, side by side, for several minutes. She thought He might apologize for losing control. She thought He might say something snarky.

But what He said was: "Please don't change Me."

"I already have." Her voice was hoarse.

Between one breath and the next, He surged on top of her again. Her arousal had faded, but His had not. He kissed her just long enough to reignite the flames in her mouth before moving down her body, nuzzling her right breast for a moment and then sucking in the nipple.

It was her turn to cry out. He held her down with ease as she bucked under Him, her mind lost in a haze of pain and pleasure, then He began to lick and suck at her nipple in earnest. He twisted her other nipple with His hand, squeezed her breast hard enough to leave bruises from His fingers, drove her wild.

His free hand wandered down her body to plunge two fingers inside her. She moaned and writhed, her hands clutching His hair, her hips jerking wildly to meet the rhythm of His fingers. Now and then his thumb swiped across her clit, making her shriek.

He toyed with her that way for what seemed like an eternity, driving her mad before slowing down, pulling away from her breasts to kiss her lips, smiling gently, predatorily, as she panted, and then speeding up the thrusts of his powerful fingers again.

It was too much. She began to beg. "Please," she moaned. "Please, please—"

He bit down lightly on her nipple and then released it, pulled His fingers out of her and sat back on His heels, His eyes intent on her face. "Tell me what you want, Nita."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "You. I want You."

A soft sound, almost but not quite a sigh of relief. Then, before she knew what was happening, He was on top of her again and her leg had been yanked over His shoulder, opening her to Him.

"I am going to take you like this," He murmured. "Then I am going to take you up against the wall. I'm going to take you from behind. I'm going to lick you until the only thing in your world is Me. I'm going to fuck you until your fragile human body is aching and you're begging Me to stop and begging Me to keep going."

"Please don't break me," she whispered.

"I already have," He said.

He pressed His lips to her forehead, and there was more death in that gentle touch than there had been in the out-of-control car that had nearly killed her.

Then He plunged into her, going all the way with one smooth thrust, filling her world with flames.

He fucked her with long, deep strokes. His fingers dug into her hips and yanked her against Him as He filled her again and again and again. It was agony, it was ecstasy. Nita couldn't catch her breath, could only reach above her head and clutch the sheets. Each thrust made stars burst in front of her eyes. His face was locked in an expression that was not quite a grin and not quite a grimace. He couldn't take His eyes off of her face, as if He meant to memorize every reaction she had.

Her orgasm took her by surprise. He anticipated it, though, and kissed her just before she came, swallowing her scream.

Nita hummed to herself as she walked down the sidewalk. Winter had come and snow stuck to her shoes and hat.

"Nita!"

She turned to watch with some surprise as Kit came up to her.

"I thought you weren't talking to me anymore," she said.

He tried to smile, but his face was too pinched. "Just—just listen, will you?"

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I've already heard everything you have to say about Him. You're not going to change my mind by covering old ground."

"We were helping a girl on her Ordeal," he blurted desperately. "He wasn't supposed to be there so early—His attention was supposed to be elsewhere—but it turned out that the whole situation was a trap for us. It wasn't the first time, but this time we hadn't had any warning and you didn't have any tricks up your sleeve."

I don't know what you're talking about, Nita wanted to say, but something about his words rang true and so she remained silent.

"He had Janet, could have killed her at any time. But instead He offered us a choice. One of us would give up their wiz—"

Static filled her ears again, but this time that quietly sorrowful part deep down inside her finished the word: ardry. Wizardry.

"—and in exchange He would let her go. Before I could accept the offer—or think of a way around it—you agreed." Kit swallowed, tears in his eyes. He forced a bitter laugh. "You got your revenge, though. When you Spoke the words to give up your wizardry, you snuck in an extra syllable, one that tied Him to you and bound a significant part of Him to a physical body for as long as you lived."

"And yet He saved my life when my death would have freed Him," she said. "Why?"

Kit shook his head. "Who knows why He does what He does? Maybe He just wanted more time to torture you." He took her hand, held it tightly. His touch did not make her skin hurt. "Please, Nita. Give Him up. He took your wizardry. He took Time Heart from you. He took Dairine and your dad away from you. He took me away from you. You don't want him. You can't want him."

Nita gazed at him for a long time, felt the warmth of his skin against hers. Pieces clicked together in her mind, and she remembered…snippets. Bits and pieces of a life she'd never had, not enough to form a picture, just enough to know that the decision she'd made, the decision that had changed everything, had been the only possible choice.

She pulled her hand away.

"He didn't take those things from me, Kit. I gave them up. And from what you said, it sounds like I made the right decision."

"Nita. You're sleeping with the Lone Power."

"Yes. I am. But you're looking at things the wrong way. The Lone Power is making love to me, Kit. Is that something you would ever have thought possible?" Her eyes pleaded for his understanding. "If I can teach Him to love, then I've achieved a goal for which I'd have sacrificed Time Heart a thousand times over."

"He hurts you, Nita," Kit said. "I know He does."

"He doesn't mean to hurt me. It's in His nature. Maybe if we stay together long enough, He'll learn not to cause pain." She smiled wryly. "If it makes you feel better, what He and I have will end eventually. Entropy, you know."

Kit made a fist with his hand, pressed it hard against his forehead. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."

Nita shook her head. "Don't be. I'm not."

Then she turned and went to meet Him.