I suck air into my lungs and sit up with a start. I expect to hit the cold, tile floor but for some reason I'm tucked into my own bed instead. I glance around the room anxiously but see nothing. There's no one there, nothing out of place. I wipe my damp bangs off my forehead to find that I'm dripping with sweat. Didn't I just fall off the library window ledge? How did I get here?

Once my breathing returns to a more steady rhythm, I slide my legs out of the side of the bed and reach for my watch on my night stand. Sitting in front of it, propped up to make it easier to notice, is a small card.

Next time, I would highly dissuade you from taking a nap seven feet in the air. I was fortunately there in time to catch you, although it does seem that you hit your head. Please come see me when you recover so I can confirm that you have no lingering brain damage. –H

I huff and stick the note in my diary for safekeeping. He was there to catch me, why-? Suddenly I grimace as I remember what I was dreaming about. Him shirtless, the kiss, the other kiss, the kissing, the moaning, the-

I scramble out of bed and almost trip over my own feet as I try to get my socks on and put my shirt on at the same time. The last part of my dream I was chanting his name over and over again. What if he heard that? What if I was talking in my sleep? My face turns scarlet and I hitch in a breath as I pull on warm clothes.

I rush into the bathroom and quickly splash my face with hot water and comb through my thick hair with my fingers before I literally run across the quad, kicking up snow as I go. Once I'm outside his quarters, though, I have to stop. My face is stinging from the cold, my nose is running, and my cheeks are sore with windburn.

I pause, hands on my knees, raking in a gasp of cold air that burns my lungs. The dream is still lingering in my head, the way I had been moaning his name…maybe seeing him wasn't a good idea. Maybe seeing him never, ever again was a better one. Any emotions that I may have had about the dream itself were completely overshadowed by the fact that he may have heard me moaning his name in my sleep.

I drag myself to his door and force myself to knock, quickly wiping my nose in the crook of my sleeve before he opens the door. Thankfully, he's not shirtless. "Tori."

I don't even notice that he called me by my first name. I'm suddenly overcome with a strong urge to feel what it would be like if I grabbed him and pressed my lips against his, right now. I can't look at him. "I, um, thank you for, uh, saving me, catching me, whatever." I suck in a breath, my eyes trained on the doorway next to his head. "I just stopped by to say thank you, and, uh, I'm alive, so uh. Yeah. Good news, I'm alive. Thanks again, bye." I turn to go when he puts an arm out to stop me.

"Here, come in, I have something for you." He turns and walks back inside, and I look pleadingly out at the winter landscape as I reluctantly follow him inside.

"Have something for me?" I ask hesitantly as he starts rummaging around inside a closet. I stand near the doorway, ready to run at a moment's notice.

"Well," he says, returning seemingly empty-handed. "You got me a holiday present. I felt it would be discourteous to not do the same."

My dream rushes back to me and I can feel something stirring deep within me. Was that not a dream at all? Was that a premonition? Do witches get premonitions? My mind was racing a mile a minute, but I had to say something. "You didn't have to." My voice comes out too high-pitched, even to my own ears, and he looks at me oddly.

I think I am blushing so hard my ears are red. I quickly realize that my face must also be red from the cold, concealing at least some of my embarrassment. "Just winded," I tap my chest twice with my fist. "From the, um, cold."

He purses his lips and nods to himself as he makes his way towards me. He stops directly in front of me, and I'm starting to think that my dream really is going to come true when suddenly he holds up his hand and a dark blue stone drops down from a black corded string around his finger. "Turn around," he says.

I have no idea what's happening. I can feel my heart drop into my stomach as I turn around slowly, and he brushes my hair to one side as he holds it around my neck. I can feel his hot breath on the back of my neck as he seals the clasp, and then lets go. I feel the stone hit against my sternum, but it's not as heavy as I expected. I turn back around to face him, slowly, and he takes a step back so that he's not standing directly in my face.

I turn it over in my hands. It's a smooth stone, not perfectly round, not perfectly oval, but somewhere in between. "It's-" I skim over the word beautiful. "-really pretty." I blush, and I can feel my ears going hot. Did he just get me jewelry? It's not a kiss, but the word 'romantic' is dancing around my head.

"Is it magic?" I ask, looking up at him.

"Remember when you said you were trying to keep yourself grounded?" he asks. I nod. "If you're ever upset, or unsure, or unfocused, just hold onto the stone and think pleasant thoughts. That should help."

"Just think happy thoughts, huh?" I ask, raising my eyebrows as I turn it over in my fingers again. "It's a really pretty color."

"It's the same color as your eyes," he says, and I can't suppress the gasp that rises in my throat as I drop the stone back into place.

"Or my hair," I joke lightly. He forces a smile in acknowledgement, but there's something else in his eyes.

"I wouldn't show that to anyone, by the way," he offers. "You don't want anyone to get the wrong impression if they were to find out that I gave that to you."

"Oh, right," I nod my head quickly. "Um, thank you, sir. It's really nice."

"A fair trade for the book you gave me," he replies simply.

"The secret coded book," I smirk at him. "I saw your reading it again yesterday. Is it at least any good?"

"Oh, it's very informative," he says, but there's a laughter behind his words, something he's not telling. Whatever it is, he seems happy about it, and I decide to leave things here between us. There's no tension between us right now. Instead, it seems to have replaced itself with a nice sense of calm, and it's oddly comforting. Right now I feel like I could sit here and talk about anything, but something else tells me that that's probably not a good idea. Things are good between us, and I don't want to spoil it by overstaying my welcome.

"I should get going," I say at length. "But I can't thank you enough for this, sir, really."

He smiles at me and I turn to go, when something suddenly pulls me back. The real reason I came. I have to know. "Sir, why were you in the library?"

"Returning a book," he says simply. "The collection here isn't as extensive as I would prefer but it is adequate, I suppose."

"How long were you in there for?" I ask. He doesn't answer. "I just mean, I felt like I was having this really vivid dream and now I can't remember what it's about. Did I happen to say anything in my sleep?" I struggle to keep my face as straight and as innocent as possible.

"Which time?" he asks, and I feel my jaw go slack.

"Which-?" I echo hollowly.

"Well I also caught you sleeping in the mail room," he says matter-of-factly. "Why you think that couch was more comfortable than your own bed-"

"I couldn't sleep," I say quickly. "But thank you for the, erm, blanket."

He smiles, and it reaches his eyes. "My pleasure."

"But, wait, then-" I pause and wrinkle up my nose. "If you caught me sleeping in the library, how did I get back in my own bed?" He arches an eyebrow at me, and my cheeks flush. My entire face is bright red now, and I make no attempt to hide it. "Please just tell me you teleported me back to my room and didn't carry me through the dorms like a child."

He smirks at that, and a little laugh escapes him. "Good day, Ms. Brown."

For some reason, this rubs me the wrong way. "I like it better when you call me Tori," I say as I shut the door behind me. For some reason, I'm filled with giddy excitement. I tuck the stone carefully into my shirt, where it sits and hovers just above my heart. I carefully make my way back to the dorms, preferring the hard crunch of knee-deep snow over risking my neck on the ice-covered walkways and finally make it back to the safety and warmth of my room. I strip off my jacket and climb onto my bed, sitting cross-legged and holding the little blue stone out in my hand.

If I'm ever upset…or unsure… I close my eyes and think about my parents. How they just left me here. This would be my first Christmas away from them, ever, and it hardly seemed like they cared. Maybe this is why so many wildseed children decide to separate from their parents after their second and third years. Maybe they just grow too far apart, the secrets and the lies become too difficult to keep, and it's easier to just let go.

I can feel a dull ache in my heart and I realize that I've made myself sad. Didn't he say I was supposed to think happy thoughts? I focus on how I felt when he gave it to me, the calm trust that seemed to pass between us, his soft smile when he-

The stone pulses in my hand. I drop it quickly and it hits against my chest. Did I really just feel that? Carefully, I pick up the stone again and clench it in my fist. The sensation's not there. Had I really felt anything, or was it just my imagination?

I close my eyes and again picture Hieronymous. The way his fingers slid across the back of my neck when he was putting it on me, his soft chuckle, the laughter in his eyes-

I can feel it pulsing again, slowly, but it's there. I keep my focus, focusing on Hieronymous because I literally can't think of anything else that has made me as happy as he has in a while. I lie back and hold it in my fist over my chest and feel it beating, slow, but strong and steady…

I focus on nothing else but the constant pulsing as a soothing calm washes over me, and I quickly drift off into a soothing sleep.

As soon as the door closed, Hieronymous had smiled to himself. The poor girl was so caught up in her own state of embarrassment that she had failed to notice his. Yes, it had been a rare stroke of luck: he was in the library purely on a whim when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her sleeping, head back against the wall, fingers twitching in her lap. Her bottom lip quivered and she stirred a little bit, and for a second he was sure she was going to wake up, but she didn't.

Against his better judgement, he locked the library door behind him and went beneath where she was sitting on the ledge. Entering people's dreams was tricky business, but only if you hadn't done it before. It was a rare skill to actually enter someone's dream without waking them, or disturbing them, or tipping them off to your presence in some way, but given how accustomed she was to him, he doubted she would even notice the intrusion. Perhaps one of her dreams was actually a locked memory; that might give him some insight as to how to break the memory shield once and for all.

So he closed his eyes and he channeled, murmuring under his breath.

And he saw everything, from the first knock on the door, to the kiss, to the bed…It seemed Ms. Brown had a truly interesting imagination. But as he watched her throw her head back and pant his name, he suddenly realized this was wrong. Here he was, snooping on her dreams, and although he was elated, no, ecstatic to find that she still wanted him as much as he wanted her (as wrong as that continued to be) he couldn't do this. He couldn't watch this. It wasn't right.

But he was too caught up in it now, and he wouldn't be able to extract himself from the dream so easily. "TORI," he shouted in an attempt to wake her, and that's when she had tumbled off the ledge. She had already hit the floor by the time he had awakened himself from his stupor, and he had sighed, massaging his temple with one hand. Fantastic. Now I've just killed the girl.

But after a quick check of her pulse and a touch of green magic, he was pretty sure that she was going to be fine. And that was when he had carried her back to her room, put her to bed, and left her a note. He was about to go when she had mumbled his name in her sleep again. He rolled his eyes, but a smirk touched his lips as he turned around and bent down to place a kiss on her forehead.

He smiled to himself at the memory and sat down at the end of his bed. He still had no way of knowing how to tell her that he was reading her diary when she finally snapped out of it, but that was the least of his concerns right now. He felt like he was starting to get to know her at least a little bit better, and something in one of her transcribed memories might be key to making her remember everything once and for all.

Carefully, with a quick glance at the door to make sure she was really gone, he reached into his robes and pulled out an identical stone from around his own neck. Wrapping his fingers around the pendant, he held it to his lips and waited there, waiting for it to take hold. And suddenly there it was, a quick beat, slightly out of rhythm, pulsing quickly in his hand.

Probably still running around in the snow, he thought to himself, as he closed his eyes and listened to the quick pulse of her heartbeat.