I own nothing.
Lucy hated the Lending Bookstore. The owners didn't bother to make sure that their employees followed Geoffrey's System for cataloguing grimoires meaning that she was wandering down the aisles with a piece of paper in her hand with the symbol that would be on the binding.
If her dad wasn't so nosy about where she was spending her money, she'd have just gone to Barnabas and bought the damned book. However, her dad would know. And lecture her about how if none of the school's four libraries had it, she probably didn't need to be reading it. This ignored the fact that the head librarian was a censoring dictator. Or that she was nineteen and legally an adult. Or that she'd gotten into the elite college program on her own merits with nothing to do with her father.
Her friends usually teased her when she ranted about her father's controlling nature over her finances. 'I'm paying for it, so I deserve to know,' was what he always said. Her friends were largely scholarship recipients that needed their part-time jobs and reminded her of that.
"Of course," she muttered to herself when she found the book well over her head.
"Need a hand?" a smooth voice with the distinctive lilt of a Boscan said.
She turned and froze. She could feel the blush heating up her face and slowly turning her brain to mush. The man arched an eyebrow at her.
She knew Boscans. Was even friends with Boscan seith mage. The man towering over her was ridiculously attractive even for a Boscan. His white-blonde hair was plaited down his back and his eyes were a beautiful shade of lavender.
"I- um… This one," she stammered out and showed him the sigil. He found it and passed it to her. "Uh…thank you."
"You're welcome," he said with a smile.
He was barely to the end of aisle when Levy turned down the aisle, looking for Lucy. Levy gawked for a second before half-running to Lucy.
"Do you know who that is?"
"Who?"
"Kaleb Pradesh."
"I know that name… That's Bix's brother?"
"Yep.
"Damn. Wait. He's a tech." The school had many factions but a major one that had arisen over the last year was tech versus traditional magic. While Lucy had no qualms about technology, she firmly believed that magic and technology shouldn't be merged.
"Yup."
Lucy sighed. "That's a shame. I got the book."
"Great. You know, he doesn't have to be a tech in your fantasies."
"That is very true. Did you see his butt? You could bounce a quarter off it," Lucy joked as she and Levy went to the counter to pay the rental fee for the book.