BAZ

To my surprise, all the little candies stand up on their sides below his open hand.

"Crowley!" I'm not sure if Dev and Niall are finding more humor in the spell, or in my reaction.

Dylan smirks at me. I wonder what's going through his head right now. I'm not even sure if I know what's going through my head right now.

"To be honest, I didn't think it would work. Figured I'd pull out some out-of-pocket American rap song spell and y'all'd look at me like I lost it." His smirk is less than a smirk now and more of a grin. I want to kiss him. But I don't. Kiss him, that is. I absolutely want to do it, I just don't do it. I can feel my father's disappointment all the way from here. Hear his voice asking why I can't just pick a lovely girl and be happy. I'd rather burn to death than be with a woman. Now, back to the matter at hand.

I guesture to Dylan's ring. "You're a ring-caster, are you? Bunce casts with a ring too. Most magicians just use wands." I slide my own wand out of my sleeve and hold it out to him.

At this point, he's fidgeting. The candies on the table have been since forgotten, still standing on their sides. He has his hand held with his ring pointed in at himself. He rubs his other thumb across the surface of whatever is on the ring, while dragging his index finger back and forth over the side of it.

"May I see it?" I ask politely.

Dylan slowly slides his hand out towards me. The ring looks like pure silver, and I just know if I touch it I'll burn. So I don't touch it. I don't move to hold his hand to my face like I was going to. I just look. It appears to be some sort of locket. The side where he'd been rubbing with his index finger is a hinge, and the ornament is thicker, as if it holds something in it. On the surface is an etched rose. It's beautiful. Far more nicer than Bunce's gaudy purple ring.

"It's quite lovely," I say. "Is there something inside of it?"

Dylan pulls his hand back and looks to the side. "I don't wanna talk about it."

Okay, I suppose that's fair. I decide to change the subject. Dev and Niall aren't even trying at making conversation.

"So, have you been assigned your room yet? I don't think you'll be with anyone from our year. All the male students in our year have roommates. Do you know if you're with someone from 8th year? Or maybe someone younger than us?"

He shrugs and shifts his gaze even further away. "I don't wanna talk about that either."

Is it that bad?

"Oh come on now, it can't be much worse than being stuck with Snow. Baz has his mortal enemy as a roommate. It's a good thing there's the Roommate's Anathema, else Snow would have probably gone off in the room and exploded Baz by now." Dev speaks up at last.

"The Roommate's what?" Dylan asks.

"The Roommate's Anathema. It keeps roommates from hurting each other. If you hurt your roommate it throws you out the window and you land outside the gate. The doors will never open for you again after that," I explain. "Of course, if you really don't like your roommate, there's ways around it. I once led Snow into the forest to a chimera. He ended up going off on it. Singed my eyebrows in the process. Humph."

Dylan's blue eyes are so big they might as well just pop right out of his head. "A chimera? In the woods? Like, on school grounds? And the Mage just like, let you? You tried to feed your roommate to a chimera and the Mage didn't say anything?"

"Well of course not. Nobody was hurt. Aside from my eyebrows. I'd only been trying to scare him anyways."

"Well," he says. "I don't intend to kill my roommate, but I do think I'd be more comfortable sleeping in the catacombs."

Well isn't that interesting? Of course, I can't have him sleeping in the catacombs as that's where I go to hunt. There's always plenty of rats down there, and the nymphs don't like it when I hunt in their forest.

"I'd trade you if I could, but the Mage doesn't allow that. You get stuck with who you've got." That was apparently not what he had wanted to hear. Of course I'd messed up again.