She felt a tremor of tension as her body tried to relax and tense simultaneously. The firing of nerves and sensations were colliding through her body, and every cell seemingly called to the task of electrifying her. The small, rhythmic brushes of his thumb in her palm seemed to have an outsized reaction. Internally, she was now at war. He denied her offers of assistance before and she respected his decision as much as she loathed it. Whatever he was about was taking a visible toll and it unsettled every bit of her desire to protect and defend. It was who she was, fierce and unflinching in the defense of those she held dear. Samuel was more than dear to her. How could she walk away from him now and renew their separation? He insisted that this road was temporary, but so was human life. How long would she need to fret over his well-being? How much longer would she need to let her heart quake when he was missing in the Great Hall?

Seeing him beyond the castle made everything more real to her, both the danger she sensed and her need to interrupt it. Somehow, she felt less powerful here outside of her domain. She was merely a witch made victim to her own feelings. There was nothing exceptional about that, nothing grand. Here, she was ordinary, and that bothered her.

Samuel brought her back, his words mirroring her own struggle. Or at least, a part of Samuel she had heard before. This was not his voice, not the smooth confidence of her collaborator, or the warm assurances of her lover. This was a man caught in a web of his own thoughts, ones he deemed too dark for her to see. She vehemently disagreed. "Then bargain with me. There must be some way I can make this easier on you."

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   Samuel Griffith