Chapter 9: She’s Not Getting Naked

Blair stepped into a furnace.

A wave of sweltering heat hit her straight in the face, carrying the metallic scent of oiled steel and dust. It was at least twenty degrees hotter in here than it had been in the boiling campus kitchens. Along the stone walls, roaring fireplaces crackled, casting long, dancing shadows across the floor.

In the very center of the room, looking out of place amidst the racks of medieval weaponry, was a desk.

Seated behind it was Professor Jack Feron.

He was still wearing his black suit. He was casually reading through a stack of parchment papers, a silver pen twirling effortlessly between his long, gloved fingers. He wasn’t sweating. He didn’t even look flushed.

Blair, on the other hand, was currently dripping with a combination of dishwater and nervous sweat.

The iron door slammed shut behind her with a loud CLANG.

Jack didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look up from his papers.

"You have exactly two hours, Miss Willows," Jack said. His voice was smooth, cold, and echoed loudly in the cavernous room. "In the corner to your left."

Blair swallowed hard, her throat already feeling parched from the heat. She turned her head.

Piled unceremoniously in the corner of the armory was a mountain of dull, tarnished steel. There had to be at least a hundred broadswords stacked on top of one another. Next to the pile was a small wooden stool, a bucket of foul-smelling polish paste, and a stack of rough rags.

"They are to be polished until I can see my reflection in the steel," Jack continued, turning a page of his parchment. "If you miss a single spot, you will start the entire pile over tomorrow. Begin."

Blair didn’t argue. She didn’t complain. She just wanted to get this over with, survive the night, and crawl into her lumpy bed.

She walked over to the corner, her wet shoes squeaking embarrassingly on the stone floor. She picked up a rag, dipped it into the thick polish, and reached for the first broadsword.

Her fingers wrapped around the leather hilt, and she pulled.

It was staggeringly heavy.

She got to work.

Scrub. Wipe. Polish.

For the first thirty minutes, the only sounds in the room were the scratching of Jack’s silver pen and the rhythmic squeak of Blair’s rag against the steel.

But as the minutes ticked by, the heat in the armory began to feel suffocating. Blair’s sweater began to act like a personal sauna. The foul smell of old beef stew and industrial soap began to steam off her clothes, mixing horribly with the scent of the metal polish.

Blair wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist, leaving a streak of dark grease across her brow. Her lungs felt heavy. Her head was beginning to swim, a dull, throbbing ache forming behind her eyes.

She glanced over her shoulder at the Crow professor. He was casually writing a note in the margin of a paper.

How is he not melting? Blair thought miserably. He’s wearing a three-piece suit for God’s sake!"

She turned back to her sword, scrubbing harder to ignore the dizzy spell washing over her. She refused to give him the satisfaction of asking for a break. She would polish these stupid swords until she passed out.

"Remove your layers, Miss Willows."

Blair paused, her rag hovering over the steel. She looked back at the desk. Jack hadn’t stopped writing.

"Excuse me?" Blair rasped, her throat incredibly dry.

"The sweater and the blazer," Jack said. "Take them off. You are swaying on your stool, and your breathing has become shallow. I am not hauling your corpse to the infirmary when you inevitably die of heatstroke on the floor."

Blair’s cheeks burned, and it wasn’t just from the roaring fireplaces. "I’m fine, Professor. I can handle it."

Jack finally stopped writing.

He slowly set his silver pen down on the desk. He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap, and raised his head. His piercing, blood-red eyes locked onto hers across the room, dark and unreadable.

"If you are hesitating out of some misplaced, human sense of modesty, Miss Willows, allow me to alleviate your concerns," Jack stated, his voice a deadpan drawl that carried through the stifling air. "First, teacher and student relations are strictly forbidden at this academy. Second, even if they were not, I possess zero interest in you."

Blair opened her mouth to aggressively agree with him, but Jack didn’t give her the chance.

"And third," Jack added, his expression blank, "I have already seen you naked."

The air in Blair’s lungs vanished. Her face flushed a shade of red so bright she was surprised her skin didn’t catch fire. The memory of her standing completely bare in the History classroom crashed into her mind.

"I—you—that was—" Blair stammered, her voice cracking embarrassingly high. Her hands were shaking as she took off her sweater and blazer, folding them neatly before putting them on the floor.

She was left sitting in her thin, white cotton undershirt and her gray uniform skirt.

The immediate relief from the heat was incredible, even if the white shirt was clinging slightly to the sweat on her chest. She took a deep, shuddering breath of the hot air and turned her back to him, grabbing her rag and returning to the sword.

She scrubbed the steel so hard her knuckles turned white.

"Is that all you will be removing?"

The question sliced through the quiet room.

Blair’s rag slipped, her hand slamming painfully against the flat side of the broadsword. She spun around on her stool, her eyes wide with panic.

Jack was still watching her, his chin resting on his knuckles, his red eyes completely devoid of any emotion.

"No!" Blair blurted out.

"I mean, yes!" Blair frantically corrected herself, her hands waving wildly in the air in front of her chest. "Wait, no, I am not getting naked! I mean, I wasn’t naked for you earlier, I was just...I am not taking off anymore clothes! This is it! This is the end of the clothes being taken off!"

The silence that followed her babbling outburst was physically painful.

Blair squeezed her eyes shut, wishing one of the broadswords would just fall over and crush her skull.

Jack stared at her flushed face for a long moment, then he picked up his silver pen, looked back down at his parchment, and resumed writing.

"See that you finish the pile, Miss Willows," Jack murmured.

Blair slowly turned back around. She picked up her rag with trembling fingers and went back to work. Her face felt like a radiator. She spent the next hour furiously polishing the swords, overthinking her own mind.

When the large grandfather clock in the corner of the armory finally struck ten, chiming deeply, Blair was on her fifty-second sword.

"Time," Jack announced.

Blair dropped the rag into the bucket. Her arms were trembling from the exertion of lifting steel for two hours straight, and her fingers were cramped and covered in black polish. She grabbed her discarded sweater and blazer from the floor, clutching them to her chest.

Jack neatly stacked his papers and stood up, his black wings stretching out for a brief moment before settling back against his suit.

"You made decent progress," Jack noted coldly, glancing at the polished pile. He looked back at her, his red eyes as unforgiving as ever. "Same time tomorrow, Miss Willows. I suggest you dress accordingly."

"Yes, Professor," Blair mumbled to the floor.