Carissa found herself staring at him again.

In her defense, he was impossible to not look at. His hair was an unusual platinum blonde, even more unusually streaked with sections of hair the same dark brown that was common around here. The structure of his face was ethereally beautiful. Like a building, Carissa could easily admire for hours the nuances and details, how it all came together for a perfect face.

Even more striking were his eyes. 

One silver as the moon, the other as golden as the sun, both with a fraction of the light of the celestial bodies they mimicked. 

On such an even, symmetrical face, that one decided note of asymmetry became even more beautiful.

Those eyes arrested hers for just a split second from across the library before she hurriedly looked back down at her notes. Blood rushed to her face in embarrassment. What had she been thinking, staring at him like that?

I wasn't thinking at all.

That was the problem.

Carissa shook her head to clear it and took a sip from her coffee mug. She spat back into the mug—it was mostly grounds now. She chanced a look up—not towards him, but for the coffee station in the library. A considerable distance away.

She looked back to her things around her—not just at the coffee grounds at the bottom of her coffee mug, painted blue and white in the style that was popular with the merchants of the Far East—but at the small portable clock that faithfully ticked down the hours into the night. 

It was almost eleven o'clock and she still had considerable progress to make on this essay. 

Coffee was a necessity—but she was having enough trouble focusing. Would a brief trek for the elixir of the gods help, or would it only divert her limited attention more?

She supposed it was better than sitting there, blankly staring at the rising star of the Divination program. 

For what little of a defense it was, she wasn't the only one who couldn't keep her eyes off of Deucalion Magus. 

He'd entered the Old College's School of Magic at the same time she had, just last semester during the waning season. While she had been part of the cohort to join the Alchemy program, he'd gone into Divination. 

Usually, the programs kept to themselves—but that was never the case with an extraordinary student such as him.

Almost immediately he'd made a match with a mentor and got to work on publications. His first paper had been only the beginning in making a name for himself. His mentor, Dr. Magali, was throwing him at every symposium and conference around the city. At the end of the semester, he'd published his second paper, cementing him as the most promising student that the Old College had seen in a generation, if not more. 

Carissa would be lying if she'd said that was she wasn't emerald in envy.

Even the way he moved, it was as if he were a being made of air. He glided through the hallways, through his classes, through life at the Old College. While all Carissa did was stumble. 

She turned her back to him as she refilled her cup from the silver claw-footed dispenser. The rich aroma of coffee danced through the air. Gods permit, it would allow her to finish her essay and then head home for the night. She didn't have any morning classes on Tuesday or Thursday, so she would be able to sleep in before her first history class tomorrow evening.

Technically, she'd be ahead if she finished her essay tonight.

But finishing two days before the turn-in date was behind at the Old College—especially at the School of Magic. 

And Eirene Libieri was already working on next week's assignments. 

Carissa added enough milk to turn the coffee the same shade as her sun-bronzed skin. She took a sip for courage, and surveyed her surroundings—another mistake.

Because of course her eyes found Deucalion Magus again—right as he was looking up at her.

She turned away and took another sip of her coffee. 

Focus, Carissa.

She closed her eyes, savoring the taste. The rest of lowering her lids just for one brief glorious moment brought enough relief that she considered just going home and going to bed and starting again tomorrow morning.

But she'd heard other students talking to Eirene, all of them agonizing over how little sleep they'd gotten, how much they hadn't eaten. There was a certain bragging quality to it—a certain tone with a glint in their eyes.

This is how much I've sacrificed for this—have you sacrificed nearly as much? Do you want this as much as I do?

Guilt churned Carissa's stomach. She did want to become a magi, to receive her certification. But when she heard Eirene Libieri speak, she knew in the pit of her stomach that Carissa was nowhere near that level and would never be good enough compared to her.

Not if she didn't start making more sacrifices. 

Carissa was drawn from her thoughts as one of the other half-awake students in the library brushed into her. Hot coffee seared through the front of her dress, blotching it brown. She hissed a curse as she struggled to regain her footing.

"Oh my gods, I am so sorry!" The student grabbed some of the white linen napkins folded neatly by the coffee-dispenser and practically threw them at her. "I've been here since eight in the morning, and—"

As soon as she met his startlingly blue eyes, they went wide and his sun-bronzed skin paled.

He backed away and turned around without another word. Which left Carissa to kneel on the tiled floor and mop up the spilled coffee. 

Word of her curse had spread further than she imagined.

She wasn't sure if others were looking at her or not, but she could feel their eyes upon her all the same, like the eye of the Lord of the Solar Chariot, as the stories said. She abandoned all hope of finishing her essay in the library tonight—it was just time to go home.

When she dared to look up from the floor, some heads turned away. But no one was looking at her except for Deucalion Magus again.

She bowed her head and scurried over to her makeshift desk space. She swept all her books and pens and her portable clock into her leather satchel. By the library door she returned the stained napkins and used mug into their baskets. 

Her essay could wait until tomorrow morning, she decided. 

As she passed through the threshold of the library, she chanced one more look.

She found that Deucalion had returned to whatever enviously brilliant work he'd come there for, and she was free from the eyes of the gods once more.