Twilit Mage

Chapter 37: The Unchangeable Minds

"Come on in," Sullivan Blake said without asking who had knocked on the door. He knew those footsteps, that frantic knock well enough to guess.

The door flew open with a bang, and in rushed Hecate, pale and terrified-looking in a frighteningly human way that could only mean one thing. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and Sullivan didn't have to think far to know what it probably was.

Not that he wouldn't wait for her to tell him by herself, of course.

Hecate came to a stop near his desk, close enough to talk privately but far enough to keep an appropriate distance. Her eyes flitted all over the place as she caught her breath, steadying herself, then they came to rest on Sullivan's shoes and she sighed. "Will you ever learn to take your feet off the desk?"

Oh, the usual discussion. "I told you," Sullivan said with an amused quirk of his eyebrow. "I'll do it the day you marry a man, Hecate."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "And I told you I will marry a man the day you start to show attraction."

Sullivan shuddered; some part of him still got flashbacks of his family trying to pressure him into dating someone. "So, never," he said. "Good to know we cleared that up."

Hecate clicked her tongue. "I wonder why I asked."

"So?" Sullivan nudged after a while when she had still made no attempts to get to the point on her own. "Have you calmed down enough to tell me what's wrong?"

She flinched back as though he had tried to slap her in the face, staring at him with wide, flashing eyes. "I..." Her gaze darted about as if searching for an escape, but her feet stayed planted where they were, stubbornly keeping her in place. "I'll...get to the point then." She stared at the ground. A curtain of hair spilled into her face, obscuring her expression from view.

"Please assign someone else to teach Mercury Day."

Guessed right, have I. Sullivan closed his eyes, torn between disappointment and admiration at her ability to hold out that long. But when he looked up at her again, all he said was, "Why?"

"Because...Because you know who she is, don't you?" Hecate's head shot up again, her expression that of a cornered beast. "I thought I was being objective with her...I thought that, by telling her to fit in over and over, I wouldn't have to give her special treatment. But all along I've been biased against her. That..." Her voice faltered, and she clicked her tongue, willing herself to keep speaking. "No matter who she is or what she does, that is not what she deserves."

Sullivan smiled. He couldn't help it. Typical Hecate, being so strict on herself for the sake of her moral compass.

"But you've realized that now," he ventured, easily able to guess what she would answer. "Isn't that the first step in the right direction?"

"I tried!"

Sullivan's smile faded. The look on Hecate's face was so pained, so full of bitter self-loathing that he couldn't help feeling a little bad for pushing her to say all that.

"I tried...to treat her more fairly. But I can't do it..." A crack appeared in her voice. "I can't be objective towards the daughter of that woman, and you know it! Don't make her suffer for the fact that I failed as a teacher!"

"Hey, now, it's not like one mistake means you failed the whole job..."

"It's not one mistake!" Hecate cut him off, her hands balled into fists as if she was a stubborn schoolgirl once more. "A teacher has an enormous impact on the students' futures, their self-image, and the way others see them. They need to treat everyone equally and objectively! Everything else is irresponsible. If I fail at that, my mistake will stay with my students for years. Maybe forever." She clicked her tongue. "As you of all people should know."