#so on

Shame he was his mentor and teacher, and seemed to have a bit of a moral compass. If it were up to Dorian, he would've ridden him stupid already, or done the honors and fucked him—though he'd never known an older man who wanted him to be the one on top. But Emmrich seemed out of the schema of what magisters were like, anyway, with no masculine posturing, no wife, no concerns for power other than tenure.

Still. Even if Emmrich was a little too ethical for his liking, he still wanted to impress him with his abilities. He wasn't an Altus mage for nothing, and he couldn't come down to the depths of the Grand Necropolis just to tarnish the Pavus name with an uninspired show of skill. So he worked at making corpses speak until his hands went numb and his brain went so fuzzy he was unable to keep casting, the spell words no longer meeting into coherent sentences.

"Young master Pavus?" Emmrich breathed, poking his head into his study, only to see Dorian leaning against the wall, breathing hard and shaking, the skeleton still shaking from the last burst of magic. "Goodness!"

Dorian took way too long to react and look up at him, blinking as Emmrich rushed towards him. He put a hand on his shoulder, then his forehead, checking for a fever, and then sighed.

"You overexerted your magic, did you not?" Emmrich asked.

Dorian groaned softly. "I can't feel my hands," he muttered.

"And your head?"

"Can't think," he replied.

Emmrich grimaced and helped him lean against his slim body. Emmrich was much taller than him and he found himself by the crook of his armpit. His clothes were a nice texture, all good fabrics, the jewelry on his hand rubbing over Dorian's side as he took him to lay him down in bed.

For a moment, Dorian imagined Emmrich would take advantage of this vulnerability, of him there, unable to do anything, barely able to say anything as he was numb and exhausted. Instead, Emmrich draped a blanket over him and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"You are magic sick, young master Pavus," Emmrich explained. "I imagine this has happened to you before, when you first started learning to harness your magic in the Minrathous Circle."

Dorian, once again, felt like he was moving through sand, slow and tortuous, as he nodded. A few years earlier, he'd been trying to impress his father and ended up in this very situation. Stupid, reckless fool he was. Always trying to appeal to older men.

"There's not much to do except have you rest," Emmrich said. "I'll bring you some tea. You should feel better in the morning, once your supply re-organizes itself."

Dorian swallowed around the lump in his throat and blinked hard. He knew he should not say this, but he was fighting with thick clouds in his mind and the words slipped out. "Professor Volkarin?"

Emmrich was halfway out the door already. He turned to look at him. "Yes?"

He cleared his throat, feeling like a little boy afraid of the monster under his bed. "Could you stay? When you return?"

Emmrich's gaze softened and he managed a smile. "Of course. I'll be right back."