After school, private lessons locked in the offic…

Only the soft scratching of pen tips on paper remained in the classroom. Seraphina Croft clutched the strap of her schoolbag, her heart hammering fit to burst. The man standing at the podium—everyone called him Teacher Gu—yet at the age when she least should have let her heart stir, she collided with a pair of abyss-deep eyes. He hadn’t done a single untoward thing; he’d merely looked at her a moment too long, and more than half her defenses came crashing down. She was his student, and he was her undoing. Everyone understood that logic, but those who play by the rules never make good stories.