Reanne picked up both mugs and made her way from the kitchen in Stuart’s digs back to his room, which she eased open carefully.

He was sitting at his desk. Next to the laptop was a multi-colour biro, one of the colour tips protruding; he had probably picked it up, she thought, to fidget with while he waited for her. Of course, he had subsequently turned on his computer instead, and by the time she’d filled the cafetiere with hot water, he had been online.

He was somewhat distracted on her return, scrolling through social media. She put one mug down just an inch or two from his hand and leaned over to see what had his interest.

It turned out to be something to do with Football Manager. She knew this was a game people could get obsessed with - her brother was one of them - but it was still a bit of a surprise to see someone following the game on social media.

Reanne knew how to make her presence felt without attracting criticism, though. She bent down, leaning in even closer, and resting her chest on his shoulder. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about this,” she said. “Is it going to mess up your save?”

He had gone very still the moment he realised what was touching her shoulder. To Reanne, that was a positive sign; it showed he was paying attention. That was a necessary first step.

She set the coffee mug down in front of him.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t think you’re the sort of person who would prank someone like this. And I really hope my reputation isn’t so bad that I’d get pranked this way. But this… this sort of thing doesn’t happen. So… what’s going on?”

Reanne was at a loss for words. In the sudden silence, perhaps to cover for the awkwardness of that silence, he reached out and picked up his mug.

“What happened to your hand?” she asked.

He looked at it, turning his wrist as far as he could without spilling the coffee. “Oh. Yeah, kind of embarrassing. I cut myself trying to show Professor Slater this rune I found.”

“That’s got to be uncomfortable.”

“I guess? Mostly I don’t really notice. It’s only if I stretch out my fingers, you know?”

She nodded.

“Anyway,” he said. “If you want to hang out, that’s fine. It’s weird, but it’s fine. And I’m not saying I never would or anything, but the way this started is crazy weird, so… not right now, thanks.”

Reanne sighed and nodded. She knew what she wanted, but he had given an instruction.

She’d just have to get him to take it back.

She sat back and drank her coffee and thought about possible strategies she could use.

*

The answer, Judi had eventually realised, was staring her in the face. After some time trying to work out how to get Stuart back face to face with her, it had occurred to her that the university’s internal directory made emailing him easy.

She’d promptly sent him a request for a one-to-one session the next day. It would be incorrect to say that afterwards she had patiently waited for the appointment to roll around - a combination of eagerness, worry, and self-doubt made for very little in the way of patience - but she could at least tell herself that she’d done everything which she could do for the time being.

At the right hour she terminated a discussion with one of her PhD candidates early and apologetically and shooed him out, closing the door behind him. On her way back to the desk she undid belt around the long cream cardigan she was wearing, then unbuttoned it.

When she heard the knock on her door, she shrugged the cardigan off entirely and called “Come in.”

Stuart entered cautiously, shutting the door behind him once he was in, and turned back to face her, all before he actually looked at her; she wondered whether something else had unsettled him, just from the way he was carrying himself.

He looked up at her and froze suddenly. She couldn’t read his expression, but that was already a problem.

She was sat at her desk, and knew she’d be visible only from a little above the waist. She had chosen everything concealed by the cardigan for maximum impact given her wardrobe. Pride of place was given to a black lacey confection which was designed to cling to her upper curves then hang loosely; on its own it concealed nothing, nor could it be fully fastened across the waist or chest, so there was a stripe of bare skin between, about a hand wide.

She had bought it before accepting the post on campus, and had achieved a very gratifying reaction from a classics postgraduate she’d been dating at the time. Unfortunately the dating pool around this campus was a lot thinner on the ground, so it had stayed on a hangar for the best part of five years now.

At first she had tested her reflection wearing only that and a skirt to help preserve her modesty in her wardrobe mirror, but the broad strip of completely bare skin and the clear visibility through the fabric of her nipples had weighed on her confidence, so in time she had stopped. Underneath the lace was therefore a metallic green bikini top last worn during her Christmas holiday in Cyprus.

At thirty, a devotee of the gym, Judi was confident in her ability to seduce any heterosexual male student except perhaps for the mature students. She didn’t consider this ego, being as it was mostly a commentary on the morals and standards of the average student. She was sure, too, that Stuart was attracted to women.

What she read in his eye wasn’t even distaste, she realised with more of a chance to study it. No, this was caution.

“Come in, Stuart,” she said, and if her tone was firm it was because she had to be firm with herself. “Please, take a seat.”

“What’s this about?” he asked, sounding worried.

“I’d rather you be sitting down before I answer that,” she said. “Because I’m far from convinced you’ll believe me. It’s about your mark.”

He looked down at his hand, lifted it and turned it outward to display the cut. “This?”

She nodded.

“That doesn’t really explain you dressing up like that,” he said. But he hadn’t turned to leave, was in fact a few steps deeper into the room than he’d begun.

“I actually think it does,” she said quietly. “Please sit down.”

He did, very slowly and gingerly. She took a deep breath. “We know,” she started,” that the peoples living in this area have often been noted as superstitious by their southern neighbours. Not that border Scots and the English aren’t also superstitious, of course, but typically you ignore your own. You notice the ones that mark the other side out.”

“So?”

“So the question becomes, what are superstitions based on? Some have rational explanations. Some have no explanation we’re aware of. And sometimes, the answer is magic.” She paused. “How long have you and Reanne been an item?”

His jaw dropped and he stared at her. “Who told you anything about that?”

“It’s recent, isn’t it? Yesterday recent?”

“I -” He closed his mouth in the end. “I’m not sure we even are an item. But she started acting weird yesterday.”

“So did I,” she told him. “The difference is, I caught it happening. I have a couple of theories for why she didn’t.”

“Wait - so - whatever you’re talking about, that explains what’s going on with her?”

“I believe so.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face, not looking at her, not really looking away from her either, deep in thought. Then he leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, hands loosely clasped, and gave her his full attention. Judi’s head swam with the impact of it. That, too, she thought, was an indicator that her theory was correct. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me.”

She outlined her theory quickly, running over the marks, the frequent use in stories of blood sacrifice to empower enchantment. “We don’t really have many examples of magic we can study,” she finished up. “A few disputed ideas, and of course there are people who carry out rituals of one kind or another, see something change, and say the two are linked.

“I’m not saying they’re wrong, although I used to, but there’s nothing that’s measurable, nothing confirmable. If it was just Reanne acting strange, or just me, I think you’d dismiss this too. But two women are making it clear to you that they’re available for the taking.”

She had been about to say two women are throwing themselves at you, but it had occurred to her as she was speaking that this wasn’t the case. She certainly hadn’t pushed the issue; she’d just sent him an indisputable signal. Perhaps she should try and push, but he was the sovereign, the ruler; she was the subject. “I’m not saying that couldn’t happen otherwise, but it happening all at once, I’m sure that’s why you’re wondering.”

“That, and I can’t imagine staff being this forward,” he said, waving a hand at the way she was dressed. As her tale had unfolded, she’d noticed that his eyes were straying from hers, drifting lower down her figure. As if he’d realised he had that privilege.

She smiled. “So I think… I think this has to be it,” she said. “And I think we need to preserve it.”

“Okay…” The expression on his face was stranger now. “You’ll have to explain that one. I’d have thought you’d want your independence back.”

Judi had been doing her best to avoid thinking about that. “I… might be grateful to have it back, if it was restored,” he said. “But here and now, as I am, I-” She wasn’t sure how to answer, but it turned out that her lips knew. “Am loyal,” she finished, the words having emerged without her participation. Yes, she thought. That was the best way to put it; that was right and proper.

For a long while, Stuart didn’t speak. Eventually he said “This is messed up.”

Almost compulsively, Judi shook her head. “You have the right to rule,” she said firmly.

“Why?”

“Because you have the mark of the ruler.”

He looked back at the cut on his hand and snorted. “What right do I have to this?”

“The right to rule,” she said again. She could see that the logic was circular, but his right had nothing to do with logic; it was inherent, he was born to it.

He sat back again. The sound that escaped him was somewhere between a snort and a laugh, and she knew on hearing it that he wasn’t taking her seriously.

“If you don’t believe me,” she said, with a desperation that surprised her, “then put me to the test. You can prove it easily enough.”

“But I can’t, though,” he said, slowly. “Can I? You’re the one I’d be ordering around, and you’re the one pushing for this.”

“Why would I do this if I wasn’t under an enchantment?” she asked.

“I mean, I can’t think of a reason,” he acknowledged. “But this is crazy anyway. Unless somehow this is going to end up as a lesson that I shouldn’t cut myself.”

“There are things I absolutely shouldn’t do, even to trick you,” she pointed out. “So there are ways to test.”

“No,” he said suddenly. He stood up. “No, you know what? There’s a better test, isn’t there?”

In three strides he was at her office door. Her jaw dropped; she was scrabbling for an answer when he threw it open. She didn’t dare make a sound, in case it attracted any attention.

Standing in the doorway, Stuart scanned up and down the corridor. “Oh, good,” he said. He raised his voice slightly. “Excuse me?”

She watched him lift his hand, turning it briefly to point the scarred side at whoever he was talking to. Then he beckoned with one finger. “Could you come here, please?”

“What are you doing?” she hissed, infuriated. He made a shushing noise, gesturing for her to be quiet, still looking at whoever else he was talking to.

“Come here,” he said, this time a firm instruction rather than a request. His body language shifted; she saw him stand a little straighter, Did that mean it had worked?

“In here,” he said, nodding into her office. Another student entered. She wasn’t in any of Judi’s courses, so while the face was vaguely familiar, she couldn’t put a name to it.

She should have covered up the moment he opened the door, she realised. The younger woman looked so shocked that if it hadn’t been a serious problem Judi would have laughed. “Stuart,” she said quietly, “there’s no need to involve someone else in this.”

Stuart closed the door behind them both. “I say there is,” he said bluntly. The set of his jaw declared, very clearly, that there would be no arguing with him. He turned to the new arrival. “Sorry,” he said. “This is all very weird. You might be picking that up.” He hesitated, then told her, more softly, “Calm down.”

Judi watched the woman straighten up slightly, as if a load had been taken from her shoulders. She felt sympathetic to her; this had to be a scary situation. The woman took a breath and said “What’s going on?”

“We need to test something,” Stuart said.

“Like what?”

Judi decided she needed to be involved in steering this. “Did you notice a difference between Stuart asking you to come here and him telling you to?”

The woman’s brow furrowed. Stuart shot her a look, but didn’t tell her to stop. She forged in. “And do you usually calm down when someone tells you to?”

The other woman frowned thoughtfully. “No,” she said, slowly. “It really pisses me off.”

“But you’re not pissed off now.”

“No,” she admitted, though it sounded grudging. “I think one of you should tell me what’s going on.”

“I think you should tell me your name,” Stuart said. She shot him a surprisingly vicious glare. Stuart tried again, more simply. “Tell me your name,” he said.

“Rebecca Quick,” she said. Stuart looked back at Judi.

“There’s a difference between asking and telling,” he said. “I wondered, too.”

“You believe me now?” Judi asked.

“Almost,” he said. Then he smiled. “Rebecca, make out with the Professor.”

There was a moment of absolute bewilderment on the other woman’s face, then she turned and walked over to the desk. What struck Judi the most was that Rebecca didn’t look outraged or excited; this was simply a task she needed to carry out.

Judi assumed this was a test of some kind.“Should I try and stop her?” she asked.

“No,” Stuart said. He was smiling. “Join in.”

Judi turned back to Rebecca. Now this was a duty, her attitude toward it changed; while there was no particular attraction there, she welcomed the other woman with her mouth and her hands, pulling her onto her lap for a more comfortable, prolonged kiss.

After about twenty seconds, Stuart said “You can stop now.” They broke the kiss immediately, but didn’t leave their clinch. Meeting Rebecca’s eyes, Judi was struck by the bewilderment on the other woman’s face, but also by the intelligence between them.

“What’s going on?” Rebecca asked again softly.

“Well,” Judi said, “the reason you’re asking is probably the enchantment the three of us in this room are affected by. But I think that probably happened because Stuart is worried I might be crazy, and possibly also that he might need blackmail material on me.”

They both looked back at Stuart, who certainly had produced his phone and taken several pictures. He shrugged. “Can you blame me?”

“No,” Judi said. “but I also know it’s unnecessary. And I think this was a risk we didn’t really need to take.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had no way to know if it would work on someone who wasn’t there.”

She saw Stuart hesitate for a second, before he said, “Okay, I didn’t think about that, but if what you said was true, the whole thing is that I’m king here. If Reanne counts, most students should count.”

“You had to show Rebecca the mark,” she said. “Yesterday, as people left the class, I noticed that most of the other students were giving you space. I think that may have been their way of showing you respect. But Reanne and I did different things.”

“

“I’m listening,” Stuart said. He looked at Rebecca. “A lot of this is going to be confusing for you,” he said, and his tone was gentle. “If it helps, bear in mind that we’re only a couple of steps ahead of you. But tell me, if I decided to do something and I wanted your help, what would your attitude be?”

“I’d help you,” she answered immediately. Then she frowned and looked at Judi. “That’s the core of this, right? The fact I didn’t even question what he might want?”

Judi nodded, satisfied she’d been right about the woman’s intelligence. To Stuart she continued. “I got a clear look at the rune. Reanne didn’t, though, and she also reacted more strongly. But-”

Stuart cut her off. “Reanne did see a different rune, though. A guard’s rune.”

“Right.”

“Do you think they’re connected?”

“None of this makes any sense,” Judi hedged. “So it’s guesswork. But the pattern suggests it.” She paused. “I am still worried about the mark ceasing to work if it heals up.”

“But then whatever this is wouldn’t affect us?” Rebecca said.

“Do you want that?” Judi asked. Rebecca looked suddenly doubtful, and went quiet.

“I think I probably need to make some kind of independent test,” Stuart said. “One that neither of you get to see, or Reanne. Because it’s almost impossible that this is some weird trick, but the alternative is that all of this is real, and that seems just as insane.”

Judi didn’t like it, but she knew that sometimes rulers could not be overruled, so she said nothing. “And then?”

“And then…” He looked at her thoughtfully. “And then I know what I’m doing. But in the meantime, Professor, get Reanne in here and get a copy of that rune she found for reference. And Rebecca, you stay here and wait.”

He considered for a few moments. “Feel free to discuss what’s happened. If this isn’t a trick, I…” He hesitated. “I feel like I have to do something with this,” he said. “I don’t know what yet. Not really. There’s the shape of something but I’m going to have to think about it. In any case, I could use extra theories.”

He left the office, and Judi wondered as she watched him go whether the enchantment was continuing its work on her or whether there was some other reason that he seemed more confident, more decisive, even simply seemed to be standing taller.

*

Getting hold of Reanne didn’t take much time, nor did getting her to come to the office. Explaining the situation to Rebecca was far more complicated, in spite of her intelligence. By this time, Judi fully understood why. If you included herself, this was the third time she’d had to explain.

She was surprised when Reanne just took it all at face value, but as the other woman said “I know what I feel. Honestly that’s enough to make my decision.”

After that, conversation was sporadic at best as they waited for Stuart.

For his part, he’d been roaming campus. He was looking for something easy to find at many universities, but at this spall specialist campus, much harder; he was looking for someone on their own, ideally a woman, who nobody would notice him having a conversation with if it went wrong.

The first fifteen minutes or so didn’t give him any good opportunities, the one lone woman he saw approaching the campus’ main junction when he did so. After that, it occurred to him to try the library, where it turned out to be much easier to find someone on their own with a good expectation of privacy.

His surprise quarry was one of the librarians, found reshelving in a corner of the building. They were far enough away from the nearest computer desk that he was confident any conversation wouldn’t be heard.

He sidled up close and stood with his hand raised, stroking his chin, just in case seeing the rune was a key part of its effect. After a moment he said “Excuse me.”

He watched the woman turn her attention to him. Standing still and silent, he saw her attention focus onto his hand. A moment of revulsion crossed her face, but it was swiftly replaced by something else, something he couldn’t truthfully claim he could read.

“Come here,” he said. She did as he told her. Reading her expression didn’t tell him much; no confusion, no questioning, no doubt, no fear. Was that a different reaction to Rebecca, or was it just that the conversation had worried Rebecca over it all?

“Do you know who I am?” he asked. He saw the hesitation.

“No,” she said slowly, choosing her words carefully. “But it feels as if I do. You’re…”

He waited, but whatever she’d been about to say had trailed off in the end. “Tell me.”

“You’re in charge,” she said softly. “But I don’t know why.”

“Good enough,” he told her. “Do you want in with the man in charge?”

“Yes,” she said, almost too quietly to be heard.

“Then enjoy sucking my cock.”

She sank to her knees obediently, fumbling with his belt. He looked down at her, wondering. “You don’t see anything unusual about this?”

“It’s strange,” she said. “But it does feel right.” A pause as she confronted herself with his cock. “I’ll admit, I don’t know why it feels right. I don’t usually do this sort of thing.” She opened her mouth and slid onto him, and for a time Stuart lost interest in the conversation.