He was charismatic, sure. And smart. Magnetic. I had no doubt someday he would get a seat on the council and bring about some incredible, positive changes for our kind.
But he wasn’t even out of the academy, yet. And now he would be a criminal in the eyes of the council. It was too soon.
“You never talked about wanting to change that law before,” I challenged him. It was always his goal and his dream to somehow enable witch-kind to come out as what we truly were and live among humans in peace. And to undo the curses laid on the other races nearly a thousand years ago—but even I knew that task was impossible. But now… now he also wanted to make it alright for us to have romantic relationships with mortals. Marry them? Procreate with them? Sully our magical bloodlines?”
I felt sick.
It would be the end of us. The beginning of the end of the Alchemist race if he did that. Wouldn’t it?
“I can’t condone this,” I said through a swiftly rising tide of tears. “It’s dangerous. You could get hurt. And you’re a damned fool for bringing her here,” I said, angrier than I thought I’d ever been in my entire life. “For showing her all of this!”
He bowed his head, and I saw the deep circles beneath his eyes. How his skin seemed paler than usual. How had I not noticed before? This was bringing him a huge amount of stress, too.
If I could just convince him that it wasn’t worth the risk—that he could have someone better for him.
Someone like me.
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” he said in a voice so low I could barely hear him over the music. “But you can’t tell anyone about her.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I was afraid to break us even more than we were already broken. My chest squeezed painfully as I said, “Of course I won’t,” a little surprised he would even think me capable of such a thing. How could he not know that I would do anything for him?
Absolutely anything.
He looked up and the ghost of a smile pulled at the corners of his lips. Lips I’d dreamed of kissing for years. His brown eyes shone as an orb of witch-light bobbed closer, and even though I was angry at him, I couldn’t help but admire the curve of his face in the glow. The sharp angles of his jaw. The way his dark hair fell forward when he bowed his head, almost long enough to cover his eyes, but not quite.
“I knew I could count on you,” he said. “If she can accept me, then maybe all the other humans can, too, right?”
“Right,” I replied numbly, snapping out of it when his hand closed around mine.
I sucked in a breath at the contact, near ready to melt as his warmth pulsed into me. My magic rose to meet his, coiling up through my feet to reach out. To touch.
Whenever he touched me, it just felt right. Like we fit. How could he not feel it, too? My magic called to him. Did his not also call to me?
“Al—” I started, choking on his name as a well of emotion opened up within me.
“I don’t know what I would do without you, Dee,” he said softly as he leaned his forehead against mine.
I caught my bottom lip between my teeth and resisted my body’s urge to pull him closer. To breathe him in.
“Just be careful,” I said between clenched teeth. Trying to keep my intoxicated mind and body in check becoming more and more difficult by the second.
“I will,” he said, and we parted, just a bit. He looked at me with something like wonder in his gaze. Or awe. And it made my heart jump, racing even faster than the music rising to crescendo all around us. “But you’re my best friend, Dee, I need you by my side. I need you to be with me on this. We’re a team.”
I nodded.
“Like family,” he added. “I didn’t think after my parents and Grace—”
He paused, not able to finish the sentence. Unable to voice the horrible thing he hated talking about. How his parents and little sister died just after he began at the academy.
My heart hurt for him. I waited patiently for him to finish. Unsure where he was going with this. Or how all the anger I’d had only a moment before—all the fear, had somehow vanished. He had that effect on me. I could never trust my own thoughts around him
“Well, I never thought I’d have anyone who I could call family ever again. But I was wrong.”
Wait, what?
Was he?
No.
“Al—”
“You’ve been there for me since the moment we first met—”
“Yes, and you’ve been there for me, too,” I countered, pulling away, knowing where this would lead and wanting to run away—far away. To make his lips stop moving. To make the sounds stop coming out.
Because I knew what he would say.
I think I’d known for a while. I just didn’t want to admit it.
“Just listen,” he interrupted. “What I’m trying to tell you is…”
Brace for it.
I erected a wall around my heart, closed the iron gates, strung barbed wire around the top and clicked the lock into place. I shut down. Shut off.
I detached from myself.
“You’re family to me, Dee. Like a sister. And I hope one day you can look at Dolores like a sister, too.”
And then he hugged me, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to return it. I couldn’t wrap my arms around him, they were too busy shaking—my fingertips growing cold. Numb.
I stumbled past the doorman and up the slick steps, getting strange looks from those still waiting to get in.
Let them think what they wanted. I didn’t care. The tears fell without stopping, and I was half-blind from them as they poured out of me. I knew how I must look. With the black soot of my liner running down my face. Snot coming out of my nose.
I never acted like this. I never let things get to me this much.
Pull it together, I told myself, choking on the tears as I did my best to swallow them. To fight them and the painful swelling sensation behind my big cage. I didn’t let people hurt me this way. I knew better than to get so attached, didn’t I? People had a nasty habit of letting you down.
Of showing you just how much they didn’t care about you when you needed them most.
I would go home, but there would be no comfort there. No motherly embrace to soothe the aching and dry my tears. No fatherly words of wisdom to calm my mind and give me a new perspective.
My parents weren’t like that. Hell, they weren’t even home! And by the time they were back, I’d have cleaned myself up. I couldn’t take their judgmental stares. I already knew what Ma would say, don’t be so dramatic, Diana. Dry those tears for goodness sake, you look awful.
That only made me want to cry more, though. This wasn’t her business. She didn’t understand the sting I was feeling. Her and my father had been together since they attended the academy, and there had never been any real love between them—at least, not that I’d ever seen.
The sadness began to sour in my gut. It turned to something more like frustration. Anger.
I took the last few steps in a daze, breathing hard after the long climb back up to the entrance to Sigilante. Except the heel of my shoe caught on the lip of the landing and I was sent sprawling forward, palms out, my heart in my throat, and went careening into a suited man on his way out from the upstairs club.
I knocked into him hard. The breath left my lungs and I struggled to get it back as I bounced off him and stumbled back, nearing the ledge of the enormous staircase.
There was a moment, fleeting, when I thought for certain I would fall. That this would be how it ended. But Alistair had already broken my heart, so, I thought, why not break my bones too.
At least that sort of pain made sense. At least people could see it. But the man I’d struck reached out, his hand like a snake loosed from a pit, and his grip closed around my wrist like a vise. My head jerked back as my body was pulled from the edge and onto solid ground.
“Damn kids,” he cursed under his breath, and let me go as though he could catch something just from touchi
ng me.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “My shoe got caught and I—”
He held up a hand to silence me, and I blushed crimson, wincing when I noticed what he carried. A briefcase emblazoned with the emblem of the Arcane Council.
Kill me. Just kill me.
I sighed, bowing my head.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, clearly disgruntled.
That was when I noticed a folded piece of paper he must’ve been carrying laying on the tile near his feet as he began to walk away. I dove for it, eager to make up for what I’d just done.
“Sir,” I said, snatching it from the ground. “You dropped this.”
He turned, and at the sight of the paper clutched in my hands, his lips drew down into a scowl beneath the thick hair of his beard, and his dark blue eyes slanted in a way that made my toes curl.
“Give me that,” he snarled, moving in to snatch it from me.
The symbol on the paper caught the light, just for a second before it was torn from my grasp. The golden hue of the sigil-like marking faint, glowing slightly.
Three interconnected shapes. Like spirals, or circles. I’d never seen it before, but I knew it wasn’t any symbol belonging to the Arcane Council.
I gulped, bowing my head as the man stomped out into the humid Louisiana night beyond the warded entrance.
Well, that could’ve been worse…
I blew out a breath, relieved to find the whole debacle had made me stop crying at least.
But the way I left things with Alistair… the smile I forced to my lips… the way my throat felt as though it were full of razor blades when I told him he’d been there for me, too.
I’d feigned tiredness and blamed the cursed blue drink for the way my eyes watered and cheeks flushed—said I’d had too much and needed to leave. And then I’d bolted before—
No. I was done crying. I wouldn’t think on it anymore.
After I was sure the council member would be across the street and through his portal home, I left the building, making my own way to the alley reserved for getting into and out of Sigilante.
It must’ve rained a bit while I was in The Cellar because the streets were wet and I dunked my foot into a puddle that was much deeper than it looked in the light of the moon.
Just my luck.
I was so done with today.
I had more studying to do. Why had I even agreed to come to this so-called celebration anyway?
If I was going to beat the sixth-year ACE’s too, I’d need to start getting notes together now, and keep them in chronological order. Neat and tidy, with underlined sections I would later turn into study cards. Yes. That was what I would do tomorrow.
My grades were about the only thing in my life I felt in control of, and just the thought of all my notebooks and files filled with the knowledge I’d accumulated over four years at AAA made me feel so much better.
I shook off the water from my foot, and stepped into the alley, careful to make sure there wasn’t anyone around who would see me. Not that it mattered, really, since the alley was warded with the same spell that protected Sigilante from curious mortal onlookers.
The sigil materialized over my palm and I pressed it into a section of wall, drawing a crude doorway in the brick with the tip of my finger. My magic responded in a larger rush than it usually did, leaving me with a force that made me recoil. The alcohol in my blood affecting it the same way it did my mind.
I’d have to ask Psy what that blue stuff was. The release of magic was almost euphoric, and I smiled to myself as the portal opened.
The house beyond the doorway was dark, and I remembered no one was home. Now, that seemed like a good thing. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.
The portal closed behind me and I stripped off my heels and the ridiculous dress right there in the entryway by the back-door. Eager to slip into bed.
If the heels of my feet could speak, they would have sighed in relief as they met the cool wood floor, and the soreness subsided. Why did people ever wear heels, anyway?
They were so uncomfortable.
I much preferred my school shoes.
A squeak nearly sent me sprawling onto my face as Rufus bounded into the entryway to prance around my feet.
“Hello, little rodent,” I said to him, bending to give him a pat and allowing his energies to pass through into me, strengthening me from the inside out. “Such a good boy. Go on, now. Back to bed.”
He vanished back into the shadows with an undignified groan. Such an obedient familiar, he was. I’d had little time for him—to develop more of our bond—since attending the academy. My muddied mind tried to make a mental note to remedy that. We still had so much to learn, and he could do so much more than the simple task of lending me strength.
A chill caressed my lower back and I shivered, rushing into the kitchen to get a glass of water before I went upstairs to the warmth of my bed.
I gulped it down greedily, hoping the water would counteract whatever it was I’d drunk and leave me with a hangover that could be cured by a simple healing sigil. The worst of hangovers liked to stick around, as though the magic within us knew that the pain was self-inflicted and wouldn’t deign to help with something so pitiful.
I didn’t blame it.
“Uh… Diana?”
I dropped the glass into the sink, and spun, clutching the countertop for support, a hand flying to my racing heart.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just—I heard you come in and… hey, where are your clothes?” Nico came closer, and I noticed he was in only a pair of boxers, and in the dim moonlight streaming in through the thin white curtains I could see the lines in his toned chest, and every single one of his abs. Eight, if I wasn’t mistaken.
This is improper! My mother’s voice shouted in my head, but the haze of liquor swallowed up the sound of her nagging.
“Are you ok? Did something happen?” he rushed to say, coming to examine me closer.
Stupid.
How had I forgotten I’d told him he could stay the night?
I averted my gaze, bowing my head before he could see the mess running down my cheeks. “Fine. I’m fine, Nic.”
But he wouldn’t be fooled. He stopped in front of me, so close I swore I could feel the heat radiating off him. “No, you’re not,” he said, more gently now, as he brushed his fingers over my shoulder, sweeping my hair behind my back. “Look at me. Tell me what happened.”
Why was he always so nice to me? Couldn’t he see I was angry and upset? I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to…
I looked up, and watched his eyes widen, just for an instant before he schooled his features back into a look of cool, gentle calm.
I could tell him, couldn’t I? Nico and I—we told each other almost everything. I knew he was doing his own exam next week and would become a full-fledged Arcane Officer, and that he’d likely be moving out of the boathouse, whether he wanted to or not if my father had anything to say about it.
I also knew he was nervous as hell about it. Not just about the exam, or whether or not he would pass, but also about the job itself. He was afraid of doing something wrong. Of getting an innocent into trouble, or letting a criminal go free by mistake.
It was a lot to shoulder. My own problems seemed small and stupid in the face of what he was about to conquer.
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, my shoulders falling.
“Hey,” he whispered back and tilted my face up so he could look at me. “It matters to you, so it matters.”
His burnished blond hair glimmered in the moonlight, and a sad smile broke over his face. “He’s with someone else,” I muttered. “And she’s no good for him. She’s… god Nic, she’s—” but I couldn’t get the word out.
“She’s what?”
“Human,” I blurted before I could stop myself, and felt him tense.
He cocked his head at me, and I thought I saw something like confusion mingled with hurt cross his featu
res, but a fraction of a second later, it was gone. “Alistair?” he asked, the lazy circles he’d been rubbing into my jaw with his thumb halted for the moment.
I nodded. I’d never actually told Nico how I felt about Alistair, but I didn’t think it was hard to guess by the way I talked about him. And how my life always seemed to sort of form around him. As though he was the object, and I was just a mold.
Thinking about it that way made it hurt even more, so I told myself it wasn’t true. Because it wasn’t. Right?
Right.
Nico’s brows furrowed and the muscles at his temples twitched as he worked his jaw. His hands on either side of my face became fractionally tighter. “You listen to me, Diana Granger,” he said, his voice raspy and deep—the words echoing into me. “You’re too good for him. You’re smart, and you’re funny, and you’re the most driven woman I know,” he breathed. “You deserve better than a man who doesn’t see your worth.”
My heart hiccupped in my chest, and a gymnast walked a precarious tightrope in my belly. I knew she’d fall, but on one side was a pit of despair, and on the other was something else. Something warm and writhing—something that made my back arch and my body heat. Desire.
Nico’s gaze flickered down to my lips, and back up to my eyes. A silent question.
The gymnast fell, and I couldn’t help it. His lips parted and I licked mine in response. It was the only invitation he needed. He kissed me lightly at first, the faint press of his full lips so sweet a little gasp escaped my lips.
He pulled back, searching for something in my eyes. I wasn’t sure if he found what he was looking for there, but he asked me, “Can I take the hurt away?”
My eyes welled, and my jaw clenched. I nodded, giving him permission.
It’d been months since that one time Nico and I slipped. We were friends. Only friends. But I remembered—it had been good, and it was only with the light of day that we both realized there was nothing there more than carnal desire and a bit too much booze.
This seemed different than that.
The next time he kissed me, I freed the part of myself that I usually kept caged up. I wanted to feel him and get lost in the beautiful sensation of his fingers as they traveled down my arms to grasp me at the hips, pulling me closer.
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