Ruby took the old man’s hand, placing two fingers on his wrist to check for a pulse. I tried to say his name again, but my voice broke as I attempted to fight back tears. The fact that I had probably disappointed Beau barely even registered as I covered my face with my hands, desperate to hide from the alternating waves of guilt and sadness suddenly crashing over me.
I couldn’t bear the thought of someone dying right in front of me. Especially not in my own shop. Not when he trusted me to save him. I choked back a sob.
Pull yourself together, Gemma.
“Gemma,” Beau whispered. I shook my head, too overcome with emotion to even look at him. “Gemma, don’t cry. He’s alive.”
“What?” I wiped the tears from my face with a sniffle. My hand came away with black smudges of mascara. Any other day, I’d be rushing to a mirror to make sure I looked perfect in front of Beau, but tonight, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
“He’s alive.”
“Are you sure?” I looked to Ruby for confirmation, and she replied with a brisk nod. “Then what are you waiting for? Give him the potion!” I said.
I moved like lightning, snatching the pipette from Ruby’s hands. I dropped to my knees in front of Wendell’s chair and squeezed the full contents into his open mouth, then handed the empty pipette back to Ruby—ignoring the look of shock on her face—and tilted Wendell’s head back to make sure he swallowed the tincture.
The transformation was instantaneous. His cocoa skin returned to its usual smooth, dewy texture. His face, neck, and hands turned supple once again. His arms and shoulders grew broad and muscular, the definition visible even beneath the fabric of his custom-tailored suit.
When he opened his eyes, his expression filled with gratitude, and gave me a flirtatious wink, I knew without a doubt that Wendell had come back to us.
“Well, well, Earth Witch. You did it! Beautiful and clever. It seems you do live up to the hype, indeed,” he said.
“Hype? I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I replied, smiling up at Ruby, who had abandoned her previously grumpy posture to clasp her hands together, and—dare I say it?—laugh at Wendell’s quip. “No woman is an island. I did have some help from Beau and Ruby.”
“Ruby?” The wandmaker turned in his seat, gasping at the sight of his old friend, and bounded from the chair, nearly bowling me over in the process. Beau helped me up, and we stepped back to let the unexpected reunion unfold. He draped an arm around my shoulders, and I snuggled into his chest, relishing the moment for however long it might last.
Wendell grabbed Ruby’s hands and clutched them against his heart, drawing her close to him. “You came! In spite of everything, you came.”
“Don’t get any big ideas,” she snipped. But her eyes sparkled with relief, maybe even happiness, at his rapid recovery.
“I hate that you saw me like that.”
“Like what? Aging? Like a normal witch? Don’t be stupid,” she argued. “And don’t think for one second I’m letting you off the hook, Wendell Wickersham. If you hadn’t gotten yourself hooked on that vile fey water, none of this would have happened.” She tilted her head, her eyes softening ever so slightly. “I guess I am glad you’re not dead, though.”
“Oh, you always were a sweet-talking vixen.” He laughed.
She frowned at him. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Wickersham. You had your chance fifty years ago, and you blew it.”
“That I did, Ruby True. And you’ll never let me live it down. Nor do I expect you to.”
“Your vanity is going to be the death of you, Wendell.” Her expression grew serious. “It almost was tonight. You’d best thank your lucky stars I still had a bottle of that infernal fey water on hand.”
“Indeed,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough. All of you.” He sighed. “If I could walk away from the fey water, I would. I tried many years ago, and I grew very ill. Without Stella’s help, I would have been dead long ago. She’s risked herself and her business all these years just to keep me alive. I pay her handsomely for it, mind you. But now I realize just how much I need her. I truly owe her—and now, all of you—my life.”
“But how did this happen?” I asked. “Stella never makes mistakes.”
“She didn’t,” he said. “Yesterday, I dropped my tincture, and the bottle shattered. I rushed over to Pixie Potions, but Stella wasn’t in. In a fit of desperation, I demanded Kayleigh make a replacement right away. I should have been more patient. We all know Kayleigh isn’t the most adept at the craft. She was reluctant to fulfill my request, but I was so afraid that I’d start reverting back to the old me that I demanded it. You might even say I bullied her into agreeing, the poor thing. She found Stella’s recipe, but I guess she didn’t realize the water it called for was actually fey water. I assumed she knew. Apparently, Stella respected my secret so much that she didn’t even tell own partner.”
“And it never occurred to you to mention that little detail to us?” Beau asked.
“I should have told you the truth from the beginning,” he admitted. “I truly believed it had to be a mix-up with some other ingredient. And I wanted to protect Stella. If I’m honest, I also wanted to protect myself. I didn’t want anyone to know my secret.”
“Well, now that we know, maybe we can help you kick your addiction,” I said.
“Ah. I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid it’s too late. Ruby’s right. My vanity very well may be the death of me. Without the fey water, I’m doomed. As you can see, it’s moved beyond an obsession at this point. It’s essential to my life force.”
“And whose doing is that?” Ruby snapped.
“Mine, Ruby, dear. All mine. But I did love you so.”
“That was long ago. We’ve both chosen our paths.” She withdrew her hands from his, stepping back with a hint of sadness in her eyes, the tiniest twinge of regret in her proud stance. “Goodnight, Wendell. I’ll see you around.” She gathered her many layers tight around her body and moved toward the door.
“Ruby, wait!” I called. I hurried to the entry, keeping my voice low as I spoke. “I want you to know how much I appreciate you coming here. I hope you know that without your help tonight, Wendell wouldn’t have a future to look forward to.”
“Yes, well. Someone has to keep you young witches, including him—” she inclined her head toward Wendell “— from killing yourselves through failed magic, I suppose. Goodnight, Gemma.”
I opened the door, shivering as the cold air rushed in. “Goodnight, Ruby. Thanks again.”
“And thank you, Gemma.” Wendell smiled as he appeared at my side. “I’ll see that you’re well compensated for your discretion, both for my sake and Stella’s.”
“No need,” I replied. “Stella is my friend, and I know she’d go to the ends of the earth to help the people she cares about. I know she wouldn’t have circumvented the law without good reason. I would never do anything to put her or her business at risk. The knowledge that you’ll be sticking around is payment enough. And just so you know,” I added, “I consider you my friend, too.”
“Indeed, Earth Witch. Indeed.” With a wink and a nod, he slipped out the door and into the night.
“What a day, huh?” I pulled the door shut and turned back to Beau, acutely aware of the fact that just moments ago, his body was pressed against mine. “Thanks for trusting me to help you. Our chances of success were looking grim until you come through by asking Ruby for help. That was pretty amazing.”
“You were amazing,” he replied. “You are amazing.” The affection in his eyes was unmistakable as he gathered me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around his waist, breathing in his scent as he stroked my hair. “I would say I can’t believe how far you’ve come in such a short time, but the truth is I’ve always had faith that you were extraordinary.”
“What I am is starving.”
Good goblin, Gemma!
Responding to compliments with talk of eating? I’ve always looked to food to ease my anxiety, but this w
as a whole new level of awkward. “Are you hungry?” I asked.
He released me with a sigh. “Actually, yes. I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Wanna pop over to Medium Rare?” The diner in the Outskirts was a favorite among werewolves, but Beau and I frequently made the trip across Salem to indulge in late-night comfort cuisine after my witch lessons.
“Hmm. Any chance we could forage for something here?” He cast a glance at the stairway leading up to my apartment.
“Um, yeah. Sure. I can whip something up.” I tried to play it cool, but my voice rose at least two octaves as I tried to process what was happening. Beau wanted to eat here. And not in the shop where we convened for our tutoring sessions. In my apartment. Even with all the nights we’d spent studying in the shop, he’d never once been upstairs. “I made cookies this morning. We can snack on those until dinner is ready.”
“You had me at cookies. Lead the way.”
Beau followed me up to my cozy little apartment above the shop. Titus was sleeping peacefully on the counter, in utter defiance of the rules, but I let it go. Sometimes rules were meant to be broken, right?
I poured two glasses of cold milk and filled a plate with cookies from the cooling rack before passing it to Beau. He took one and bit it in half, moaning with appreciation as he chewed. I busied myself with my own cookie and pretended the sound of Beau moaning wasn’t enough to make me forget my own name.
“I’m glad you like them.” I picked up the basket with Beau’s name on it and passed it over to him with a shy grin. “I packed these up for you this morning. You can take them home.”
He fingered the gift tag and lifted his gaze to meet mine. “No one has ever baked for me before.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“I mean, look at you. You’re kind, educated, handsome, funny. Any woman would be crazy to overlook you.”
“It’s not that I’ve been overlooked,” he said. “In the past, I’ve always gotten bored easily. I just never met someone interesting enough to keep my attention.”
“I see.” My heart dropped inside my chest like a two-ton weight falling into the ocean.
“Until now,” he said, “You know, what happened with Wendell today made me think.”
“Yeah?” I gave him a hopeful smile.
“It’s silly, really. The things we tell ourselves about what’s most important in life. The things we keep from the ones closest to us. The things we let get in the way of what really matters to us.”
I shoved the rest of a half-eaten cookie in my mouth, chewing in slow motion as he stepped toward me. “Mmmhmm.”
“I’ve been fighting it since the moment I met you.” He cocked his head, casting an unfamiliar look my way as he moved even closer. “First my misgivings about the teacher-student relationship. Then your relationship with Clarence. And my annoying tendency to lose interest in anything but academia. But watching you today, your brilliance, your determination, how much you care about other people, I realized I don’t want to fight it anymore. I could never lose interest in you, Gemma. The only relationship that matters to me is the one between us.”
Us? I swear I heard a choir of angels singing in the distance. I swallowed hard as he rested his palm on the small of my back and drew me closer to him. I had been waiting months for the right time to tell him how I felt, and this was my chance. All I had to do was be brave. I took a deep breath and titled my face upward.
“I don’t want to fight it either,” I said.
Beau moved against me, his dark eyes burning with an intensity I’d never seen before, and folded me into his embrace. I let myself melt into his arms, twining my fingers through his thick hair as the warmth of his body enveloped me. He drew me closer so the length of my body was pressed against his. Sliding his hands up to cup the back of my neck, he tilted his face down, his gaze locking on mine.
This was it. The moment I’d been dreaming about since we first met.
A slight moan escaped my lips, and I allowed my eyes to close, every cell in my body screaming Finally! as he moved in to kiss me.
All at once, Beau gripped my shoulders, tearing himself out of my arms as he stumbled backward. “I can’t do this.” We both stood frozen for a moment, the silence pounding in my ears like the drums in a Florence + The Machine song. And then the confusion crashed over me, my sense of self-preservation battling with the undeniable need to kiss him again. I took a step forward, but he stopped me, both hands extended as if to shield himself from my unwanted advances. “Don’t. Please.”
“I don’t understand.” I retreated, crossing my arms as my eyes filled up with tears. “You just said—”
“I know what I said, Gemma. And I meant every word.” He dragged a hand through his hair, and I sighed, already missing the way it felt between my fingers. “But you’re still my student. I can’t have a romantic relationship with a student.”
“Beau, your other students are teenagers. I’m thirty-three years old.” So he was fine with smuggling an illegal substance into Salem to keep Wendell young but drew the line at kissing a midthirties, perfectly single, perfectly willing woman that he sometimes tutored. Sometimes Beau’s ethical standards were infuriatingly confusing.
“All the same.” He sighed, the desire in his eyes suddenly turning doleful.
“And they’re enrolled in an actual school where you work. We eat dinner together five nights a week. We go to town events together. We exchange book recommendations. It’s nowhere near the same.” My protests were starting to sound pathetically similar to begging. This would normally be the point in a conversation where I shut down, erected a hundred-foot wall of impenetrable stone, and started brainstorming a million ways to avoid seeing the other person ever again. But I was stuck in Salem. I couldn’t escape Beau. And even if I could leave this town forever, I’d never escape my feelings for him. So I persisted.
“Then I’ll get another tutor,” I protested. “You’re not the only earth witch in Salem.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not? If that’s the only reason we can’t be together, what’s stopping us?”
“I’m the only earth witch with enough knowledge to help you reach your full potential,” he said. “Your education is important to the Coven. And to me. If I neglected my duty to you, and to the Coven, in the name of my own selfish desires, I wouldn’t be able to live with the consequences.”
As much as it pained me to admit it, I knew he was right. There were other earth witches in Salem, but none smarter or more talented with a wand than Beauregard Bacchus. That’s why he was tasked with teaching all of Salem’s young witches the basics before they selected their elemental mentors.
I stared down at the pile of sprinkle-covered cookies arranged on our shared plate. I’d likely catapult myself into a full-on carb coma the moment he left. Reluctantly, I forced myself to lift my chin and face Beau. It was the one time I could recall not wanting to gaze at him for hours on end. Right now, every millisecond was pure torture. “So, what now?”
“We keep things platonic. Focus on your studies. And, if you’re still interested after you pass your Basic Witch Exams, I’d like to take you out on a date.” He raised his gaze to meet mine, a shy smile playing on his lips.
That was unexpected. “... A date?”
“Yes. A proper date. A woman like you deserves to be courted, Gemma. And that’s what I intend to do, once you’re no longer my student.”
“Well,” I began. “You’re asking me to wait a long time. I can’t make any promises.”
“I understand.”
“I just have one question.”
“What’s that?” He inclined his head.
“Does courting include kissing?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Good. Because after the stunt you just pulled, there’d better be a hell of a makeout session waiting for me at the end of my last exam.” He laughed, his dark eyes sparkling
with flints of gold. “Gemma, you have no idea.”
“I’m serious. Music, candlelight, wine. The whole shebang.”
“Deal,” he said. He looped an arm through the handle of his carefully-prepared basket and cast a wistful glance my way. “Thanks again for the cookies.”
“Of course. I mean, they’re just a little token of appreciation. It’s the least I can do to say thank you for everything you’ve taught me,” I lied.
He nodded, his face solemn. “I should go.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
I followed him downstairs, holding the cookies as he put on his coat and scarf. He took the basket from me and caught my hand, raising it to meet his mouth. “You truly are extraordinary, Gemma.” He leaned forward, his eyes never leaving mine as he planted a light, chaste kiss on the back of my fingers.
“Goodnight, Beau.” Slowly, I drew my hand away, hoping he didn’t feel the shiver of delight that rushed through my body as his lips brushed my skin. He nodded and stepped onto the sidewalk, pulling the door shut behind him.
I sighed, finally succumbing to the weak-kneed feeling Beau always gave me, as I turned to rest my back against the door and sank to the floor in a blissful haze.
Beau wanted to date me. Not just date me. He wanted to court me. I wasn’t exactly sure what the difference was in his mind, but I’d read a lot of Regency romance, and courting sounded much more serious to me. If waiting until I graduated from student status meant respecting the values that truly mattered to him, I could get on board with that. I would expect him to do the same for me.
I still had another nine months before my Basic Witch Exams. Nine months of learning the witchy ropes. Nine months of dinners, outings and book exchanges with Beau, plenty of time to get to know each other before taking the leap into a serious relationship.
Nine months of getting to know myself better. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the sound of that.
And courting! It sounded so romantic! My disappointment over the initial missed kiss blossomed into an eager giddiness. I’d never been courted before.
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