“What are you going to do when you’re still alive in a few months?” I countered.
A million words could have been communicated with the look on his face, but I was unable to grasp even a single one of them. “I… I suppose I’ll reach out to old friends, go and see my mother, start doing typical, normal human things. Before all of this, I used to like going to the beach with my friends and spending the whole day on the boardwalk; I’d like to do that again.” He cleared his throat, straightening up from the couch, “There are other things, of course, but… I want to wait and see on those.” His tongue ran across his lips, voice full of want, “but the second I know that I can have them, I’m taking them.”
A pause, the air was heavy with silence.
“I think I wanted him to be someone who was really romantic,” I rounded back to our previous discussion, somehow, it had become the easiest thing to speak about. “Someone who I could have fun with, someone who always interests me, and someone who I know cares about me more than himself.” There was something more there, something that I just couldn’t say. “I really wanted him to be that person, I really wanted to be normal, and I thought that maybe if he were like that and I was with him--”
“Lyra, you could never be normal,” I blinked up at him, and he immediately realized his mistake. Rounding the couch, he plopped down beside me, voice apologetic as he attempted to explain, “I mean that in a good way. I just-- Not to me, you wouldn’t be just normal to me. I mean, you’re so--” He sighed, his head lowering. “I guess I barely know you in a lot of ways, so I can’t speak about it but, I think that what I do know, the little things, magic or not, those are pretty amazing.”
“You actually believe she’ll help you?” I asked for the umpteenth time, standing beside Leo as he waited for the bus a few feet beyond the stop. It was ironic, he would be going to the mayor’s house in a city bus instead of a fancy car. But it was just another thing in line with who he was. Leo didn’t want her to drive him or pay him any favors outside of this. “I mean, you think she’s going to know what’s going on and reach out to help you?”
“Dalia said she would,” Leo explained with an air of impatience, his toes tapping against the concrete as he waited for the bus to come. “I have faith that Dalia wouldn’t lie to me.”
“You just met her,” I complained.
I didn’t need to see his face to know there was amusement on it. She wasn’t the only person he’d just met, only to trust entirely almost immediately. And yet…
“Leo, she really told you to trust Lobdel with this?” I said in a half murmur, casting a wary glance in his direction. “Again, I don’t know if you’ve missed your city history lessons, but Lobdel’s family has hated witches for as long as they’ve existed. You can’t walk in there and ask if there’s anything fishy going on in the magic department--”
“Lyra, I trust her.”
“Leo, politicians are known to lie.” What was it my mother once said? Oh, right, “a politician will tell you that you’re not drowning when you’re eyes deep in the Atlantic ocean.”
Leo bit back a laugh, “You worry too much.” He shook his head, watching once more for the bus to come. “I’ll be back, I promise. And when I am, we’ll have another place to go, another thing to do, and we’ll plan accordingly. I’m not scared of seeing her.” And there it was, contact. Warm, soft fingertips against my hand, “You just wait for me, Lyra.”
Why did it feel like I was waiting for so much more than just him coming home?
The bus came into view, screeching brakes and a rattling engine announcing its arrival. I needed those cues, my eyes were far too busy taking in Leo to say anything else. It was then, the softest of breezes and the smallest of smiles on his face, that I knew—his skin against mine, the promise that he would return. There were words to the excitement, words to the comfort, and words to the desire. They almost formed on my lips; a whispered don’t go, a need for him to stay there with me. But it was selfishness, and I couldn’t let it overcome me.
“You take the day off,” Leo said, “stay home and stay busy.”
He pulled away from me, walking to the bus like he was boldly charging into the future. I suppose, to him, he was. He spared me only a single glance back, and I wondered if he felt it too. Did he desperately want to stay?
It didn’t matter. The second his foot stepped onto the bus, I knew. I couldn’t leave things up to Pat Lobdel, I couldn’t trust her.
Withdrawing my phone, I opened my messages. A secret, one that I didn’t tell Leo hiding amongst them. The only change was that now, I knew the reason for it. I looked up just as the bus began to depart if only to make sure that he stayed on it. I couldn’t have him get off, I couldn’t have him know. When the tires screamed once more and the bus lurched forward, I was relieved to see that Leo was not there.
I stepped into the bus shelter with only a single glance back at the vehicle he rode in, knowing that if I looked more than once, then my resolve would falter. I couldn’t risk it, not when Leo’s life hung on the line.
The sign to the left of me flashed just as my phone vibrated. I didn’t bother to check it, I only looked at the timetable to reaffirm where I was going. Henley to Magictown, five-minute wait. I wouldn’t change my mind in those five minutes.
Rowan was waiting.
17
Not Who You Think
My feet hung over the edge of a glittering skyline, the city turning on its lights as the evening sun began to set. The lights looked like stars, the universe blooming underneath my feet in the form of New Haven, America’s first witch integrated town. Beneath me, cars and people moved through it like blood pumping through veins, moving forward without a second thought as to the world around them. They were unaware that just feet above, on the edge of the city, sat a young witch contemplating mortality. A single slip, one wrong move, and I would plummet down to the city street.
I’d been there before, so many times that I could never hope to count them. When younger and far less cautious, this was the area that I spent many of my nights. The same thoughts crossed through my head as did back then, though they now carried the heavy weight of experience. I felt, though I hate to admit it, superior to those who walked along the sidewalks below me. They looked down on me, but at the end of the day I was the one who was capable of climbing so high and seeing them for what they were. Rightful shame now filled my veins, I wished that I was anyone but that girl.
And yet I echoed her, also waiting on the rooftops for the same young man, hoping that he could whisk all of my problems away. The funny thing was that now, I saw him far more transparently, I knew that he wasn’t a hero. And yet I waited all the same, acting as if he would be. I’d watched the worst of his actions, and yet through my presence I acknowledged Leo’s previous statement; Rowan was no danger to me, he never would be. To him, I would always be that girl on the rooftop, I would never grow into the woman I was; one who eyed women smiling from charcoal sketches with an envious gleam, or a troublemaker who galivanted around the town. To Rowan, I would always be the misguided young girl who was bitter that the world was not already hers.
“You know, it’s funny. Even though you’re the one who messaged me, I didn’t think you would come.” A low voice mused from behind me, the quiet hum of a laugh underneath his words as the cement crunched beneath his feet. “After all of the trouble you’ve caused, you still decided to show up. Lyra, you’re not as much of a coward as I thought you were.”
I tore my eyes from the cityscape, unable to stop the pounding of my heart at his voice, the urge to run. Rowan looked just as I remembered him, just as I’d seen him only a few months earlier, before Leo had come into my life. And yet there were small, minuscule differences. He had deeper, darker bags under his eyes now, his blond hair was disheveled, and his sleeves rolled up past his forearms. There were these small details that only grew more profound as I looked at him, forcing me to swallow in spite of my dry mouth.
He ma
de no move. He didn’t walk forward or sit beside me, he only stood there, watching me. His eyes spoke of interest, but his body language kept me at a distance that I suppose I deserved. But if my situation was one of danger, I’m certain I would have known by then. He regarded my interest with a sort of pride, a sly grin sliding across his features as he took in my face.
“Are you just as surprised that I’m here, Lyra?”
Was I? “No.”
Apparently, that wasn’t the right answer.
“I need something from you, Rowan,” I admitted, the slightest edge to my voice.
“What you need is some common sense and a new set of friends,” Rowan spat back, moving forward. It was ominous, the way the cement crunched under his feet as he moved towards me. Annoyed by my lack of reaction, he informed me, “What you’ve been doing isn’t smart. I don’t care what your human friend told you, you stop digging around before you get hurt, or worse, end up hurting someone else.”
“I’m not the person who is hurting people!” I responded, my voice too loud and my body moving far too suddenly. I’d tried to get up but stumbled backward in the process. Automatically, in a way that reminded me of only a year prior, Rowan’s hand shot to my arm, steadying me before anything could happen.
“Lyra, you listen to me--”
“Listen, I don’t care what you’re doing,” that was a lie, I actually cared too much. If anything, I was terrified of what he was doing, terrified of what happened to Landon. Far more than that, I was scared of what could happen to Autumn, or worse yet to Leo. “I didn’t ask you to come here so I could get lectured.”
“Then why are you here?” He asked, a suggestive glint in his eyes. He loomed close, far too close for comfort. Suddenly his hand on my shoulder felt too heavy, too excessive for my current state of being. I shrugged it off, it didn’t phase him. “First you run off on me, then suddenly you turn up again six months later galavanting around with a human and start causing trouble. I would have thought that a few years in town would have taught you better.”
“It’s… complicated.”
“Things aren’t that complicated, Lyra,” Rowan said, the look on his face telling me he already knew what was going on. It took only a second for him to confirm it, “So somehow you let that kid con you into helping him, huh? Lyra, you should have called me.”
“He didn’t con me!” I snapped.
“Then what did he do, Lyra?” There was malice in Rowan’s voice, paired with a flash of jealousy. I knew, as he likely did, that the truth was not one he would swallow. “Because a few months ago I couldn’t even get you to pick up a wand, or even poke your head into Magictown. You told me that you didn’t want this, I respected that and gave you the space to change your mind. Now you show up again and you’re running around with some guy, causing trouble all over Magictown and asking questions that you’re not supposed to. You go to the Mayor’s house and you practically abduct Landon, get him into deeper shit than he’s already in; and then you come here asking me questions like I’m the one who owes you answers?”
“We’re not trying to get into trouble--” I interrupted.
“Then what are you trying to do, Lyra? Because at this point, I’d really like to know. You may not understand this, but you’ve gotten into a fair bit of danger, and I’m trying hard not to make it worse.” He glared at me, but his body language told a different story. He reached out for me once more, his hand on my shoulder, pulling me away from the ledge.
“What did you do, Rowan?” I couldn’t get distracted by him, couldn’t get caught up in the past when the present was raging ahead of me. “Why did Landon say that you could do magic in the rain, why is Pat Lobdel hosting witches, and is there any way you could help Leo? Please, I’m begging you.”
“Why. Does. He. Need. Help?”
I flinched, hesitant to reveal to him what I knew but knowing that I had to. Normally, it was Leo who said it, other people who realized it. This time it was me, this time I had to be the one. “Leo’s dying.” Why did my throat feel so tight, when I had to say it out loud? I knew this, I’d known for a while. And yet it was harder to come to terms with by the day. “It’s a curse, we need--”
“He needs,” Rowan interrupted. “And no one is going to touch someone else’s curse.”
“Rowan--”
“Lydia, have you lost your mind?” Rowan said, yanking me firmly away from the edge. I tumbled onto the roof, eyes wide and desperate. “I’ve tolerated this long enough, but you need to come home. It’s becoming very evident to me that things have gotten out of control, I shouldn’t have let you go to begin with.” The look on his face, half self-blaming and the other half critical, disgusted me.
“I thought that you would help, I thought that you would care--The old Rowan would have.”
“Then you thought wrong,” Rowan retaliated, his hand only growing more firm around my elbow. “I only care about one thing, and that’s you. I’ve humored you with this transition for long enough, but I can’t keep doing this. You don’t belong in Marlow Heights, working at some bookstore. What would your mother say about your choices right now? You have to begin thinking rationally and let nature take its course with the human.” His voice came out as a growl, not demanding or urging me but rather informing me of what I was expected to do, “come home.”
I jerked back from his grip, wrestling my elbow out of his grasp with a desperate fervor. “I don’t even know what you’ve done to yourself, Rowan! And after all that’s happened, after Landon, you want me to come back? Jesus, Rowan, I--”
His face fell, the realization hitting him. He lowered his hand, stopped reaching. It was as if, finally, he realized that whatever he had done, he couldn’t drag me into as well. “You want to know what I’ve done to myself? How you can save that human, and why Landon thought it would work?” The look on his face was so self-depreciating that it was sad. “You tell me why this guy is so damn important.”
My lips pulled tight and my eyes averted his. It was confirmation enough.
Rowan breathed, a long, strangled sound escaping him. His eyes were downcast, his body language closed off. It was confirmation of something he didn’t want to hear, but already knew. It was the end, the definite end for the two of us. The only question was, would he leave with grace? When he spoke, despite everything, despite his attempt to seem solemn and regretful; there was still an air of pride.
“There were… Rumors, going around a few months ago. It started out slow, just little murmurs of different small miracles. You were gone, I needed something to bide my time.” I bit back a comment at the idea of him biding his time. “I spoke to a woman at the crossroads, Landon knew her too, she told me not to go looking for answers. She told me that there were some mysteries that were better left unsolved, of course that only made me more curious and determined to solve them.”
“Did she help you?”
He shook his head, “no, but it seems like everyone goes to her first. I think she’s like a step, a chance to change your mind and do the right thing. I didn’t make that choice.”
My mouth felt dry. “What did you choose?”
“You don’t want Leo to live, Lyra, not if this is the cost,” Rowan drawled, a sort of amusement in his tone. He could see it, the nerves growing underneath my skin. “You think of your mother and all the mythology she teaches, and you tell me that you don’t have the vaguest idea of what could be going on?” His eyebrow raised, once again as he edged closer to me, his breath playing upon my cheeks, and his lips mere inches from mine. A familiar situation plagued with an unfamiliar danger.
“I--” My mother, her name once again upon that list played through my head. The way I had smeared it, having no clue as to what it meant. Unlucky me, I never paid much attention to my mother’s lectures. Otherwise I would have never met Rowan.
“There’s a man with many faces, Lyra,” Rowan whispered, every word painted across my lips in his breath by our proximity. “He shows up so many
times in our history, he’s in nearly every photograph and painting in your mother’s text books. Those who sign become another identity for him, another face amongst the crowd. He takes their form as he pleases, curses them beyond belief, and in exchange, he gifts them with powers beyond their wildest dreams; the ability to defy death if that’s what they want.”
I couldn’t move, I couldn’t fight. Something about his words felt so ominous, that it was practically paralyzing.
“I put my name in the book,” he admitted. “I signed it in my blood, alongside Pat Lobdel’s, Tommy Marklebee, Angie Summer, and half the city. Your mother’s name was there, but it was crossed out, the only woman who has ever beaten the devil.”
My blood ran cold, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. “What are you talking about? Rowan, that’s--”
“That’s why everything is perfectly aligned,” Rowan explained. “That’s why the human found you, even though he’s not supposed to have. I bet the old woman told him too, you were never meant to have met him, you were supposed to be mine. But the devil works in strange ways, and if he can’t have Lydia Wynne, then he’ll have you. Even if it means he has to kill a human on the way, even if it means that he had to tempt you with a hopeless pawn, use some sad man’s hope to lure you into the same realm as us.” He leaned forward further, whispering into my ear with near ecstasy, “and when you sign your name in the book so that you can save him, he’ll take it all away. The human won’t even be able to look at you, knowing that you’ve sold your soul, your sacrifice will mean nothing. That’s the nature of humanity.”
My hands knotted, eyes clenched shut as I tried, to the best of my ability, to remind myself that Rowan was capable of lying. It wasn’t true, things like this couldn’t be true, not even in the world of wizardry--
“I know you Lyra, you won’t let him sign his own name. If he did, you wouldn’t even be able to look at him.”
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