“I want you,” I said.
“I want you too.” A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before his lips settled back into a grim line. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m old and set in my ways. I don’t understand women or relationships. I’ve never done this before.”
“You managed pretty well with Gertrude Periwinkle. You proposed to her.” He hadn’t made her promise not to tell the world of their love.
Thatch grimaced. “You don’t know what it was like to be under Gertrude’s siren spell. I was besotted with her. I couldn’t control myself. Every time I was away from her and it wore off, I hated knowing how I’d carelessly flaunted our relationship. Simultaneously, I was addicted to that magic and didn’t want it to stop. What our magic did to each other wasn’t healthy for either of us. I don’t want that for our relationship.”
At the time he’d been in a relationship with the librarian, I had tried to tell him how her magic was affecting him. He’d refused to listen. I could see how losing control could have caused him shame.
“I don’t want that either,” I said. “I don’t think it has to be that way for us.”
Priscilla hopped onto the bench between us. Thatch stroked the midnight feathers of her back. She nuzzled her head against his hand. I wondered how much of his sister was left in that bird after being trapped in there for years.
“Can I pet her?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Priscilla, you’ll be a good girl, won’t you? No pecking.”
She eyed me warily. He took my hand and placed two fingers on her back, smoothing the feathers downward. Silently we stroked his familiar’s head and neck. She nuzzled my hand, her beak poking against my wrist, but not enough to scratch it.
“I didn’t tell Josie, just so you know,” I said.
“But you did go to Gertrude after I asked you not to do so.”
“You didn’t ask. You told me. Maybe if you had asked nicely, I would have agreed. And maybe it’s just as well I did go to her. She wouldn’t have listened to you.”
He frowned. “She told me as much later.”
“And you were still mad at me after that?” I asked.
He held himself stiffly. “I wasn’t vexed.”
Priscilla pecked at his knee. I smiled. She knew he was lying too.
Thatch shooed her back from his pants. “You know I don’t like it when you damage my suits.”
She opened her wings and fluttered back onto the ground.
“You wouldn’t talk to me,” I said.
“As I said before, I didn’t know what to say. Perhaps I should have known you would have more than enough to say for the both of us.” One side of his mouth lifted into a crooked smile.
I laughed.
“Will you forgive me?” His brow furrowed, pensive and hopeful.
“Yes, if you can stop being so overbearing all the time.”
“I can make no promises.”
I gave him my best teacher look. “Not good enough. And just so you know, I am telling Josie. She’s my best friend, and I’m not going to keep this secret any longer. And I’m not going to stand for you giving me ultimatums choosing between the two of you. That isn’t fair.”
His cheeks flushed pink. He took my hand in his. “Please don’t.”
A student giggled somewhere behind us. I turned to see who was coming on the path. I didn’t see anyone.
Thatch dropped my hand. “Give it a month. Wait four weeks, and we can see if you feel the same way. If you still have this urge to tell her, can we discuss it again then?”
I didn’t like the idea of waiting four weeks. A lot could happen in that time. She could accidentally find out and be so hurt she wouldn’t want to talk to me. For a month I would feel like I was living a lie to her.
At the same time, this was the most reasonable compromise Thatch had offered me. He wasn’t being overbearing and high-handed.
“Okay,” I said. “Four weeks.”
His eyes glittered with mischief. He leaned forward. I closed my eyes, anticipating he would kiss me, and everything would be wonderful between us again.
His lips brushed against my ear. “It appears we have spies in our midst. Look over your right shoulder.”
I turned, just in time to see Hailey and Maddy duck behind two trees. The girth of the trunks weren’t wide enough to hide them.
“Of course,” I rolled my eyes.
Thatch stood and called out to them. “Ladies, come here.”
“Run!” Hailey said.
Craptacular. If students had overheard our conversation and witnessed us holding hands, they would tell others. Gossip spread faster than the plague in a small community.
Thatch stood. He untucked his wand from his pocket and aimed it at the two fleeing students. Hailey and Maddy halted in their tracks and turned toward us. It looked as though they fought every footstep as they approached us. This had to be why Thatch had such good students in his classes. He probably forced them to write essays and sit quietly.
Thatch had despised Elric for using a spell to possess him. I wondered how this was any different. I had mixed feelings about his methods.
He lifted his nose in the air, imperiously staring down at them. “Miss Lawrence and I were having a private conversation . . . about student grades. What did you overhear?”
“Nothing,” Hailey said quickly.
“Shush.” Maddy nudged Hailey with her elbow. “We heard you say ‘four weeks.’ Something is going to happen in four weeks.” She looked to me, eyebrows raised expectantly as if I was going to willingly supply her with the answer.
Thatch crossed his arms. “What else?”
Hailey giggled. “You were holding hands.”
“We were not,” Thatch said indignantly. “If you had been observant—a skill you would do well to improve—you would have seen I placed Miss Lawrence’s hand on my familiar. She was petting my bird.”
Hailey busted up laughing. I knew how her mind worked.
“That wasn’t a euphemism.” I gestured to Priscilla. “That is Mr. Thatch’s pet bird.”
Maddy grinned. “And it looked like you were going to kiss Miss Lawrence, but you just whispered something to her instead.”
Thatch waved his wand. Green and pink light glittered in front of their faces. Hailey tried to wave it away.
“Now.” Thatch raised an eyebrow. “What did you witness and hear?”
“We saw bubble gum swap across rivers.” Maddy’s brows drew together. She looked to Hailey.
“Fudge monkey is cozy with candy witches.” Hailey stomped her foot. “A tongue-twister spell! Really, dude?”
Thatch pointed a finger at her in warning. “You will not address your teachers as ‘dude.’”
I laughed in delight. Felix Thatch was brilliant. He thought of everything. Or so I thought.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Putting the Romance Back into Necromancy
Thursday morning when I checked my mailbox, I found a new tutoring schedule. Pretty much every hour of every day outside of classes, after-school clubs, and duties was filled with magic lessons or time for practicing what I’d learned.
He’d set up three one-hour sessions with Josie, possibly because he knew I wanted to spend time with her, but he didn’t set up any longer times, probably because he didn’t want any spider accidents. I had spent plenty of time with Josie for longer periods before the jorogumo accident. Her out-of-whack affinity was the least of my worries.
There was a Fae princess out there who had conspired to murder my mother. She might be the one who wanted me and Thatch dead as well.
I supposed I should have been thankful Thatch had filled my mornings and evenings with magic, just like I’d always wanted, but he had only left me with half-hour breaks here or there. There wasn’t any time left to spend with him intimately or doing art or unplanned activities.
That evening he had scheduled over two hours fo
r a magic lesson, but there was only a half hour to spare afterward, just enough time for me to return to the women’s wing and get ready for bed.
I brought the schedule with me to my magic lesson after dinner. When I brought it up, he took out his pocket watch—the one I had given him—and drummed his fingers against his desk. “You are already five minutes late to this lesson. I would prefer to postpone questions until after our session.”
I told myself I could be a flexible, compromising person. I was capable of patience. I waited until after the lesson before I removed the schedule from my pocket again.
“When am I going to spend time with you?”
“You just spent two hours with me.” His eyebrows drew together.
I didn’t know whether he was trying to be clueless or he just naturally was born that way.
“When can we spend time together intimately? Not when you’re bossing me around and critiquing my lack of skills.”
He pointed to a blank spot on the schedule. “I’ve arranged for this half-hour spot right here.” He pointed to another one. “And here.”
“That isn’t enough time.”
He pointed to another spot. “I’ve given you free time in other places. You can use it as you wish. You can spend it with me or Josephine or students or. . . .” He stopped, his gaze flickering to my fists clenching the metal arms of the chair. “What?”
“A half hour? Really?” I tried to smooth the prickles of my anger, but it wasn’t working very well.
“Oh,” he said. “Hmm.” He drummed his fingers on his desk. “You don’t think a half hour is enough time to satiate your desires? It doesn’t take you that long to orgasm. True, you might want to take a shower afterward. We could probably end some of our lessons a few minutes earlier to accommodate that.”
I rose from the chair. “So you’re basically saying you are going to have sex with me and then kick me out the door.”
“No, we talked about this already. I’m not going to order you. I’m going to ask you . . . politely.” He smiled as if he was pleased with himself.
Priscilla croaked out a warning from her cage.
He seriously didn’t get it. I forced myself not to grind my teeth. My dad, being the concerned orthodontist he had been when he’d been alive, had warned me against that habit. If there was an advice book out there titled Relationships for Dummies, I was going to order it off the Internet for Thatch.
I pronounced each word slowly. “A relationship is more than the time we spend having sex with each other. It needs to be more than the two to three scheduled orgasms you’ve allotted me each week.”
“Indeed.” He inclined his head. “I should hope we can occasionally make an appointment to satiate my physical needs.”
I couldn’t control the tempest raging inside me any longer. I stalked around his desk and punched him in the arm.
“Ow,” he said. “That was kind of . . . nice. But not hard enough to be useful for pain magic. Do you want to try again?”
I snatched my schedule out of his hand and left his office. Was he trying to get me to break up with him again?
“I take it that’s a no?” he called after me.
By the time I reached my dorm room, my anger was in full swing. Vega sat on her bed in her silk pajamas, writing runes in a notebook. I grabbed my bathroom bag and stomped out.
When I returned, a smug smile laced Vega’s lips. “Someone is in a pissy mood. Things didn’t go well with your lesson tonight?”
“Be quiet.” I yanked open a drawer and selected my favorite pair of pajamas. I hadn’t worn the old Strawberry Shortcake set in a while, but tonight I needed the childhood comfort of a favorite character and material worn soft from frequent use.
“He was a fucktard, wasn’t he?” Vega cackled.
“He is the most clueless man I’ve ever met. He’s brilliant when it comes to magic, but when it comes to people. . . .”
“He’s socially retarded. I know.”
I wouldn’t have worded it that way, but she had the right idea. More than ever, I wished I could have told Josie about our relationship. I needed a friend’s shoulder to cry on, not Vega’s. Not that I could talk to Vega either.
Vega set aside her journal. “Do you know what I think your problem is?”
“What is my problem?”
“You care too much about what people think.” She tapped her fountain pen on the book. “You care too much in general. You fall in love too easily.”
“No, that isn’t it.”
“No? If you were able to resist Felix Thatch’s dark and mysterious ways, he couldn’t hurt you the way he does. You’ve been pathetically smitten with him ever since he had his way with you—or wait—let me correct that one. Since his wand had its way with you.” She winked at me like we shared a private joke.
“I’m not in love with him,” I lied. I changed into my pajamas behind the dressing screen so I didn’t have to look her in the eyes.
“He’s doing the same thing to you as he did to Josephine Kimura. She was infatuated with him. You can’t blame her taste in eye candy, even if she’s a moron for how obvious it is men have no interest in her. He led her on. He used her. It amused him to be cruel to her.”
“That isn’t what happened.” Josie had told me what had happened. He’d told me his version. “They had a misunderstanding.” I came out from behind the screen and placed my dirty clothes in the hamper.
“Did she tell you that? Or did you assume that because you want to see the good in everyone? I suspect she’s too embarrassed to tell you the truth.” She composed her face into a façade of pity. “No offense, honey, but you’re a cute little idiot. It’s no wonder he enjoys toying with you.”
That was Vega. A hint of niceness and concern one minute, back to her bitchy self the next. Probably now that I was done scanning books for her, she didn’t have a reason to be friendly with me. It was just as well I didn’t confide in her. If she had known the truth about our relationship, she would have used it against me to hurt me.
She leaned toward me, propping herself up on an elbow. “Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, what feels like a century ago, Thatch and I dated. Maybe ‘dated’ isn’t the right word. ‘Fuck buddies’ might be more accurate. Do you know what it was like trying to pursue any kind of relationship with that man?”
Her words lured me in. From what I had gathered about Vega’s history at the school, a century was actually about a decade ago, shortly after she’d first been hired at the school. Finding out more about Thatch’s past and Vega’s was tempting—but I had a feeling it would only leave me feeling worse.
“You know what? I don’t want to hear about this,” I said, proud of myself for not taking the bait.
She went on anyway. “Thatch doesn’t do dates. He accompanied me out, mostly to clubs and speakeasies where no one knew him. I was fine with this. These were the clubs that played my kind of music, and the dancing was hot. He tolerated accompanying me, but he rarely danced. Mostly he sketched the dancers. You’ve seen him with that little book of his. He would rather write morose poetry or draw than interact with human beings. Not once at the speakeasy did he hit on me or express interest in any man or woman there. He was so dull.”
I had seen him write in his book. “I didn’t know he wrote poetry.” The idea of him writing love poems made me smile. Vega would find that dull rather than romantic.
“Wipe that smile off your face. I’m telling you a story about how horrible that man is. Would you pretend to show some decency and focus on my misery?” Vega snapped her fingers at me like I was a dog.
For a moment, I had forgotten I was mad at him. Yet, all the poetry in the world wasn’t going to dig him out of his social ineptitude.
The lids of Vega’s eyes drooped, reminding me of the film stars of the silent films in the twenties. “As I was saying . . . Felix Thatch has the twisted sense of humor of a grumpy old man who thinks he’s cl
ever. Think about it. He pined for your mother for years. All the while, she rejected him while keeping him on a tight leash. It’s bound to make someone bitter.”
“How do you know? You weren’t at Womby’s then.” I crossed my arms and sat on my bed, suspicious about why she was telling me all this. Vega didn’t do anything without an agenda.
“Darling, everyone knows about Thatch and your mother. They’re just too nice to tell you the details. Here’s what I want you to consider. Thatch worked with that madwoman for years, never getting any action the entire time he wanted her. At least, that’s the rumor.
“He became jaded and jealous after she spurned him for someone. Originally, I assumed your father, though perhaps not if Alouette Loraline created you from a spell instead of through sexual intercourse with a man.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, as if a spell was even dirtier. “Thatch was already an old man at that point, at least he would be if he was a Morty. But he’s probably fixed himself up with anti-aging spells and glamours for the façade of youth—Don’t try to tell me he isn’t vain. We both know he is.”
I hadn’t been about to argue with her. Thatch’s pride and vanity were his greatest flaws. No, maybe his stubbornness was his greatest flaw.
Or his inability to empathize with human emotions.
She studied her red manicured nails. “Then after all that waiting and pining and being your mother’s BFF, she tortured him, tried to kill him, and left him for dead. He was arrested, and the Witchkin Council would have executed him if it hadn’t been for Jeb intervening on his behalf. He was the one who proved Thatch’s innocence. Thatch wouldn’t even argue on his own behalf. Even after he heard about her death, he was reluctant to speak ill of her.”
Thatch had told me what Alouette Loraline had done to him. That much I knew to be true. I had recently found out that Jeb’s Fae ally had wanted him to get Felix Thatch to lead him to my biological mother. If everything in that letter I’d read was true, Thatch seeking Loraline out had unwittingly outed her location. That’s how she’d been found.
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