Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER
Fifteen
When Jasper faced Thea, he was already scowling. ‘Am I so terrible?’ His voice was soft. ‘Do you truly hate the very sight of me?’
‘You took my heart!’ The words exploded from Thea like lightning. ‘I have no memories. I cannot love. I do not even know my own name. Do you really expect me to rejoice in your presence?’
Jasper stared at her, his throat working hard. The pale moonlight illuminated his cheekbones and silvered his eyes. ‘We made a deal,’ he said gravely. ‘You may not remember it, but you chose this. I took nothing from you that you didn’t want to give.’
Defiance ignited within Thea. ‘That was seven years ago! I am different now. I do not want this.’
‘You cannot reforge a deal simply because you have regrets,’ he bit back. ‘We all have regrets we must live with – it is the way of the world.’
‘Spoken like a man with experience.’ Thea folded her arms. This hugged her nightgown closer, making her aware of how little she was wearing and the way that the moonlight illuminated her generous curves through the thin material.
Jasper’s eyes darkened. A lock of his hair escaped over his left temple. Thea’s heart-spell twitched as the usually every-strand-perfectly-in place Jasper started to come unbound.
‘Why must you insist on hating me?’ he asked hoarsely.
‘Because I do not trust you.’
Jasper gestured at the records on the counter. ‘You are the one who has broken my trust.’
‘Good. Then our hatred is mutual.’
They glared at each other, a question flaming between them, heating the air, demanding to be answered.
Jasper stepped closer. ‘Fine.’
Thea raised her chin, her chest rising and falling faster with her fury.
‘Fine,’ she whispered.
Then Jasper reached for her, his hand grasping her waist, roughly clenching the nightgown she wore as if he wanted to tear it from her. Thea shivered, picturing his lips on her mouth. What would it be like to kiss him? Would he taste as wild as the scent that clung to his collar, his hair?
‘Are you still seeing that man?’ Jasper’s voice was gravel.
‘I am.’ She refused to apologise. ‘He’s kind and caring and—’
Jasper’s hand was warm through her thin nightgown. How had she ever considered him cold when there was this heat running through him?
‘And?’ he prompted, his dark stare never once leaving her eyes.
He looked at her as if he never wanted to stop.
As if this storm could cleave the world apart and they would still be standing there, in the blistering ruins, with his eyes locked on her.
Hoarfrost crackled along the windowpanes, devouring the glass.
Thea ran her tongue over her lip. Jasper’s stare dropped to her mouth. ‘And he’s nice to me,’ she finished weakly.
‘I can be nice.’
‘No, you can’t.’ Thea’s breath hitched. ‘You’re not nice.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Jasper agreed. ‘But I know exactly what you want. What you need.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Me.’ His hand still clenching her nightgown, he pulled her towards him and kissed her.
Thea’s lips parted in surprise. She shouldn’t want this.
His arms wrapped around her back, pulling her tighter towards him.
His mouth was softer, warmer than she could have imagined.
Suddenly, she couldn’t remember a single reason why this was a terrible idea.
She kissed him back. Jasper moaned into her mouth as she responded, kissing her more urgently, his stubble brushing against her, sending lightning rushing through her veins, thunder cleaving the skies open outside as he broke her world apart and reforged it.
She grabbed the front of his shirt, rising onto her toes as their kiss became more fervent.
Jasper’s hands slid up to Thea’s neck and tangled in her loose hair, and she melted into his burning heat as he tasted her, seeking more, more, more, more.
He was dark, wild, delicious, and she never wanted to stop.
Her back bumped against the counter. They paused, staring at each other, wide-eyed and breathless. Jasper’s hair was windswept, his collar undone.
‘Jasper,’ she whispered, his name filled with a stark wanting that might have embarrassed her if she hadn’t seen that same need reflected in him.
Quick as another flash of lightning, Jasper lifted Thea onto the countertop, her nightgown riding up her thighs. She clamped them around his hips, pulling him closer as their mouths met, their kiss turning fierce.
‘Gods, Thea,’ he groaned as she pressed against him, burying her hands in his hair. He braced himself on the counter as she wrapped herself around him, losing herself in his kiss.
Something clattered to the floor.
‘Leave that,’ Thea sighed into his mouth.
Jasper bent to retrieve it. It was her journal.
‘That’s not important,’ Thea said quickly, breathlessly. Her lips were cold with the lack of him.
Jasper frowned as he looked at the journal, realising what she had written there: the list of ingredients for Malek’s key, along with her ideas on where to procure them. Her idea of creating the inverse of that key to protect the Magic Quarter. ‘When did you write this?’ he demanded.
‘This evening,’ she admitted.
‘You are still planning to go foraging near the Crossroads?’ Jasper stared at Thea, his mouth swollen, his hair in disarray after she’d plundered both. ‘After I just warned you to stay far from there?’
Thea’s fingertips rested on her bruised lips, her breath ragged, her thoughts turned inside out by the man she hated who’d made her feel things she couldn’t remember ever having felt before.
‘Surprisingly, I do not heed your every word, especially when you don’t bother to answer any questions I have or explain anything I should know. ’
Jasper touched his temple as if she’d pained him.
Thea couldn’t help laughing. ‘If that irritates you then imagine how I feel, left in the dark, never knowing anything but always wondering. Who was I before I knocked on the back door of that apothecary? What happened to me that I wanted to give my heart and life in exchange for ridding myself of my memories? Every single last memory. And why were you the one to take them?’ she added. ‘Why not whoever was here before me?’
Jasper closed her journal, replacing it atop the counter.
He did not resume his position between her thighs, nor did he move further away.
They were at a stalemate. Becoming aware of that distance between them, Thea tugged her nightgown back down over her knees.
‘Yours was an unusual request,’ he said quietly.
‘Too advanced for my previous apprentice.’ He raked his hair back. ‘I couldn’t risk your heart like that.’
Thea’s heart-spell flickered. As if it knew they were discussing it. ‘Why did I give it up?’
Jasper’s chest rose and fell. ‘I cannot tell you that. I cannot break our bargain.’
‘Will I ever get it back?’ Thea whispered. ‘Will I ever be able to leave?’
Jasper closed his eyes for a beat. ‘When you guess your true name, your memories – and your heart – will return and you will no longer be bound to the apothecary.’
Thea took a ragged breath. ‘It’s been seven years. If I haven’t guessed it—’
‘Don’t stop,’ Jasper said fiercely. ‘You must never stop guessing, never give up hope.’
‘All right.’ Thea’s heart-spell flickering harder as she stared at him. ‘I won’t.’ Either she was delirious, or Jasper wanted her to break the spell. Her understanding of who he was suddenly . . . shifted as all her thoughts and recollections reframed themselves.
Jasper’s hand flexed on the countertop beside her.
‘Good. As for your predecessor, she left shortly before you arrived needing a place to stay.’ His jaw ticked.
‘I am not the monster you assume I am. Each one of my apprentices came here looking for a new beginning. They, like you, needed this. But you must stay out of the forest. If you need something, you ask me, and I will retrieve it for you.’ He fixed her with a curious look.
‘Tell me more about this key; what were the customer’s parameters? ’
Thea explained how Malek had requested the key. What his wishes were. Jasper listened so attentively, withholding any judgement, that she then broached her theory about crafting the opposite to bolster the wards. ‘You read my thoughts about both in my notebook, what do you think?’
‘The key is a complex bit of magic,’ Jasper said approvingly.
‘Your skills are improving, but I’m afraid creating the inverse of it will not help the Magic Quarter; the original ward was interwoven with the buildings itself, forging a liminal space where the Quarter can expand as much as needed over the years, preserving its shops and homes and streets.
Yours was a valiant idea, but we must repair the original ward. ’
Thea must have looked disappointed, for Jasper apologised.
‘Do you know who made the original wards?’ she asked.
‘They were made by a fate-weaver, centuries ago. One that I am not in contact with, or I would have reached out to them by now. It’s their greatest legacy, creating a safe, secret space for an entire Quarter. We must find a way to ensure it continues.’
‘We will,’ Thea said softly.
The blizzard was breathing its dying gasp outside, a weakened wind rattling the street lamps, the thunder and lightning long faded away.
They were no longer trapped together, and though realising that would have filled Thea with cheer not an hour earlier, now she noted the storm’s end with despondence.
Jasper made to leave.
‘Wait,’ Thea clasped his wrist.
Jasper turned back, a pinprick of hope shining through him, one that made Thea’s breath catch in her throat. She hopped down from the counter and looked up at him. ‘I need a fingernail from a lake spirit.’
Jasper rubbed his forehead with a groan. ‘Lake spirits are notorious for needing their own space. The only way to retrieve one of their nails is if it becomes embedded in your flesh when they attack you.’
Thea winced. ‘Do you have one?’ she asked hopefully. ‘I need it for the key.’
‘Unfortunately, I do,’ Jasper said darkly. ‘I’ll bring it tomorrow.’
‘Jasper—’
‘Tomorrow.’ His voice roughened. ‘I swear I will bring it tomorrow, but it’s growing late and—’ he swallowed.
‘And what?’
‘And we don’t want a . . . repeat occurrence,’ he said, looking at her mouth. ‘This should never have happened.’
Thea bit her lip, unable to help noticing how Jasper tracked her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. ‘No, we don’t want that.’
‘We are entirely unsuited to each other.’ Jasper’s voice was still rough, though it lifted at the end like a question. Just enough to betray him.
‘Horribly unsuited,’ she whispered.
If he wasn’t going to voice that he felt something, then neither would she.
He gave a sharp nod. ‘Then we are agreed. Goodnight, Theodora.’
‘Cassandra,’ she said.
He blinked, unfollowing.
‘Is my name Cassandra?’ she repeated.
‘It is not.’
He walked out into the softening snowfall.
Thea headed to the stairs alone, pausing to lift Cinnamon into her arms, before she returned to her little home overlooking the frosted oak trees, and slept at last.The last thing she saw before she fell into a dream was how Jasper had looked down at her when she’d come round, his sapphire-blue eyes more anguished than she’d ever remembered seeing them.