Chapter Twenty-Five. In Which Life-Altering Realizations Occur #3
She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the feeling of Brunhilda’s magic as it raced across her skin like little sparks of fire.
Thought of all the vines and weeds and threads that made up curses, how they wrapped around people.
Imagined working her own kind of magic, a curse that worked for her, knots around the airship to keep it afloat, to keep it together.
She didn’t understand the first thing about magic, how it did or didn’t work, but she wasn’t going to let it get the best of her yet.
Upon opening her eyes, she expected to find that the airship had stopped its mad dash toward the earth, but instead she saw Javi sitting up, his face hovering close to hers.
So close she could count the freckles spattered across his nose and the few lone ones that dared stray from the pack.
One below his right eye. Another at the corner of his mouth.
She discovered a scar on his chin that matched one she had earned when she ran into a wall at age seven.
Risa was an explorer stumbling across uncharted territory, and finding beauty that she never imagined existed in the planes of his face.
Adrenaline made it impossible to tear her gaze from him. Their death was moments away, tangible and real, and she was too concerned with the wrinkle between Javi’s brows. The molten gold of his eyes.
And then it hit her like a giant airship careening toward the earth. Risa finally, finally understood what her insides had been trying to say all this time. Why her heart twinged painfully in her chest when he was away. Why she couldn’t breathe when he looked at her.
Why she couldn’t breathe now as he stared at her as if she were more than just a girl.
She had no idea when it had happened. Only that now that she realized it, it felt like magic.
“Curses,” she breathed.
Javi tilted his head a fraction of an inch, mouth twisting in confusion. Dirt had somehow joined the smudge of crimson across his face. As they hurtled toward the ground like a star shaken from its place in the sky, he looked more handsome than she ever thought possible.
“What?”
She was falling in love with him.
He was infuriating and self-serving, obsessed with himself and his image, but he was also rather quick-witted, and he never failed to smile.
He didn’t know much, and he wasn’t particularly skilled with a sword, and he might be a talented singer if he could come up with better rhymes, but those weren’t things she cared about.
What she loved was that he ate salted fish soup without complaint.
He nuzzled with Brunie when he thought she wasn’t looking, and hadn’t complained about his stuffed nose since the first day.
She loved that for someone who loved to be loved, he didn’t mind so much that she didn’t care for his charm or his smile.
She loved that he kept at her side despite knowing she had a secret, despite knowing it could hurt him in the end.
This time, when he lifted his hand, he placed it on her shoulder and anchored her in place. His gold gaze met hers.
“Have you finally realized you’re in love with me?”
“What I’ve realized is we’re about to die in a fiery, burning crash.”
He didn’t tear his eyes away. “It would appear so.”
“Could be worse,” she tried to say, though she wasn’t sure if the words ever really formed.
“Blast it,” Javi cursed. “If I don’t do this, I’ll regret it forever.”
He kissed her.
It was a ghost of a kiss. Gentle. A soft press of lips. A question she was terrified of.
She sighed, closed her eyes, and answered.
Risa felt his hands slide around her jaw, holding her in place.
It didn’t matter that his hand was covered in blood, or that the world around them was moments from splintering into a thousand pieces.
It was a kiss that made her believe she could never be so Bad as to not deserve this: a warmth in her chest, a weightlessness in her belly, a spark that could burn through her and leave her wanting more.
It was a kiss that made her believe in magic.
Then he was gone.
“Good.” His lips were slick from the kiss, his eyes hooded and dark. “If I die, at least it is with the knowledge that I’m falling in love with a terrible kisser.”
She laughed in spite of herself. Belatedly she covered her mouth with a hand before whispering, without real venom, “In my defense, that was only my second kiss.”
He pulled back enough to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “If we somehow survive this awful, inescapable nightmare, we can practice.”
“Wait.” Yes, the world was ending, and yes, kissing had ignited a different kind of fire within her, but she needed to know. “I thought you and Amina—”
Javi gasped in mock horror. “She’s twelve!”
“Sixteen.”
“Same thing. How could you think that?”
“You’ve been whispering to each other!”
“Discussing what your secret could be!”
“Oh.”
“Minutes from death and you choose to argue with me about whether or not I have feelings for a girl I consider my sister.” He tutted. “Unbelievable.”
“We can practice now,” Risa amended, because she knew there would be no surviving this awful, inescapable nightmare since there was no way to survive her curse.
So they kissed again, Brunie tucked between them, and behind their closed eyelids, the world burst into blinding light.