Chapter 16 #2
Quinn crawled to her ladder, her ass stuck up in the air, and I quickly turned my back, doing math equations in my head to keep my blood from rushing downward.
“My last thought was how badly I wanted to make it to the market.” Quinn jumped off the bottom rung; her too-long shirt swished above her knees. She looked adorable. “But I ended up here. So, I’m not sure what we can learn from that.”
“And in your blackouts before?” I asked.
“Well, the most recent were vague.” Quinn rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “I knew I didn’t want to be where I was. My subconscious probably focused on home. But magic can’t take me somewhere that doesn’t exist.”
My heart broke for her. I knew whatever she experienced wasn’t the same as what I had, but losing my daughter.
.. I left my family. And now that I understood what they were, I could never go back.
I wrapped her in my arms and pulled her close.
“Home doesn’t have to be a place.” My life at my family’s compound was over, finished.
I would never think of it as home again. “It can be a feeling.”
Quinn wiggled to wrap her arms around me as well. She squeezed me hard. “Thank you.”
She leaned back and reached up, brushing away my tears before they could fall, and then did the same for herself, our sadness mixing on her finger.
A weight lifted off my shoulders. I was suddenly very aware of her body pressed against my front. My gaze dropped to her perfect, kissable lips. My blood heated, and time froze. Every fiber of my being begged me to taste her and kiss away her unhappy emotions.
It was more than a physical response or a command from my Prophet. I wanted this tiny, idiotic woman to be happy. The sudden thought was so foreign it snapped me back to reality.
Instead of kissing her, I stepped back.
Quinn’s half-lidded eyes snapped open. She dropped her gaze to the floor and rubbed one of her biceps. “Right. Magic. I’ve got a handle on the Majekah part, sorta, I think. But I feel like I learned to run before I could walk.”
I swallowed, desperate to recapture our moment and equally desperate to ensure it never happened again. I was wrong. I could not make her happy. I didn’t know how to make anyone happy. I didn’t know who I was.
“So yeah, ah,” Quinn stammered when I still didn’t speak or move. “There’s a bit of a pattern… ah, if you don’t count these last few. My last thought is often my new reality, so to speak.”
I needed to say something. Anything.
“Patterns are good.” I latched on to what I understood. “My runes are sets of patterns I layer to manipulate energy.”
Quinn stopped studying the floor and looked up at me with her big, hopeful eyes.
“Passing on knowledge is essential to shining in the Prophet’s light.” I hated the words the moment they left my lips, but I’d spent my life repeating our scripture.
Quinn nodded. “I don’t know who your Prophet is, but I want to learn.”
An image of her spread out under me as we learned every sensitive part of her body together flashed into my head, and my blood raced.
“Cayden, are you ok?” Quinn reached out but didn’t touch me.
She’d never hesitated to touch me before, and I hated myself for making her feel insecure. Not all touch was sexual. I could compartmentalize this.
I snagged her hand. “I’m struggling here. The world’s not what I thought it was.”
Quinn laced our fingers together. “Me too.”
Once again, I found myself drawing on this slip of a woman’s strength. We needed each other. She needed me. I couldn’t fall apart.
“Patterns are the perfect place to start.” I smiled and squeezed her hand. “Breakfast at Wicked Wich?” The castle’s little bakery would do fine. “We can spend the morning together.”
“Don’t we have placements?” Quinn asked.
I pursed my lips. “You’ve been excused due to injury, and my final one isn’t until the afternoon.”
“What is the point of the placements? I’ve missed half of them.” Quinn wrinkled her nose adorably.
I couldn’t help myself and kissed her forehead. “I don’t really get it either, but I think the point was to show us all our options and for the family to see if we were good at any of them.”
Quinn snorted.
I shrugged. “It really does sound like it’s a combination of what we are good at and what we want to do, as long as they need people in that job. We’ll see all the options tonight, at the Mixer.”
“What’s a Mixer?” Quinn looked at me skeptically.
“How are you so out of the loop?” I let out an exaggerated sigh.
Though if I hadn’t seen the reminder on my TB this morning, I would not have remembered it either.
“A Mixer is the Architect’s version of a party.
And this one’s specifically for us to mingle with the various departments that our placements are going to be in. ”
“I don’t think I want to go to a party.” Quinn wrinkled her nose.
I scowled. “You’ll have to take that up with Everly. She said you agreed to spend the afternoon preparing for it with her.”
Quinn’s face lit up. “I’m going with Everly?” She chewed on her bottom lip, and a bit of excitement filled her eyes. “I’ve been to exactly one party, alone, and it’s not a good memory. But maybe if I’m with friends…” A smile played on her lips.
I raised an eyebrow, not sure if I believed her, but also not sure why she’d lie about something like that. “Just one, and alone?”
Quinn bit her lips together. “I, ah, lived a pretty sheltered life.”
That I did believe. “Let me guess. You had a personal chef. Explains why there’s not a crumb in here for a mouse.”
Quinn snorted. “The Grinch took all my toys.”
I narrowed my eyes, suddenly angry with this Grinch. “Who’s the Grinch?”
“Never mind.” Quinn squeezed my hand.
I waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. I added the name to my shit list and squeezed her hand back before pushing her toward her bed. “Get dressed. We have some knowledge to get through that thick skull of yours.”
I’d meant it to be funny, but the moment the words came out of my mouth, I remembered her ‘fall.’ Quinn was too sweet and trusting. She’d jump off a cliff for Everly, which made me worry who else was in my best friend’s life.
My heart thudded in my chest. I had a best friend, not someone assigned to me or praying at my side, but a woman who chose to spend her time with me. I suddenly wanted to wrap her in every protective spell I knew and demand she never leave this room.
But that was wrong. My instincts were wrong, so I kept my lips shut and my back turned while she dressed.
My attention moved to the inactive cauldrons hanging from the four corners of her skylights.
There was no way my best friend had simply fallen. Or, if she had, someone helped. Someone hurt my girl. I was sure of it. Her magic hadn’t brought her back to her dorm. Someone had carried her here in their cloak. The massive bloody thing was still on her couch.
I drew, sending a magic tracking rune into her room. Energy signatures burst to life in her cauldrons and heat cone. My forest green, Erick’s coral, and a pure white drift lazily under her skylight before vanishing in the sun's rays. I burned the color into my memory.