Chapter 41 Baz #2
The song that was playing was fast-paced and energetic.
The four of them copied those around them, moving as they did, laughing together as they butchered the steps—well, as Baz butchered the steps.
He was all two left feet and uncoordinated movements, while Kai and Cordie and even Louka seemed to have a natural knack for it.
But oddly enough, Baz couldn’t find it in himself to be the slightest bit embarrassed.
Here he was surrounded by so many people, and he didn’t care, because he was with Kai, and they were laughing, and everything in him felt light for the first time in what felt like forever.
As the fifth or sixth song ended—Baz had lost track—Cordie fanned herself, cheeks flushed and face glowing with sweat. “I need to sit.” When Baz made to follow her and Louka, she said, “Please, stay, enjoy yourselves. We’ll be right back.”
Baz wasn’t so sure about that as he spotted Clover coming up to Cordie, his mouth tight. They exchanged words. She seemed to yell something at him in anger before grabbing Louka and heading for the door.
“What do you think that’s about?” Kai asked, leaning in to be heard.
“No idea.”
The music had slowed, and couples formed around them, dancing closely. Intimately. Baz palmed the back of his neck, his cheeks warm from the exertion. “Should we grab a drink?”
But Kai seemed to have a different idea in mind.
He offered Baz his hand, brows shooting up.
And maybe it was the one sip of alcohol he’d had or maybe it was this high he was riding, but Baz took that hand without a moment’s hesitation.
Kai bowed to him in a ridiculous way, to which Baz answered in kind, laughing.
It started out this way—as a joke, with the two of them smiling giddily, taking turns twirling each other around in an overly dramatic fashion.
But then something changed. The air between them became charged as their gazes met and held.
Baz’s stomach dropped. He couldn’t make sense of the sudden racing of his heart or the warmth of his blood.
He averted his gaze to focus on his feet, even though he didn’t want to—because, Tides damn him, he liked looking at Kai, and he liked how he felt when he was around him.
The realization came to him with no small amount of confusion, especially as his gaze flickered up to Kai’s again, and something swelled in his stomach at how close they were.
He didn’t understand what was happening.
Except… hadn’t it always been there? This thing between them that felt like more than friendship alone.
A sense of kinship Baz had always struggled to describe.
And now…
“Brysden.” Kai nudged him at his sudden change. “You all right?”
“I—yeah, of course.” But Baz let go of Kai as the slow song came to its end and the music picked up speed again. “I think I need to have a sit, though,” he said, clearing his throat. “All this dancing.”
He tried not to dwell on the look in Kai’s eyes—disappointment, perhaps. The start of a melancholy storm.
“May we cut in?”
Clover and Thames had joined them, looking as breathless as they were from dancing.
They made quite the pair, with Clover dressed all in white and Thames in dark crimson, the same golden threads mirrored in each of their outfits.
It took a moment for Baz to realize Clover’s hand was extended toward him.
“Oh, well, I—”
“If Kai doesn’t mind, of course.”
“What?” Baz sputtered, laughing nervously. “Kai’s not—we’re not—”
“We’re just friends,” Kai said with an easy smile. “Baz can dance with whoever he likes.”
Just friends. The words sliced through him like a knife.
“Although, didn’t you say you needed a break?” Kai asked.
Baz thought it sounded like a challenge as Kai’s dark eyes held his.
“I could use a break if you want some company,” Thames chimed in. He looked about as uncomfortable in this party scene as Baz felt. “We can leave these two to their dancing.”
“Wonderful,” Clover said jovially, pivoting to Kai with a crooked smile. “Shall we?”
Baz watched them take to the dance floor, where they seamlessly settled into the quick rhythm of the dancers around them.
He was still trying to figure out what had just happened as he followed Thames to the drinks table.
His gaze kept drifting to where Clover and Kai danced.
Too close, he thought bitterly. And did Clover really have to lean in to whisper so intimately in Kai’s ear?
“Cornelius is like that with everyone,” Thames said with a placating smile.
“Like what?”
“A shameless flirt. It used to bother me, too, at first.”
“I’m not—this doesn’t bother me. Like Kai said, we’re just friends.”
He tried not to read into the knowing look Thames gave him. There was an air of melancholy to him that had Baz thinking Thames wasn’t as unbothered by Clover’s flirtatiousness as he made himself out to be.
Desperate to change the subject, Baz pointed to a wet patch on Thames’s suit. “You’ve got something there.”
Thames looked down at the stain. “Must have spilled some wine,” he said with a laugh that sounded forced. “I best go clean it up…”
Baz was left to himself, sitting forlornly on a divan with no one to talk to.
He thought he saw Kai’s eyes linger on him at one point—as Kai leaned into Clover, suggestively enough that even Baz understood he was flirting with their Tides-damned literary idol.
It was almost as if Kai were trying to make Baz jealous.
But no, that couldn’t be right. Kai wasn’t interested in Baz that way… was he?
Thames’s words wormed into his mind. Maybe he was bothered by all this. And that left him more confused than ever.
The thing about Baz was this: he scarcely ever noticed his own attraction to people.
He was aware of beauty conventions, sure enough, and appreciated features that were striking and visually interesting to his eye.
But he recognized beauty more so in the way that an artist looked at picturesque scenery or a sculptor studied the human form so they could replicate it in the most perfect of ways.
Physical attraction manifested rarely in him, and only if an emotional connection was there to begin with—or sometimes even just a fabricated one, the hope of an emotional bond, when Baz would imagine himself sharing intimacy with a person and feel an inkling of desire as a result.
But such thoughts scared him, and so he rarely if ever acted on them. Emory had coaxed out that side of him, and though it had terrified him to ever act on his feelings, it had also felt right to do so when he finally had.
Kai, on the other hand…
Baz wasn’t sure what to think. But he couldn’t keep sitting here doing nothing. Suddenly the party was too much, so he slipped out of the secret room to seek solace in the quiet of the library. He was surprised to find Cordie sitting on the floor, her face stained with tears.
“Hello.” She patted the spot beside her. “Welcome to the pity party.”
Baz joined her. “Where’s Louka?”
“Gone. My brother had me send him home.”
“Why?”
“Non-magical folk aren’t allowed on campus. If anyone were to find out I brought him here…”
“I thought the point of tonight was to bend the rules. Velleity and all that.”
Cordie gave a dramatic sigh. “Some rules are more ingrained in us than others, just like some desires are not meant to be acted upon.” She gave him a wobbly smile. “What brings you out here?”
“I’m not one for parties and crowds.”
“Neither am I. Well, not this type of crowd, anyway. The lavish parties, the magic… That’s always been Cornelius’s world, not mine.” She bit her lip as if considering whether to keep talking or not. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“I’m not very good at magic. Ever since I enrolled at Aldryn, there have been particularly vicious rumors about me, students saying I’m undeserving of my spot at such a prestigious college because I don’t have enough magic to study here.
Cornelius thinks me associating with those who don’t have more than the tiniest speck of magic only fuels such rumors. ”
“I always thought it unfair that colleges only admit those they deem magical enough,” Baz said. “Magic manifests differently in everyone. Someone’s gift might be more subtle than others’, but if they want to study the theory behind it, they should deserve a place here as much as anyone else.”
Cordie looked at him fondly. “Louka would agree with you. He’s always wanted to study here. But I doubt colleges would soon change their minds on the matter. It would destroy their entire model.”
She was right—two hundred years from now, things were still the same.
“What my brother doesn’t understand is that I don’t care about those rumors,” Cordie continued.
“I don’t care about fitting into academia.
I want to live out there in the world, free to do what I want, to paint when I want, to be with who I want.
But that’s not what Cornelius wants for me, so here I am. ”
“Do you not get a say?”
A harsh laugh. “My brother and I have spent our whole lives glued at the hip. Mingling with the same people, working toward the same goals. I love him, and I know he’s only trying to protect me, but Tides, does it ever feel suffocating at times.
” She frowned, staring into the distance.
“Do you ever notice how sometimes, the people we’re closest to don’t know us at all?
They see the version of us that they want to see and don’t bother knowing the version of us that we want to be. ”
“Yes,” Baz breathed, thinking of everyone who’d ever wanted him to be different than what he was, more adventurous and self-assured. His sister. Emory. Even Kai, on occasion. His mind lingering on the Nightmare Weaver, he added, “But sometimes they see the good in us when we can’t.”
Cordie made a small sound of contemplation at that.
“Does the rest of your family live nearby?” Baz asked. It couldn’t hurt to do some subtle digging into the Clovers.
“We don’t have any family left.”
Baz startled. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. Cornelius and I have been on our own for a long time.
Our parents died when we were still toddlers, and whatever relatives they had are either unknown to us or long since dead.
My brother has been managing our family estate for as long as I can remember.
” She eyed him with curiosity. “What of your family?”
“They’re not alive either.”
It was the truth, in a way. They were not yet alive—would not be for nearly two centuries.
A sad smile touched Cordie’s face. “It’s funny.
My brother and I have everything we could ever possibly need and more, and I’m so grateful to him for being my blood, my protector, my dearest friend.
But I don’t think he’s ever yearned for family the way I do.
He seeks kinship well enough, and I don’t disagree that family can be whomever you choose.
Like you and Kai, for example. The bond you share, this feeling of… home in a person.”
Baz blushed at the insinuation.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to presume,” Cordie said.
“No, it’s fine.” She was right, after all.
“Those bonds are precious. Though I cannot deny that I have this deep yearning for something more.” Cordie sighed, eyeing the art adorning the wall across from them. “Do you paint? You look to me like you have an artist’s soul.”
“Painting, no, but I do like to draw.”
“You should come with me to my studio sometime. I have charcoals and sketchbooks and all sorts of things. We could have ourselves a quiet artists’ afternoon.”
“I’d like that.”
Baz found he enjoyed Cordie’s company. She reminded him oddly of his sister. She had that same effortless magnitude, the bright fervor of someone who dared to dream.
And apparently she couldn’t hold her liquor.
Without warning, Cordie doubled over and was sick all over the floor.
She looked up at him aghast, face tinged green. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I barely had a sip all night.”
“Maybe we should get you to your room,” Baz said, giving her an awkward pat on the back—grateful he hadn’t had more than a sip of that absinthe.