Chapter 10
ten
LIZZY
My eyelids flutter closed, anticipating his touch, the inevitable kiss, the moment that will forever change the nature of our arrangement and rid me of all memories of the bottom-feeding douche canoe I last kissed.
I’m ready for this. I want this, I realize. More than anything. I hold my breath, and… Oh god oh god…
The kiss never comes.
The spell has, somehow, broken.
I open my eyes just as he’s stepping backward.
“Right, then,” he says, clearing his throat. “That was very informative. You… you performed wonderfully.”
“It wasn’t a performance.” It comes out snippier than I intend. A casual onlooker might even assume I’m offended. Or worse, hurt. I cross my arms over my chest.
I’m such an idiot.
Of course he wasn’t going to kiss me. It was all in my stupid head.
“Miss Bonnivarde, I only meant that you performed your duty—assignment. Performed your assignment well. Excelled at it, really, and now we can put together a proper teaching plan that allows you to study the fundamentals while maximizing your innate abilities… yes, that’s all we need.
A plan.” He returns to his trusty journal, frantically scribbling.
Erasing. Scribbling some more. Muttering to himself about spells and kinetic tests and who knows what all else because all I can think about is that look in his eyes the moment he almost touched me again.
The first time, with the chocolate, was a fluke. A reaction more than an intentional move.
But this one was different. And no, it wasn’t in my head. It couldn’t have been. That look, the longing… Not the simple longing of attraction and lust. That I could understand. Get on board with. Right here, right in the woods, grass stains be damned.
I let out a shaky breath. No, Dr. Sutherland wasn’t looking at me like he wanted to fuck me.
He looked at me like he wanted to know me. Like maybe, somehow, he already does.
I steal a glance at him now, still writing, his brow furrowed, lips pursed in intense concentration.
The man is a study in contrasts. The hard angles of his jaw, the lush softness of his lips.
The playful swoop of his hair, the stern set of his shoulders.
Light, yet dark. Sweet and awkward, yet completely intimidating.
He glances at me over the tops of his glasses. Catches me staring like some crazed fangirl. Then, he smiles. He actually smiles—a big one, too. Well, big for him. It’s warm and kind and just a little bit shy, and I think maybe in another lifetime, we might’ve been friends.
“You’ve done brilliantly, Miss Bonnivarde,” he says. “Surpassed all expectations. Truly.”
Oh. Did I say friends? Because what I’d really like to do, in this moment when he’s tossing around words like “brilliantly” and beaming at me like I’m the only ray of sunshine on this otherwise dreary day in a town as gray and lifeless as dishwater, is pull him behind the nearest hawthorn tree, drop to my knees, and—
“Are you quite all right?”
“Sorry?” I blink. Smooth my hands over my sweater. Try not to imagine his hands smoothing over my sweater. And under it.
“You’ve just turned a particular shade of crimson that speaks of fever.”
“Oh! I’m… fine. Just… got a little warm. All those tingles. Magic! I mean magic. Magic tingles.” I rub my arms. “Woo! Very tingly. Um. Anyway! Easy peasy, am I right? I thought you said this magic business would be a challenge?”
“We haven’t even begun to tap into it. There will come a day—in the very near future—when you’re all but begging me to stop.”
Oh boy. You know, this whole thing would be a lot easier if my brain would stop turning everything he says into an innuendo.
He’s a demon, for the love of Satan. And a professor.
An uptight one, too. He already outlawed hugs.
He probably comes from a time when men offered women handkerchiefs after every sniffle and got hard at the sight of a bare ankle under a skirt. Scandalous!
“What are you thinking about?” he wants to know, pencil poised against paper, ever the observer.
“Just… the feeling. The tug, I mean. Whatever’s happening here.
What does it mean?” Evacuating all thoughts of the carnal nature—at least until I’m home under the covers for a little self-care session starring my new hot-for-teacher movie reel—I move closer and peer down at his notes. “Does it make any sense to you?”
“Perfect sense, as a matter of fact.”
God, that smile again. I don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it. It’s just pure, academic joy. I can’t remember when anything lit me up from the inside like that, but this man is nearly vibrating with it.
Speaking of vibrating… did I pack my favorite toy? I must have. I wouldn’t have left it behind. Then again, I left my weed at Brendan’s, so clearly my head wasn’t in the game before I escaped L.A.
Guess I’ll just have to go acoustic.
I wonder what he’s like in bed, with that soft, lush mouth between my thighs, those dexterous fingers sliding into my—
“Channel,” he announces, and I’m starting to think he’s a mind reader, that he’s following me headlong into a scandal after all. But then he grins again, like, ta-da! And goes, “That’s your innate gift. You’re a channel.”
“Oh. Oh! That sounds… great?”
“Great? It’s incredible! The spirits are speaking to you, Miss Bonnivarde.
And while you may not be able to hear them clearly just yet, you’re absolutely sensing them.
At first, I thought your innate power might be mediumship, but your mention of the visions of your mother led me down another track.
I was doing some light reading last night, and…
” He digs through his satchel, pulls out a leather-bound doorstopper of a book.
Flipping to a page in the middle, he points and says, “Channel. You sense and perceive energy signatures, translating them into images and scents and other emanations your five primary senses can process.”
“I’m… translating the energy signatures of dead people?”
“Of a great many things. Souls leave signatures in the form of what most humans call ghosts or spirits, so yes, that explains your talent for spirit communication. With a medium, that would be the extent of it. But in your case, you can also sense the signatures people have left behind on objects they’ve touched, like your mother’s Tarot cards, or the signatures of living beings in your vicinity, as we proved with our experiment.
You’ll feel things like that even more intensely if the person is experiencing a strong emotion toward you. ”
“Like… someone who loves me?”
He waves a dismissive hand. “Love is not an emotion.”
“Are you nuts? It’s the biggest emotion there is!”
“Come now, Miss Bonnivarde,” he says with a note of impatience. “You can’t possibly be serious. Have you never been in love before?”
I laugh, and it comes out all rusty and awkward, because in that moment, I realize I haven’t been.
Not even with Brendan. His cheating didn’t break my heart, if I’m being honest. It just kinda wounded my pride and screwed up my plans.
Those plans being to move in with him, quit my shitty job at the smoothie bar, and never have to work a day in my life.
I wanted to be a kept woman, and I thought Brendan was the man for the job.
That wasn’t love. It was a transaction.
There’s no point in denying it—he’s right. I have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to love. The realization opens up a little hole in my heart.
“Have you?” I ask.
I don’t expect him to answer. And for a few beats, he doesn’t.
Then, that smile again. Quick, but genuine.
“Perhaps I’ve stumbled upon a subject neither one of us has any expertise in.”
“Finally. Something the illustrious Professor Sutherland doesn’t know. I feel like we should mark the occasion.”
“A rare one, to be sure.” He tucks away the book, along with the smile.
“Back to the point at hand, an emotion strong enough to leave a discernible energy signature would be something like… like infatuation, perhaps. Desire, definitely. As well as rage, loathing, gratitude, fear, hatred, disgust, adoration—”
“Lust?”
A dark sigh. “You’re doing it on purpose.”
“What?”
“Trying to distract me in order to avoid the assignment.”
“Well, you’re half right. I am doing it on purpose. But only to get a rise out of you, because this is top-notch entertainment.”
“Have you considered socializing with your peers?”
I think of Brendan. His douchebro friends. Their bored girlfriends. “Have you met my peers?”
“Fair point.”
We head back through the cemetery. I stop to see Calista, but this time I don’t get swept into any visions when I touch her grave.
“Stop by later, if you feel like it,” I tell her, truly hoping she hears me.
Then, to Dr. Sutherland, “That feeling in the woods… was my magic stronger there? Closer to the source, kind of thing?”
“Yes. That’s the case for all witches, regardless of where their magic originates.
The closer to the source, the more undiluted and accessible the magic.
As you gain experience and control, you’ll be able to channel it from greater distances.
Eventually, it will become almost second nature to you.
Casting a spell will feel as natural and easy as—”
“Manifesting an orgasm?”
“Pre-cisely,” he says, not missing a beat.
“Did you just… did you just make an actual joke?”
“That depends.” He casts me a sidelong glance. “Was it actually funny?”
“Now you’re doing it on purpose.”
“Perhaps.” His eyes brighten considerably, and I can’t help but smile, thinking I’m the reason for the shift in his mood.
For that new spark of joy flashing in his eyes.
“Now that I have a better idea of your innate power, we can begin incorporating basic spellcraft alongside your reading assignments, much sooner than I’d anticipated. ”
“Spellcraft? Yay!”
“We’ll need to start with the basics, naturally.”
“Naturally,” I repeat, again with his posh accent.
“A healing charm, or perhaps a simple kinetic test, really there are several possibilities. It rather depends on… yes, yes, I think that could work.” By the time he finishes his conversation, party of one, his eyes are wild with excitement and his hair is sticking up everywhere, glasses sitting crooked on his nose.
God, why does he have to be so adorkable?
“So,” he says, wrapping it all up with a clap. “I believe we’re ready to break out the big guns, as they say.”
His eyes shine. He’s been waiting for this moment. Some major reveal. Maybe he’s ordered matching T-shirts for us. Or maybe I’m getting a magic wand. Or a black cat or a flying broomstick or—ooh!—my own chaos demon to bend to my will and do my dastardly dirty work!
I stop and grin and bounce on my toes and prepare to be wowed.
Then he spreads his hands and goes, “The Bonnivarde family grimoire.”
And I go, “Fuck.”