Chapter 10
Two days.
Two days of telling herself she wouldn't think about him, then thinking about nothing else.
Two days of taking the long way to Sainsbury's specifically to avoid Hyndland Road, then standing at the top of the street and staring down it like a woman at the edge of a cliff.
Two days of opening WhatsApp to message him and closing it again before she could type.
She'd kept herself busy. The shop. The morning tending. A long phone call with Cat about absolutely nothing. She'd cleaned the flat twice. She'd taken Sadie up on three coffees in a row. Anything to keep her hands and her mind occupied.
By the third night, she'd run out of reasons.
Rowan knew it was the wrong thing to do.
She knew she should have walked down Byres Road and up Highburgh Road to get to her flat.
That was the sensible route. The safe route. The route that didn’t go anywhere near Hyndland Road.
Instead, she took the Great Western Road way.
She frowned as she walked, trying to resolve in her mind exactly what she was going to do.
The information from Isla and Alistair was still sitting heavy in her chest. The key and the lock.
The beacon. The Council. She knew there was only one sensible course of action, and that was to have no contact at all with Callum.
And yet here she was. Half nine at night, walking along Great Western Road, feeling a little tipsy after a few glasses of wine at the flat to take the edge off, deliberately choosing the route that would take her past his flat.
There was something telling her she had to feel it for herself. Jean hadn’t known what would happen. She’d broken things off before anything did happen. So, deep down, Jean didn’t know either. Nobody did.
Rowan knew she was trying to convince herself. She was grasping for anything, any reason to see Callum, and the only reason she had was curiosity.
And now, that curiosity wasn’t only going to put herself in danger, it could put the entire coven in danger. Thousands of others, if the Veil thinned enough.
After five minutes of walking, the fresh air and the wine had done their work together, and she was no longer thinking logically.
She made a deal with herself. If she walked down Hyndland Road and somehow saw Callum, she would know it was fate.
She was meant to see him. Meant to test the theory.
If she walked down his street and there was no sign of him at all, she would know she had to cut it off immediately and get it out of her mind for the sake of the others.
She would let fate decide.
Rowan came up to the traffic lights at the cross between Great Western Road and Cleveden Road, and her stomach flipped. She was about to turn onto his street.
“Should I?” she whispered to herself.
As it was with a lot of decisions Rowan made, the fuck it came quite naturally.
“Fuck it,” she said, and turned left onto Hyndland Road.
She stayed on the left-hand side of the road, just in case.
One Devonshire Gardens was all lit up, and through the windows of the little restaurant they’d had breakfast in that morning, she could see late-night diners inside.
The glow from the hotel spilled across the pavement and into the night air.
The air was cool and still. She walked past the blonde, sandstone tenements, their bay windows lit in warm squares against the darkening sky. She was getting more nervous the closer she got.
She passed St Bride’s Church and looked up at the flats near the doctor’s surgery. She thought about turning right, heading towards the Sainsbury’s Local and cutting home that way. One last defiant thought trying to talk her out of it.
But the thought was crushed as she kept walking.
She looked for the sign for the doctor’s surgery on the other side of the road. That was where Callum had said he stayed. Just next to the doctors.
She looked up at the three rows of windows above the surgery.
The top floor was in darkness. The second floor was glowing brightly, the light from a living room pouring through the bay windows.
And on the first floor, there was a softer light.
Through the bay window she could see the living room was painted a dark chalk-blue.
There was a plant at the left-hand side of the window.
A male figure came to the window.
Rowan took an involuntary breath in.
The figure looked out for a moment, then reached up and started rolling down the blinds.
She wasn’t going to see him. Fate had decided.
She slowed her pace and kept looking up at the block of flats, but there was nothing. Something inside her sank.
She let out a heavy sigh.
That was it. She told herself she was going to have to drop it and never see Callum again.
She took her eyes off the flat windows, looked straight ahead, and almost walked into someone.
“Oh – sorry,” she said, and looked up.
It was Callum.
For a few seconds, they just looked at each other.
Rowan sank into those blue eyes and couldn’t find a single word. Everything she’d been told that evening – the key, the beacon, the Council – dissolved like smoke.
“Are you okay?” Callum said.
Rowan shook her head to bring herself back. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You seem a little off. Have you been drinking?”
“I had a few glasses of wine with the girls. I’m just walking home.”
“I’ll walk you home,” he said.
“No!” It came out too forcefully, and she knew it. She saw something shift in his face. He tilted his head back slightly, as if pulling away from her. “I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s okay,” Callum said. His voice was gentle but guarded. “I’ll let you on your way.”
He stepped off the pavement to cross the road.
Rowan grabbed his hand.
The jolt hit her instantly. Energy rushed through her body – from her hand up through her arm, into her chest, down through her stomach, right to the tips of her bare toes inside her shoes and up through the crown of her head.
It wasn’t warmth. It wasn’t attraction. It was something older and deeper, something that had been waiting.
Callum looked shocked. For a brief second, he pulled his hand back at the sudden rush. He’d felt it too. Rowan was sure of it.
But then, just as he was pulling away, his hand tightened around hers.
“Sorry – what’s going on here?” he said softly.
Rowan looked at him. No, she shouted in her mind. Don’t fucking do it.
Her hand was still in his. She could feel the warmth spreading between their palms. She stepped a little closer.
It seemed like minutes passed before he pulled her towards him and kissed her.
Full on the mouth. On Hyndland Road. Under the streetlights.
His lips were soft, and she could feel his stubble on her upper lip and chin as he pressed deeper into the kiss. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, and she let him, and the rest of Hyndland Road fell away.
And then the air crackled.
Not inside her. Not a feeling. The air itself. Around them. A sharp, electric tremor that had nothing to do with the kiss and everything to do with what they were. Witch and Veil Walker. Key and lock.
And that was the moment Rowan Kerr knew she had monumentally fucked up.