Chapter 12 Sam #3
“What, being Rook’s second? You have no idea.”
“Making friends.” She kicks my ankle lightly.
“It’s hard for me, too. You said earlier that you don’t know how to talk to other girls our age about anything but magic.
I feel that, too.” She shrugs. “I tell myself all the time, that’s the cost of living the way we do.
It’s not like we have time to go out for movies, or play normal sports, or god forbid, go to parties.
We’re too busy. Always chasing another victory in the arena.
Always trying to prove to the world how good we are.
Trying to be our best.” She bites her lip. “Being the best is lonely.”
I snort. “Master Silverstein—our arcane master—used to tell me and Rook that magic is a jealous mistress. If you’re going to master her, she won’t tolerate time spent on much else.”
“It’s true,” groans Tamsin. She rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. “God, I hate how true that is. We’re going to die alone, Sam.”
“Hey.” Impulsively, I scoot sideways on my hammock seat so I can knock my knee against hers. “Not quite alone. We’ve got each other now, don’t we?”
Tamsin looks up at me, eyes wide with surprise.
Then, all at once, her face breaks into the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.
It practically stops my heart in my chest, right then and there.
God, forget Blythe Davison and her perfect lipstick.
When Tamsin Blackwood smiles, she’s prettier than any girl has any right to be. “We do, don’t we?”
Without warning, Tamsin grabs the crook of my elbow and drags me off my hammock.
I yelp as she begins marching me toward the entrance of the antique shop.
“Well, come on, then. If we’re going to fill each other’s sad teen quota for actual friends, we’ve got to spend at least thirty minutes looking at a bunch of pretty things we can’t afford to buy.
It’s like, teen girl friendship rules, or so I hear. ”
Who am I to deny the rules of teen girl friendship? With an artfully exaggerated groan, I let Tamsin drag me into the shop.
It’s past midnight and dark as sin by the time I get back to the hotel suite I’m sharing with Rook.
I’ve had alcohol once, maybe twice, in my entire life. A few sips of wine at my parents’ dinner table when I was younger. A very light beer that Jamie snuck me once, at some party I insisted on following him to when I was fifteen, after which he watched me like a hawk all night long.
I’ve spent a few hours in the company of Tamsin Blackwood, and I feel drunker than I ever have in my life. Yet I haven’t had a drop to drink.
I need to get ahold of myself. Blackwood’s daughter is a means to an end. That’s all. I can’t afford to make this personal, not when I’m so close to everything I want.
Even if I still feel the ghost of Tamsin’s hand rubbing my back, as I saw Jamie die in my mind’s eye, over and over again.
Even if the image of her face, open and guileless and utterly sympathetic, is imprinted on my memory.
Even if I can still see the horror dawning on her face as she silently realized what her father must have done to my brother.
Before I met Tamsin, I thought she’d be more like her father. But she’s not. She’s nothing like Mateus Blackwood at all.
And I hate that for us both.
With a frustrated groan, I fling myself onto the hotel bed. Immediately, I bury my face against one of those fresh, fluffy pillows. I’m warm everywhere, and my heart rate must be through the roof.
Blackwood is the reason my brother is dead.
Alexei Adamovich, the big dumb brute, may have been the one to strike the killing blow against my brother, but Alexei was simply a weapon.
Tamsin Blackwood’s father was the hand that wielded him.
I will never forgive Mateus Blackwood for that.
I won’t let myself betray Jamie that way.
But tonight, Tamsin has come dangerously close to making me second-guess myself. If there were a world where I could destroy Mateus while sparing Tamsin, maybe I’d choose that one. That beautiful, perfect fantasy world.
But I live in reality.
So why does the thought of Rook destroying her in that arena—and he will destroy her there, I’ve done everything possible to ensure that—make my heart freeze in my chest?
I don’t have time for this. I scroll through my phone, hunting for a productive distraction.
There’s the mess from the press event that needs to be smoothed over, of course.
Rook accomplished my intended task of shaking Tamsin up, all right, but it won’t do for his fans to turn on him.
The last thing I need is for Tamsin to be painted as some poor, sympathetic damsel in distress.
It’s a delicate balance to strike, letting Rook ruin her without making her a martyr.
I draft a few pithy little social media statements to post from Rook’s accounts that will likely mollify some of the less virulent haters, the ones who can still be reasoned with.
Social media and online conversation has always come easier to me than person-to-person interaction.
I like having the distance of a screen between myself and the rest of the world.
I like having the time and space to choose my words carefully and the safety of curation in a world where the look on my face won’t give me away.
I wonder if Mateus Blackwood ever does this for Tamsin.
Lies around in bed trying to clean up her image from behind a phone screen.
Probably not. For one thing, Blackwood doesn’t really seem the type, and for another, I doubt there’s much to clean up.
His daughter is so stupidly, infectiously charming.
It’s a charm that stems from either a genuine desire to listen to people talk about whatever they want or a very impressive talent for faking interest. Either way, it works wonders for her.
It even, apparently, works on me, despite my best efforts.
I deal with the problem the way I think most people deal with problems they can’t solve at nearly two in the morning: I go to bed in hopes that my brain will somehow invent a solution by the time I wake up.
I’ve changed into pajamas, and I’m about to close my eyes when I hear the scream.
My heart stops. I’d recognize that voice anywhere. And it’s not the first time I’ve heard that sound.
I’m out of bed before I realize it and sprinting toward the bedroom in the other half of the suite. I swear loudly, when I stub a toe rounding the corner, but even that doesn’t slow me down. I bang a fist on the bedroom door. “Hello?” I demand. “Hey, are you awake?”
All I get in response is a second cry of distress. Then the muffled sounds of sobbing.
Screw this. I fling the bedroom door open. Rook’s twisted up in his sheets, bare chest heaving, dark hair plastered to his forehead.
I’m at his side before I even notice my own feet crossing the floor. “Rook. Hey, it’s okay, princess, it’s okay, wake up.”
Rook continues to twist around, whimpering, eyes squeezed shut. I reach cautiously for him. I need to wake him. I need to put an end to the night terror he’s stuck in.
“No!” Rook cries out on his sleep. Magic threads its way through his fingers.
I barely summon a shield in time as Rook’s power roars over me. My spell is flimsier than it would normally be, though. One piece of the shield breaks off. A crackle of magical energy bursts through, grazing my cheek.
I hiss in pain, clapping one hand to my face as our collective magic simmers down.
“Sammy?” Rook’s voice is still panicked, but he sounds awake now, if still groggy from the nightmare. “Sam, is that you?”
“I’m here.” I dab gingerly at my cheek. No blood, though the spell will probably leave a mark. Still half-blind, I fumble for the bedside lamp and flick it on. “Are you all right?”
I realize it’s a stupid question as soon as I look up at Rook in full lighting.
He’s staring back at me with wild blue eyes.
His already dark hair is tousled and further darkened with sweat, sticking out in every direction.
He’s sickly pale with deep purple shadows under his eyes.
He looks like he’s been through a duel already and taken his first loss.
He’s very obviously not all right.
His fingers close over the hand I’ve pressed to my cheek. “You’re hurt.” Then, in a different voice, “I hurt you.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t know what you were doing.”
“But I hurt you.”
“You were literally asleep, Rook.”
He peers up at me through a dark, sweat-soaked fringe of hair. “Are you mad?”
“About what?”
“Jensen Sykes,” he clarifies. The side of Rook’s mouth twists as he shakes his head. “How many times has that guy written about me? You’d think I’d be smart enough not to take his bait by now. But I’m not. Now I look like an asshole.”
I open my mouth and close it again, trying to figure out how best to weigh my words.
What can I possibly say when Rook did, in fact, exactly what I wanted?
“What’s done is done,” I settle on at last. “You wouldn’t be the first magician Sykes has provoked.
He’s always had that weird sixth sense for what buttons to push to get a reaction on any given day, you know?
And most of the magicians he gets a rise out of are years more experienced than you. ”
Rook snuffs a bitter little laugh. “Every magician on this dueling circuit is years more experienced than me. It’s only because I’m young, you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rook looks me in the eye. He seems more himself now, but there’s always been a sort of haunted quality to him whether he sleeps or wakes.
It’s usually overshadowed by other things: swagger, or cheek, or that same obsessive dedication to magic that we share.
But right now, he just looks haunted. Haunted and tired.