38. Chapter 37
“I’ll need to go into town to get these.
” She sighed, setting her pencil down as Ezra came back to their table with another book.
As he suggested after the exam, they spent their free time in the library.
While the history texts they found mentioned nothing about halls beneath the school, they were finding potential solutions for her memory.
She was tired from staring at the pages for so long, and her hand ached from writing pages of notes.
They spent their entire Saturday in the library trying to figure out what potions they could try.
She’d hoped there would be some similarities to the potions, tonics, and oils she’d made for her parents in the past. But those were more focused on mental clarity and clearing brain fog than on recalling specific memories.
They required different ingredients and an entirely separate brewing process.
Plus, all they could find were general memory potions, which could still prove useful.
Her guess would be that the memory loss was a side effect of the ritual itself.
And unsurprisingly, they couldn’t find anything to do with blood rituals.
She looked over her shoulder, through the wooden rungs of the balcony railing, at the archives door.
Could there be information in there that could help?
Not that she’d be able to reach it. She doubted any professor would grant her access to a book about blood magic.
“Why don’t we take a break?” Ezra asked, pulling her attention back.
“We shouldn’t.” She picked her pencil back up and flipped to the next page. “I need to figure out how to get this memory back.”
“You’ve already found six different potions, read through eight different books, and I can tell you’re getting tired.” He reached over and closed the book in front of her.
“If I—”
“How about I make you a deal?”
She rolled her eyes and nodded once to hear him out.
“We won’t leave the library, but we’ve got to take a break. We can wander around the stacks or find where they keep fun books. Then we can continue our search.”
“Alright, fine,” she said, dropping her pencil back onto the table. She hadn’t read for pleasure since coming to Arcania, and while she likely wouldn’t be anytime soon, it could be fun to find what novels the library had.
She slid her things into her bag and slung it over her shoulder, leaving the big stack of books she was studying on the table to return to.
They wandered through the stacks quietly.
As they strolled, their magic drifted with each other, like ribbons dancing lazily in the air behind them.
She still wasn’t sure of all the ways their magic worked—something else to add to the list of things she didn’t know.
The growing number of unknowns was becoming exhausting and she could only hope she’d get to it someday.
They reached the fiction section, tucked away on the third floor in the left corner. It was quiet—not a single person was in either of the two stacks full of novels and poetry. She brushed her hand against the spines. Some were cracked, others were old and discolored, and a few were new.
“Oh, wow.” Ezra chuckled. She glanced over her shoulder at him flipping through an old mass-market paperback romance novel.
An illustrated man and woman were on the cover, him with his shirt unbuttoned and her with a short miniskirt and holding a book against her bursting bosom.
The man had her pressed against a bookcase, his lips near hers. “I wasn’t expecting these to be here.”
“Bodice-rippers find their way to wherever books are.” She giggled, taking another peek at the cover.
“Don’t think I’ve read this one yet,” he said, flipping back to the front.
“You read romance?” Her brows rose with shock. She didn’t picture him as a romance reader. Maybe that was a poor assumption.
“Of course—love, drama, sex. They’re fun, and can also show the complexities of relationships. I don’t read for fun too much these days, but before coming here, I’d read occasionally.”
“Let me see what they’re like,” she said, snatching it out of his hand and flipping through the pages.
“Not a fan?” He smirked when she peered at him.
“It’s not that,” she said, leaning her back against a bookcase lining the wall. “I typically read fantasy. Sometimes there’s romance, and sometimes there’s not.”
He leaned his shoulder against the same bookcase, leaving only a few books’ worth of space between them.
She flipped to a random page, reading about Dante, a tortured librarian with a dark past, and Isobel, a beautiful graduate student unaware of his infatuation.
But she could hardly focus on the words when Ezra stood so close and the soft brushes of his magic slid along hers.
Was it intentional? Or did his subconscious naturally pull him closer?
“You’re making it difficult to concentrate,” she said, her eyes darting to him for a moment. “You’re watching me to make sure whether I like it.”
“Humor me,” he said with a quiet laugh. “Read some of it out loud.”
“What?” She dropped the book against her leg, the stinging thump through her tights serving as a not so gentle reminder she’d soon have to wear thicker clothes with the bone-chilling weather settling in.
“Come on,” he said with a grin. “It’ll be fun.”
“For you, maybe,” she joked. But how could she say no to those dimples? She lifted the book again and cleared her throat. Before she spoke the first words on the page, heat crawled up her neck and to her cheeks.
“A weight settles on my back, tickling my senses. It’s begging for my attention.
Aching for it. I look over my shoulder to see him.
Mr. Dante Lia—or Lee-ah—thford. His forest-green eyes linger on me, sending chills down my spine, with a look that says only one thing.
He wants me.” She tried to visualize the characters in her head.
Instead of green, they were blue. Ezra’s blue.
And instead of picturing a buxom Isobel… she pictured herself.
“This time, I don’t look away. I hold his gaze. I’m tired of pretending he doesn’t affect me, that I’m immune to his deep voice or how his rough skin felt the night when he pulled me out of the way of the falling bookcase.”
“Satisfied?” Ivy asked him before noticing the space between them had grown smaller.
“Just one more for me, please?” His thick voice caused heat to rush to her core.
At some point, he’d rolled his sleeves, exposing his tattoos and veins trailing up his arms. How did she miss that too?
Did the book engross her that much, or was it because instead of picturing the characters, she pictured herself and Ezra?
Mimicking Isobel, she didn’t move away. In fact, she inched closer as she flipped through the pages.
“Alright, one more.” She cleared her throat again as she flipped to another random page.
“He stands before me, his jaw clenches tightly as he forces himself to back away toward the bookcase opposite me. ‘I can’t do this, Isobel. My past…if only you knew,’ he says, casting his gaze to the ground.
‘I don’t care about your past. Not right now.
Your past doesn’t define you. It can only hold you back. Are you going to let it?’”
Again, she could only picture Ezra. In fact, they’ve had this near-exact conversation.
He tried to push her away, and she could tell a part of him still tried.
It was as if he was at war with himself, and she wished he’d wave the white flag already.
Unlike Isobel, she wouldn’t rush a hot, passionate confession of love, despite whatever was between them going beyond the boundaries of a normal friendship.
“He looks back at me, and a heavy exhale leaves his parted lips. Then, he takes a step closer. My heart thuds in my chest when he moves again. I can hardly breathe when he’s right in front of me.
His intoxicating scent of pine and wood wraps around me, pulling me in closer.
He places his hands against the bookcase on either side of me, boxing me in.
” In her periphery, she noticed Ezra move slowly.
He pushed his shoulder away from the bookcase, replacing it with his hand against a spot next to her shoulder.
She inhaled deeply, his warm, spiced scent mixed with the pages of old books, and she continued.
“‘No’ he whispers, his voice so deep it makes my legs tremble. ‘I won’t.’ He leans down, his breath hot against my bare neck, and his lips capture my earlobe.
I suck in a breath as his teeth nibble at my skin, and my hands cling to his shirt.
‘Oh, Dante,’ I moan. His hands finally move from the books to my body, gripping me tightly.
He pulls back, his pupils blown, and I sigh, falling deep into those inky black pools.
It is as if he cast a spell on me, and I was oh so willing to be lost in it.
‘I need you to fu—oh God.” She stopped abruptly, shutting the book and holding it close to her chest.
Ezra chuckled, his laugh on the edge of breathlessness. Like Dante, his eyes were dark. Blown, was how Isobel described them. “I can imagine where the rest of that was going.”
“Are you?” Shit, the words slipped out before she could catch them. Her breath caught in the back of her throat, as if her body was terrified to exhale until he answered.
“Am I…imagining it?” he asked, leaning in closer. “Do you want me to?”
She swallowed roughly, bouncing between his half-lidded eyes and his lips.
All she would need to do was say yes. One little word with such power was all that stood in the way of him kissing her.
She blindly set the book on the shelf near her and placed her hand on his chest, the chestnut brown sweater soft beneath her touch.
“Ivy.” God, the breathy murmur of his voice speaking her name was intoxicating. It was as if their magic crafted a spell to captivate her with only those three letters.
She gasped. That was it. “Spell.”