Chapter 6 Coffee And Gold #2
Alaric also looked thinner than he had in the dark. His ribs and chest bones shone prominently when he stretched his arms over his head under the splash of sunlight from the tall, arched windows of Bone’s quarters.
If Bones noticed any of those things, he appeared unmoved.
He walked over to Alaric and kicked his feet off his table before handing him a mug of coffee with a scowl. Alaric grinned back at him and winked, and I wondered again if he was blatantly suicidal, or if this was just the usual dynamic between the two of them.
I finished up in the kitchen and was drying my hands on a towel when Bones came up to me, holding a mug of coffee in each hand.
It was the first time I’d been that close to him since before he’d been taken away, and I found myself studying his face as he avoided my eyes. He looked down at my hands instead as he handed me one of the mugs. He met my gaze only then, and my throat closed.
He paused on whatever he saw in me, and the hardness in his stare lost some of its intensity. His jaw tightened even as the look in his eyes softened.
“You’re still in the doghouse,” he muttered.
I nodded, realizing only then that my vision had blurred. I wiped my eyes with the side of my hand and nodded again, not trusting myself to speak.
When I looked at him next, he leaned down, shocking me with a lingering kiss.
“Still in the doghouse,” he murmured against my lips.
Alaric, of course, had to ruin it.
“Oh my gods, I’m having a cardiac event from the adorableness over there,” he called out from the couch. “Someone bring me smelling salts! And a brandy! Immediately!”
Bones straightened from where he’d bent over me, and aimed a cold stare in his friend’s direction.
“Another rule on this whole ‘you’re my witch,’ thing,” he murmured, giving me a sideways look before glaring again at Alaric. “No sleeping in beds with other mages or witches. Particularly not my bed. Particularly not when I’m not in it.”
I scoffed, but when he looked down at me for real, I smiled at him, taking a sip of the coffee he’d handed me. It was a variation on a latte-cappuccino or something in between, and I don’t think I’d ever drunk anything that tasted so good.
I still felt positively terrible.
“Keep drinking that,” he murmured, nodding towards the mug I held. “It’s got a hangover potion in it. It should help.”
“Such a gentleman,” Alaric remarked, back to grinning like an idiot as we walked over to the fireplace. “Does mine have a hangover potion in it, too, good sir?” he asked.
“No,” Bones growled.
When Alaric patted the couch seat next to him, winking at me, Bones took my hand and walked me over to the leather armchair.
He sat in it, then promptly tugged on my hand, indicating he wanted me in his lap.
I didn’t hesitate but sat right where he guided me, and his arm curled tightly around my waist. I immediately felt my magic merge into his.
I felt Bones’s breath catch when he felt it. He squeezed his arm around me tighter.
“So growly and possessive––” Alaric began gleefully.
“Alec,” Bones warned, wrapping his arm further around me and curling his fingers around my waist. “If you value your life, for all the gold in the underworlds, shut the fuck up.”
Still grinning, Alaric turned towards me. “Does he know you cut off Malefic’s arm?” he asked. “Or that you chased that psychotic prick into the loo?”
Bones grunted, but I saw his eyes flicker to my face, right before the arm holding me to his lap tightened until I leaned gratefully into his chest. It was disorienting, just how visceral my relief was.
I could feel a part of me exhaling that had been holding its breath since the last time I’d been with him in this room.
It hit me suddenly, maybe I should be worried about that, just how off-balance I’d felt since I’d last been with Bones. Now that I could feel that part of me leveling, stabilizing somewhere between our magical auras, the contrast struck me as extreme.
Shouldn’t I be more concerned abut that?
I closed my eyes, and took another swallow of coffee.
I’d think about it later.
Bones grunted, right before he pulled me tighter to his chest and side.
His magic opened to mine even more, like he’d been holding back, or maybe keeping part of it behind that impenetrable wall of his.
I wrapped my hand around a muscle-corded forearm as I felt his relief mirror mine.
I wondered if he’d noticed anything similar to what I had.
And was it in any way normal for us to be reacting like this? Like we were starved in some way without access to one another?
It had only been a week.
We hadn’t even been together for a week prior to that.
It could be related to his usual cycle of overloads in some way.
Usually it took longer than that for his magic to bubble over, but I’d noticed a slight acceleration in his cycle over the last few weeks we spent time together.
Was it something to do with him being injured?
Or the connection between him and his father?
If Bones heard my questions, he didn’t try to answer them.
When I glanced over at his face, his eyes were fixed on Alaric’s chest.
Alaric noticed the direction of his gaze, too. “You like?” He held open his shirt with his fingers so that Bones could take in the symbols running in a gold-infused line.
Caelum’s eyes flickered up from Alaric’s chest to the other mage’s eyes. “Was Malefic there? For the ritual?”
Alaric nodded. “He officiated.”
“Of course he did.” Caelum lifted his coffee mug. “How much do you know about what that is?” He motioned with one of the fingers holding the mug towards Alaric’s chest.
The humor dropped abruptly from Alaric’s face.
“Not much,” he said. “That’s why I came up here, to be frank.
I was looking to see if you had anything in your personal library.
I couldn’t find anything in the school’s.
A few basic bridging rituals, including some of the stronger ones used in blood spells, but nothing that referenced gold, or metal markings of any kind. ”
Bones’s frown deepened. Without moving me from my position on his lap, he articulated a number of mudras with his free hand, subtle, complicated, beautiful things that were unlike anything I’d seen anyone use apart from Forsooth.
The fingers of the hand around me tightened slightly as I watched, but that only made me sink into him more.
That green-gold flame in him brightened as he operated it. There was a tangible relief that spread over my skin as he worked his magic next to me.
Gold symbols filled the air between him and Alaric, and I studied them, trying to make sense of the meaning, even as they rippled into smoke.
I could tell Bones wasn’t satisfied by what he found, even before he spoke.
“What my father did to me requires a familial relationship,” Bones said.
His voice remained low, almost like he was talking to himself.
He withdrew his magic, frowning in the general direction of Alaric’s chest. After another pause, he glanced at me, and I saw a faint question in his eyes as he raised an eyebrow.
“Honestly, I’d already planned to look into mine. It’s not something I could have done before, not easily at least. My father didn’t…”
He paused, as if thinking better of saying that aloud, and took another sip of coffee as the fingers of his free hand tugged at my jumper.
“Anyway,” he said brusquely, clearing his throat.
“We have a window now, at least. Forsooth’s told me I can’t actually sever the connection with Malefic, but I need to understand it, and possibly learn to block it when necessary.
But we need to understand what these other bridges are for.
It’s pretty clear the rituals are all leading up to something. ”
Alaric looked puzzled. “You don’t know?”
“Other bridges?” I asked, puzzled. “Are there others with these gold tattoos?”
Caelum shook his head, answering Alaric first. “The rituals were one of those areas my father locked me out totally. I wasn’t invited to them.
I was never told what they were for, or who was involved.
I know they factored into my father’s larger plans in some way, but I’m not clear on how.
They were central to his goal of collapsing the two worlds. ”
He glanced at me next. “Yes. There are others. The Golden Sun thinks so, and I was able to tell Forsooth my father frequently mentioned a series of rituals that needed to occur before he could put the next stage of his plans in motion.” He shrugged, taking another sip of coffee.
“As for the gold aspect, that, I don’t know. ”
I grimaced. I knew Malefic wanted to combine the human and Magical worlds, what the Magicals called “Lemuria” collectively.
Malefic wanted to force them back into a single dimension via magic, but the reality of that disturbed me.
I struggled to understand how it would even work, given all the people on Earth.
What would happen to all of the overlaps? What would happen to the buildings that existed in both places? The vehicles? The people in their homes and gardens and cars?
Bones had told me his father planned to “cleanse” Earth first.
“We’ll need access to libraries other than the one on campus,” Bones was saying now.
“There’s actually quite a bit at the Black Tower that might be useful, but I have some thoughts on other sources, too.
” He glanced at me, adding, “I couldn’t even express an interest in any of this before, not without my father intervening.
He tightly circumscribed my access to source material, and not only at home.
It wasn’t all about dark rituals, of course.
He didn’t want me knowing anything about…
” He hesitated, glancing at me. “Well, a lot of things.”
I knew what he was referencing, at least in part.
He meant whatever was wrong with his magic.
He meant the mysterious “illness” his father told him he had, that Malefic had been holding over his head since he was a child.
Malefic hadn’t wanted him knowing anything about that, either.
Bones as much as told me, even before the bonfire party, that his father blocked him from learning about those things, and preferred Bones to be in the dark, even about his own body and magic.
But now Bones clearly wanted to take advantage of Malefic’s absence to do some research of his own.
Thinking about that, and what I’d been reading about, hunting down via obscure bookshops in London and Bonescastle and the school library whenever I could do so without drawing attention to myself, I cleared my throat.
“I might be able to help,” I murmured, flushing as I took another sip of coffee. “I have a few things set aside I could show you. If nothing else, they might eliminate some possibilities, so you wouldn’t have to start from zero.”
Bones looked over at me, but I didn’t return his gaze.
When he didn’t say anything, I glanced at Alaric.
“I really think we should talk to Forsooth,” I added. “The Golden Sun has people inside Dark Cathedral. They might know more about this than they’ve told us.”
Feeling Bones tense, I laid a hand on his chest, and clarified, “I only mean about the marks on both of you,” I said, softer, giving him a meaningful look. “The bridging rituals. You’ve talked to him about some of that already, haven’t you?”
When I felt him relax, I added, “He might know what all of this is leading towards. I’d be surprised if he didn’t at least have a theory.”
Bones swallowed, and I grew aware of the heat rippling off his skin.
I could feel both of us reacting to the other’s nearness.
Sitting on his lap, being half-immersed in his magic but not fully in it, feeling his bones and muscle through his clothes and skin while still feeling achingly separate, made me feel light-headed.
His magic alone made me dizzy. Being surrounded by it also filled me with a kind of burning dissatisfaction.
I wasn’t even sure how much of that had to do with sex.
He shivered under me, and gripped me tighter.
I wrapped my fingers around his, and squeezed back.
When I glanced at Alaric, I found him watching the two of us with unguarded interest. He pointed between me and Bones when he caught me looking at him.
“Are either of you going to explain how this happened?” he asked.
I opened my mouth, closed it, and glanced at Bones.
Lifting the mug I held to my lips, I finished off the last few swallows of coffee. Then I leaned over Bones to set the empty mug on a high table on his other side. He didn’t let go of me while I did, and when I receded back into his lap, I curled my arm around his neck.
Only then did I look at Alaric.
“No,” I said calmly.
Bones, as if he couldn’t help himself, let out a low grunt of a laugh.