Chapter 37 Make Up Your Mind
Make Up Your Mind
“LEDA!”
A voice bellowed my name from my left, making me jump.
I turned my head without thought, seeking out the familiar timbre.
My eyes found my friends immediately, all sitting together at another stone picnic table on the other side of the garden.
They were probably six tables away from where Bones, Alaric, and Elysia sat, and under a clump of trees that swayed lightly with branches covered in delicate purple flowers.
Draken had stood up from one of the stone benches and was waving me over to them, wearing what looked like an off-white, linen suit.
I smiled back and nodded. My eyes roved around the garden area after I did, and it struck me that most of the other tables were completely full.
Bones and his two friends looked isolated in comparison.
I smiled again when I saw Draken still watching me. That time, I found Miranda sitting there, even as Jolie turned around and beamed when she saw my face. Without looking back at Bones or even Alaric, I began to walk, feeling eyes on me from all sides as I did.
No one had noticed me standing there until Draken bellowed my name.
Now murmurs followed me, not to mention glares and disgusted looks.
I crossed that last segment of lawn with one hand clinging to my opposite arm, trying feverishly to ignore one particular set of eyes I could feel burning a hole in my back.
For my friends’ sake, I did my best to relax my face and posture enough that I wouldn’t look like I was grimacing at them while death-marching in their direction.
Their table was located closer to the fountain, which might’ve explained why Draken was bellowing. It was a lot louder where I was now. I glanced around at the people sitting with them, a little surprised by how many there were, especially considering Dervish was obviously no longer one of them.
Draken, Miranda, Luc, and Nyx sat on one side of the bench, while Jolie, Darragh, and Esmerelda Hawking sat on the other. Fenric Pinscher, a Magical I’d never really spoken to, sat on that side of the table as well. I only recognized him because he’d been in my flying class first year.
My one and only interaction with Esmerelda had been her jokingly asking me to the Eleusínia Myst?ria dance when Graham Strangemore didn’t immediately accept my invitation.
I’d never talked to her apart from that, but I had her in a few classes.
The way she smiled at me now, she clearly didn’t mind that I’d cut off Malefic Bones’s arm, or that I was perceived as a mongrel traitor by the vast majority of royals.
“Hiya!” she said brightly, holding up her coffee. “You do love a late entrance, don’t you? Your friends were going to send out a rescue team if you didn’t show up soon. Miranda was ready to call in the Praecuri.”
Draken laughed. “I’m sure she had to tear herself out of a book. Were you at the library, Shadow? Or Frumpy’s?”
“The dorm, actually,” I said, smiling. “I totally lost track of time. I thought you’d all come up to Valarian first, so I was waiting for someone to motivate me to put on pants.”
Miranda laughed, and motioned to the open seat between Jolie and Esmerelda. “SIT!” she practically shouted. “We need to hear everything about Bonescastle last night! Nyx and Luc were just telling us you were all there!”
I kept the smile on my face with an effort, even as I glanced at Nyx and Luc.
“Did they, now?” I said, responding to Nyx’s quirked eyebrow with a faintly wary look. “Maybe I should let them keep telling the story, then? Rather than end up telling you all of the same things a second time?”
“Absolutely NOT,” Miranda declared. “I can tell they’re holding out on us. I need you to tell the story so I can figure out what big secrets they’re keeping from me.” She gave me a sly look. “And whether they’re doing it because you told them to, or for their own reasons.”
I made my expression deadpan.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said with mock severity. “Luc in no way threatened my life if I told anyone about his fetish for candied dragon balls.”
Esmerelda burst out laughing, but Draken made a gagging sound. “Oh god. Why did you have to put that image… and smell… in my head?”
“Are you hungry?” Jolie asked, her voice and eyes more sympathetic.
“Starved,” I admitted. “Although a little less so now.”
“Want some coffee?” Esmerelda asked. “I was just about to get a second.”
I smiled back. “If I have another coffee, I might actually vibrate myself into a concussion. Is it too late to order some actual food?”
“Absolutely not!” Miranda exclaimed. “What do you want? I’ll get it for you––”
“Now what the fuck is this about?” Draken muttered sourly.
His abrupt change in tone cut off Miranda’s words, causing everyone, including me, to look at him. He was glaring at something behind me.
“Eye of Ra,” he growled, raising his voice louder. “How is it that he looks even more like a vampire than he did before the break?”
I turned around, following Draken’s eyes without thinking, and found Bones walking towards me.
His eyes flashed with gold and green, his jaw looked exceptionally taut, and I felt a dense heat swirling off his magic that might’ve made me nervous even if I wasn’t already in a deeply weird and emotional place about the two of us.
I opened my mouth, not sure what I even intended to say, but he didn’t really give me a chance. His arms wrapped around me, and they felt preternaturally strong.
He looked into my face, his jaw still hard.
“I’m tired of this,” he said, blunt.
Laughter broke out at nearby tables. I heard a familiar sneer from a group of students I’d avoided looking at on the other side of the fountain.
“Look!” it called out. “Bones is groping his half-breed. We knew you were dipping your wick in that slag, you fucking race-traitor!”
Somehow, the words barely registered.
I was also vaguely aware of a commotion behind me, meaning at the table filled with my friends, but Bones didn’t look over at any of them, either, and I didn’t turn my head.
His eyes remained solely on mine. Stranger still, I could feel nerves on him, wound up and amplified by that dense charge coming off his magic, which made it nearly impossible for me to think, or even to breathe.
The nerves didn’t feel related to the stir his arms around me had caused.
“Make up your mind, Leda,” he said, quiet.
I swallowed with an effort, and tilted my chin higher to look at him.
I might’ve folded my arms, but he held me close enough that it felt like forcing a barrier between us, and somehow, I couldn’t make myself do that, either.
My heart hammered in my chest as I realized I had no interest in pushing him away, even if I might have a heart attack trying to process everything I felt in a way that felt safe to me.
I was always doing that, though.
I was constantly lying to myself about this, trying to make it safe.
It hit me that I was sick of it, too.
I saw a faint relief touch his eyes.
He swallowed, right before determination hardened his jaw.
I barely had time to see it before he lowered his mouth, angled it to mine, and kissed me, reaching up to the back of my hair and clenching a handful in his fingers.
Something about the way he did it, with that odd sensuality of his, melted the last of my resistance.
It left me before I knew I decided to let it go, and once it was gone, it seemed to be gone completely.
I fell into the kiss, leaning against his chest. I barely heard the strange combination of catcalls, hisses, disgusted retching noises, not to mention laughter that broke out around us. A few people even clapped, although I didn’t try to guess who.
I have no idea how long we stood there like that, snogging in front of the entire school. I just know I could scarcely breathe when it ended.
Bones didn’t let go of me, but wrapped his arm more firmly around my waist once he broke it off.
He held me against the expensive black suit he wore, eyes blazing with that gold and green flame.
He nodded towards the table filled with my friends, his eyes panning over the people sitting there, as if gauging their reactions one by one.
I didn’t quite dare follow his gaze, not until I could take a normal breath.
Norrick, Pants, and Scar were still jeering at Bones from the other table, along with a few others among the royals, but they barely registered. It was the people I actually cared about, at the table behind me, that had my nerves fraying as their silence deepened.
Bones cleared his throat.
“We’re together,” he told the table after that pause.
He spoke in a clear, unambiguous voice. It felt like he was talking to the entire garden, really, not only my friends, but his eyes remained on them.
“It’s exclusive,” he added coldly. “I have absolutely no intention of ending it. And yes, we’re fucking.
Get over it.” He glanced at me, his throat working briefly.
“I can’t stop you from trying to talk her out of it, of course.
” He turned back to glare around the table.
“But I can and will retaliate if you’re nasty to her about it. ”
His eyes paused on someone I strongly suspected to be Draken.
“Until she says otherwise, she’s my witch,” Bones added, that heat in his eyes flaring. “So keep your grabby, randy, can’t-take-no-for-an-answer hands to yourself, Joran. Or you and I are going to have more than words.”
He looked away from the table for the first time, his voice cold.
“That goes for the rest of you pricks. I catch any one of you fucking with her, magically or otherwise, you should expect me to react with extreme prejudice. Send so much as a tripping jinx her way, and your face is going to have a close encounter with a wall.”
Draken’s voice rose in a cold snarl. “Who the fuck do you think you are, that you can speak for her, like she’s not even––”
“He’s not speaking for me,” I blurted, before I knew I meant to.
I turned for the first time, and Bones loosened his hold on me but didn’t let go as I faced the table, my face burning.
I met Draken’s gaze, my voice suddenly firm.
It hit me that this was overdue, too. I’d been too unclear about things with me and Draken for too long, even before what happened between us over the summer.
I hadn’t done it on purpose, but I could see it now.
“I should have told you,” I added, glancing around the table.
I winced at the shocked, disbelieving, and deeply hurt look on Draken’s face, and the wide-eyed stare on Miranda’s.
I couldn’t help noticing that Jolie looked a lot less surprised than either of them, that Nyx looked delighted, and that Esmerelda kept looking between me and Bones like she thought maybe she’d stumbled into the middle of a stage play.
“I should have told you,” I repeated. “I really, really should have, but I honestly wasn’t sure what any of it was for a while.
Even after I knew, I didn’t know how to explain it.
” I glanced at Bones, a little exasperated.
“I wouldn’t have said it the way he did.
But nothing he said is untrue. I’m sorry you didn’t hear it from me first––”
Someone stood up, shoving back a plate so that the silverware clattered against the china. A glass of juice got knocked over in the process, along with a small vase filled with roses.
I’d expected it to be Draken, but it wasn’t.
It was Miranda.
Her face had turned bright red, and she wouldn’t look at me.
“Mir––” I began.
She didn’t wait for me to finish.
She stepped over the bench in knee-high socks and black heels. She didn’t glare at me, or yell at me, or even look at me. She walked away from the table without looking back.
I started to go after her, but Bones tightened his arm around me.
He murmured, “Give her a little time, love.”
I glanced up at him. He was watching Miranda leave and I saw regret in his eyes. Guilt and frustration coiled off his magic as he watched her walk right up to the edge of the chimaeric dome around the garden and vanish.
Gods, maybe I’d misjudged him, too.
Bones might’ve even heard me, because he leaned down and kissed me on the mouth. The kiss was lingering, soft, but utterly chaste compared to what we’d done just a few moments before.
Apparently it was also the last straw for Draken.
A low growl left his throat, right before he rose abruptly to his feet.
Unlike Miranda, Draken glared at the two of us openly, making it harder to avoid his anger.
He glared at Bones longer, but somehow managed to aim his colder glare at me.
Tossing his napkin down on his plate, he stepped over the stone bench and began walking, fast, in the same direction Miranda had just gone.
I watched him go, fighting a tightness in my throat and blinking back a sharper sting in my eyes.
Draken leaving was hardly unexpected. I’d known he wouldn’t sit at the same table as Bones, certainly not this soon, but it still hurt to have him look at me like I was the enemy.
Draken and Miranda were the first Magicals I’d befriended at Malcroix, outside of Alaric.
They were the first to accept me, completely, with open arms.
They might also end up being the first friends I truly loved that I managed to lose.
Bones was right, though.
I shouldn’t go after them now.
I had to hope I could still repair things with them later.