Chapter 37 #3
“I know,” I said. “Thank you.”
We were quiet a minute, the room dropping several degrees colder.
The ice-cold drink in my hand caught up with my head, and goosebumps erupted along my arms. I stared longingly into his closet, gazing at his dozens of expensive, earth-toned sweaters, evenly spaced and organized by thickness.
I wasn’t sure if I was staring because I was cold, or if it was because he wore those sweaters when I closed my eyes and thought of him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Not about your sweaters.”
“Clearly.”
I took a drink and said, “You said you wanted me to be a Dark Witch?” Why could I not figure out how to speak normally to him? Because You are so fucking pretty. That’s why. And the hug. His mouth grazing my temple.
“I don’t want you to be a Dark Witch,” he said. “I want you safe.”
I traced the thick line of stitching along the arm of his couch, reflecting on the big glass scrying orb that had followed me around, already missing it. “You don’t have to protect me anymore,” I said.
“Did you have to protect me when you went into the catacombs and the Allwitch temple?”
“No,” I answered, not exactly confident.
“But also . . . yes. Because I come this way without Death Bonds.” I turned the glass, and my shivering hand slid around cold beads of condensation.
I wouldn’t set it down and ruin his table, no matter if my fingers turned blue.
“That’s what you get for me caring about you.
Acts of insanity. Occasional room break-ins — ” I stopped myself at the lift of his eyebrows, recognizing I’d made his point for him.
I wanted him around like he wanted me safe, and one less Death Bond on his arm wouldn’t change that.
“The only reason I said it was the worst one,” he said, looking down at his arm, “was because, as long as I had it, I didn’t know if you’d ever believe how far I would go for you.” Then, without asking, he rescued the cold drink from my frozen fingers and set it down next to his.
“I spoke to your aunts,” he went on. “Sabrina, she’s another Eight.
Something terrible happened to her after she drank light magic, so terrible she wanted to deteriorate.
Sinora said Eights are allergic to light magic.
That dark magic is the only way. That’s why I told you to be a Dark Witch. That’s the only reason I said that.”
Sabrina was an Eight?
Why had no one ever mentioned it? If my aunts knew I was the same as her, and I was allergic to light magic, wouldn’t they want me to know that?
Unless . . . Helen. Helen wouldn’t let them, and that’s why Leland had to be the one to ask.
Though, now that I thought about it, I realized Sabrina had been trying to tell me.
She told me to run. She told me I’d get a choice, and there was a wrong one.
But if Leland had only been in Gnarlton, speaking with my aunts, why couldn’t Loree find him with her gift?
“That’s it?” I asked. “You were in Gnarlton the whole time? What was the Shadowrealm in Creatus then?”
“I went to Alchemia for more information after Sinora told me about your light magic allergy. Sinora suggested the Allwitches might know a different path you wouldn’t hate.
But . . .” Leland shook his head. “The Allwitches couldn’t help me.
The Shadowrealm you heard about in Creatus was my Illusion, so I could disappear long enough to go to Alchemia without raising the Echelons’ suspicions.
I’m sorry for not telling you what my plan was.
I thought about it the whole time I was gone. ”
My body shook with a chill. Was it me or was the temperature in the room dropping even lower? I shifted to fold my arms over my chest, bringing my legs in to protect my core.
“I thought you were mad,” I said. “I thought I hurt you.”
“I know.” Leland Summoned another blanket and piled it on top of me. “I should have told you so you knew you weren’t the cause. But I wasn’t in the best place when I left, and I was avoiding you.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to. I was worried — I’m always worried — that, if you comfort me, it will seal my end of the bond.”
“Would that be so bad? If we bonded, your magic would be stronger. You’d get my gift. You’d be able to protect yourself better.”
“Ember, what I’ve done to win, to survive — I’m not good at handling it.
Tying your life down to mine would only make it harder for me to live through what I already struggle with.
My Death Bonds wouldn’t be good for you.
And the guilt I’d carry for sharing them wouldn’t be good for us.
What you saw in the Lucid Dream, it’s the one thing I’ve never wanted to tell you.
Not because it’s a secret. I just . . .” His gaze dropped to the table.
“I won’t risk someone again. Especially not you. ”
Leland.
I wanted to know what he couldn’t say, every detail of the horrible thing infiltrating his Lucid Dreams. Something unimaginable, probably, if he couldn’t talk about it, but I knew — from keeping things in myself — that silence was protection.
Protection from people who wouldn’t understand, from the sound of your own voice, from feelings unraveling like airtight packaging, which, once taken out, never fit in the box the same way again.
Sometimes talking about things really doesn’t make them better, not if it’s not the right time or with the wrong person.
And I’d found what I needed in Skye and Leland, or I was starting to, but if Leland wasn’t ready yet, the last thing I wanted was to push him. So I changed the subject.
“Did you find Ven?” I asked.
Ven’s golden collar materialized in Leland’s hand, dangling. “I did.”
“Alive?”
Leland nodded. “He got a lecture about killing Echelons.”
“Did he listen?” I put my chin on my knee, trying to hide the chattering of my teeth.
“He teleported,” Leland said, sighing. “Ven’s gifts — teleporting across dimensions.
Killing people. They’re not conventional.
I keep circling around what I saw in the Memory Share we did at the temple.
Helen shouting he’s not a Familiar. I don’t know if she was lying or if she knows, but Ven shouldn’t be able to do the things he does.
I’m glad I got to see him again, but . .
. I’m more glad Dashell removed him before he could hurt you or anyone else. ”
I gave Leland a look.
Ven’s gift was killing people?
Either Ven really wasn’t Leland’s Familiar or Leland couldn’t see himself the way I did. Leland had said it himself: Familiars fill in the gaps an Allwitch is missing. Leland kept trying to tell me he wasn’t nice, but he was. He was. He was.
“What?” Leland asked.
“Saying nothing.”
“In that case — ” He got up and opened the middle drawer of his dresser.
“I’m running out to get food and find out what’s going on with the climate control.
Pick whatever you want from my dresser.” My lips parted in protest, but Leland said, “Your lips” — his eyes lingered there — “are blue. The way you’re staring at my sweaters has me concerned for them.
Your dress, while it might be my favorite thing I’ve ever seen you in, hasn’t managed to convince me it’s not actually a shirt, plus it leaves your wrists exposed. ”
I sort of floated to his dresser after he left, remembering his breath on my ear, the back and forth, the compliments and long looks.
We were flirting. Well, he was; I was embarrassing myself.
But he was definitely flirting, and I wanted to act on it, or at least part of me did.
The other part was still recovering from Gray Fallsdown.
Not in terms of feelings. Feelings for him were dead. But I didn’t trust myself.
From the bottom of his drawer, I picked a gray Creation Academy sweatshirt and plaid pajama pants, and while he was still gone, I briefly slipped upstairs to use the third-years’ washroom, then snuck back into Leland’s room and headed straight for the chaise part of his couch and curled up.
He found me there when he returned ten minutes later, changed into sweats, his dress shoes switched out for running ones.
In one hand, he held two Sunset Moonales.
A plate of grilled cheeses was in his other.
“Belinda paid an Elemental to make it ‘cuddly cold’ in here,” he said, slightly annoyed, and set our food and drinks down on the walnut coffee table.
It didn’t seem wise to acknowledge why she took it upon herself to do that, or if cuddling was an option worth resorting to.
“I’ll fix it after you go to bed,” he sighed.
“Or if we start to die. Moonales are nonalcoholic.”
Had my frozen ab muscles been able to relax, I would have sighed at the sight of the crisp, buttered toast, the American cheese perfectly melting the two slices together.
Grilled cheese wasn’t one of the French words on Belinda’s five-course menu, but it was my comfort food, and I took my first bite without questioning it.
We ate slowly, and I finally started to relax as we talked about what really happened the night he claimed to hit Farrah Prolix, and eventually, came back around to the topic of me being a Dark Witch.
I still hated the idea, but Leland said the allergy was serious, and my other option was not selecting anything, which would kill him and result in me deteriorating like Sabrina.
“I don’t want to select dark magic,” I vented. “Jaxan,” I huffed out as the first reason. “I hate Dark Deals. I hate Death Bonds.” I shook my head up at his ceiling. “I don’t want to start over in a new jurisdiction. In Gnarlton?”
I was warmer in his sweatshirt, but we’d somehow crept closer to each other. We were side-by-side on the lounge side of the couch, with our legs touching under soft blankets. I kept my hands where he could see them, flat on top of a silky layer of chenille, so I wouldn’t accidentally brush his lap.
“It grows on you,” he said.
Absently, I reached for my neck. “Gnarlton?”
“Yes . . .” His eyes assessed why I was acting weird. “But I meant dark magic, and you, specifically. I get Visions sometimes. There’s one where you’re a Dark Witch. You look happy in it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We both do.”
“You never told me this.”
“Didn’t want you asking to see it.”
Sharing memories was intimate, and I figured that was why he didn’t want to. We’d done it before, gone forehead-to-forehead in the Allwitch temple, but under those conditions any intimate feelings that might have arisen from the closeness required for Memory Sharing were impossible.
“But if it’s my future . . .” I said.
I felt him tense.
“If you asked to see it, I would show it to you,” he said, the words contradicting the rest of his demeanor, which was stiff, urging caution.
“There are risks. Showing a person their future can cause them to act in ways preventing them from ever getting to it. I don’t want that.
I want this future for us. Our other fates — they’re not as good.
So I can show you. And I can tell you your reaction to it tomorrow.
But if you want to see it, afterward, you’ll have to agree to let me extract the memory from you. ”
“I want to see it,” I said.
Leland took my hand, and his fingers lightly scraped down the outside curve of my thumb. “Before we do this,” he said slowly, still caressing. “I need to tell you what you’re going to see in the Vision so I know you’re okay with it.”
I nodded and grew increasingly concerned as he proceeded to tell me, in no uncertain terms, what I was about to see in the exact order I was going to see it. My skin tingled, and I was embarrassed, but my mind was unchanged.
“Still want to do this?” he asked.
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Then come here,” he said, making space on his lap for me to straddle him.
I climbed on top of him, closing my eyes because I couldn’t possibly look at him after all he’d just said, then nodded against his forehead for him to start casting.