Chapter Twelve #3
Maggie busied herself with looking at the pastries behind the glass—cherry tarts, blueberry lemon scones, slices of chocolate pie—as Liv continued to talk while she made their drinks.
“Did you hear about the ghoul attack at Rodrigo’s?
” Maggie looked up, and Taliesin glanced her way, eyebrows arching behind his glasses.
Liv went on. “Two patrons managed to banish it before it caused too much damage, but…” She shivered theatrically.
Taliesin looked like he was about to interrupt and announce that the patron herself was standing in Liv’s coffee shop, but Maggie shook her head.
Liv slid their drinks across the counter and then crouched behind the pastry cabinet as she went on.
“It’s certainly been strange out there. The wardsmiths came by earlier this week and blamed it all on something out of the ordinary going on up at the Wilds.
They shored up our storeroom wards for free, thank the gods above. Is the school doing anything about it?”
Taliesin’s smile tightened almost imperceptibly. “Trust me, they’re working on it.” His voice had an edge to it that Maggie had heard before but couldn’t quite read.
When Liv moved on, he visibly relaxed. “How are your dad and the boys?”
“Same old, same old.” He wasn’t looking at Liv as he said it, though.
Instead, he was watching Maggie take her coffee, his gaze dipping down to her fingers as they brushed his.
He seemed to be watching her expression for something, but she wasn’t sure what.
She wondered if he found it when he gave her a small smile before turning back to Liv.
Maggie didn’t think Taliesin noticed, but Liv’s eyes darted between them as if she was trying to figure out just who Maggie was to him. Taliesin didn’t bother to introduce her, though, and Maggie wasn’t sure if she was annoyed by it or not.
“Pop’s been taking Simon out fishing on Saturday mornings,” he went on. Simon must be his nephew, then. “And Rory is Rory, you know.”
Liv chuckled as if she absolutely did know what Rory is Rory meant. Before they turned back to their tables, Taliesin reached into his pocket and dropped a twenty-dollar bill into the tip jar on the counter. “Ridiculous!” Liv shouted at him.
“Take it, Liv,” he insisted.
“I wasn’t going to give it back,” she said with a wink as Taliesin moved to return to their seats.
Maggie tried to make sense of everything she just heard as she slid into the booth that Taliesin had commandeered. She took a sip of her coffee and finally asked, as casually as she could, “So, how do you know Liv?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been doing my grading here. I’m always too tired to do it after the long drive back to Atlantia.”
That didn’t quite answer Maggie’s question. She wondered for a moment if she was being too nosy, but decided the disappointment Dahlia would feel if she didn’t get as much information from Taliesin as possible was not worth it. “But how does she know your dad?”
“Oh!” He seemed startled by her question, as if he thought the answer should be very obvious. “Liv went to high school with my brother, Rory.”
“Across the country?” Maggie asked, surprised.
As far as she knew, Arthur had lived in Soladia up until last August, which was almost three thousand miles away from Bean There, Done That.
“I thought your mom, Rowena…” she said and then stopped.
She didn’t know Rowena Taliesin, and it was weird to refer to her by her first name.
“I mean, Dr. Taliesin…” But that was weird, too, so she added a hasty, “Senior…gods below,” she muttered, completely floundering.
Despite her stumbling, Taliesin smiled. “It’s okay,” he said. “I grew up in Soladia with my mom, but my dad and half brother have always lived here.”
“Here?” Maggie was shocked by this news. “In Galloway?”
“Well, in Atlantia,” he clarified. It was like the missing puzzle piece finally clicking into place. That was why he was living in Atlantia instead of Galloway. This must be why he’d left prestigious Dartwood for Hawthorn.
“I had no idea.”
Taliesin wrapped his hands around his coffee, his broad shoulders bunched into his ears as he shrugged. “You didn’t ask. It’s not something most people know about me.”
“Why not?”
He looked at Maggie before he answered, his gaze lingering on her lips for just a second.
But then he sighed and said, “Most people just want to know about Rowena Taliesin, the legendary alchemist. If they want to know about me, it’s about my research or one of the projects I consulted on.
” Quickly he added, “Which I’m not complaining about!
It’s nice when people are curious about my work.
But there is rarely much curiosity left for the rest of me. ”
Maggie’s cheeks warmed. She hadn’t expected such a candid answer.
Had she done that? Made him feel like he didn’t matter?
Before the pall, she hadn’t had many conversations with Taliesin beyond welcoming him to the university in the fall.
“I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way,” she said, and she hoped he could hear the sincerity in her voice.
His expression softened. “Never you, Maggie. You just yell at me.”
“Oh, well…” She wasn’t sure if that was better. “I promise I don’t usually yell at colleagues.”
He smirked. “Just me, then?” His voice was low and Maggie’s cheeks turned redder, but she couldn’t bring herself to deny it.