Chapter Fifteen
Arthur pushed Willoughby’s door closed until it latched.
His heart hadn’t stopped pounding since he heard the sound in the alley, since Maggie had dug her nails into his arm.
He had been so sure that something much worse than a wraith was stalking them, and every fear he’d had the moment Maggie told him she’d walked all the way from Hawthorn, since she’d insisted on helping with the pall, seemed to have come true in an instant.
His thoughts were a rush—She was only out tonight because of me, only here so late because we had to go over every one of my mistakes—and if he didn’t get a grip, he was going to have a panic attack right here among the paperbacks.
Maggie was watching him, so he said around the lump in his throat, “I’m going to browse for a minute, if that’s okay?”
Her expression brightened, and, gods below, she was beautiful.
“I was hoping you’d suggest that.” Her apple cheeks were pink with the excitement or the chill, he wasn’t sure which, and he remembered the way the flush had spread across her face as they’d danced surrounded by bonfires.
He wanted to reach for her, but to his relief, she immediately disappeared up the rickety staircase beside the register, leaving him staring after her and worrying one of the buttons on his sweater.
Willoughby’s was two bright floors with books tucked into every possible corner.
The new books were on the first floor, where glossy paperbacks with deckle edges and sleek hardcovers with dust jackets like butter lined tables and shelves.
Upstairs were the used books and rare collections, which seemed to be where Maggie was heading.
He breathed in the smell of dust, paper, and glue, a smell that always seemed a little bit like home, and tried to calm his racing heart.
If he was being honest with himself, it wasn’t just the wraith that had him unsettled.
He owed Maggie the truth about what happened on Beltane, and the longer he went on without telling her, the guiltier he felt.
He had opened his mouth more than once to tell her over the course of the afternoon, but he couldn’t do it.
He was a coward, instead deciding on the spot that Rory’s plan, flawed as it was, was better than seeing her face fall in disappointment when he admitted he was the one who had kissed her.
There was something fragile between them, something that drew them together like beads on a string, and he didn’t want to be the one who broke it.
Even as he half feared he was imagining it.
If she could just remember on her own…but nothing he had tried so far had seemed to break the spell.
Maybe she had already forgotten the night they’d shared.
Maybe it had meant nothing to her at all.
He’d thought, perhaps, buying her a coffee like he’d bought her a drink on the beach would ignite her memory, but nothing had happened as their fingers touched when he handed her the cup.
As they’d entered Glinda’s, he’d barely had the nerve to reach out and let his hand graze her back where he’d held her as they danced, but all that had gotten him was a well-deserved glare over her shoulder.
He thought he’d seen a glimmer of recognition in her expression as she’d sucked on the honeysuckle candy, but that, too, was in his head.
He didn’t know what to do, but he knew they needed to get back to Hawthorn before the sun set.
Arthur grabbed a book off the table without looking at the cover and walked upstairs.
He found Maggie right away, sitting in the seat of a large half-moon window that looked down on the street below.
She had a book propped on her knees and a small stack on the plush quilted cushion beside her.
Precarious shelves were crafted around the window and stuffed at all angles, creating an archway of books.
He recognized a few of the spines as some of the more well-known Diadhan legends and epic poems that were the focus of Maggie’s research.
He wanted to sit down beside her. No, he wanted to gather her into his arms and drape her legs over his until she was curled around him.
He wanted to forget the pall and the ghouls and the wraiths.
Wanted both of them to get lost in whatever they were reading until the faefire glow of the streetlamps blinked on and the stars winked into view. He wanted something he couldn’t have.
When she saw him, she pushed her books out of the way and patted the cushion next to her.
They should be walking back to Maggie’s apartment, but suddenly it seemed a lot less important than the chance that their legs might brush against each other like they had while they danced.
They sat on opposite ends of the bench, leaning against the curve of the window, their legs bent.
His seemed awkward and gangly, taking up far too much space, but she didn’t seem to mind.
The window afforded them a view of Hawthorn.
Ilex Hall rose out of the trees like a beacon with its arched walkways and russet brick.
Beyond it, the edge of the Wilds loomed, alive and hungry.
He was staring out the window when Maggie said quietly, “The first year I moved to Galloway, I didn’t really know anyone.
I came here a lot.” When he looked over at her, she was inspecting something on her knee.
“I felt a little lost, I think. I was…” She paused, searching for the right words.
“I was so burnt out after grad school, and I needed a new focus, but I had no idea what it would be. I didn’t trust myself anymore. ”
Even though she wasn’t looking at him, he nodded.
Every move he’d made over the past year—quitting his job at Dartwood, moving to Atlantia, taking the job at Hawthorn—was tinged with uncertainty.
And now, the kiss on Beltane, the pall, his disastrous decision to share an office with Maggie…
he was even less sure he’d done the right thing.
She gestured to the books around her. “I fell in love with Diadhan because my grandmother had a collection of translated Diadhan romances. Books and books of them that I’d read on summer vacation.
Coming here felt a little bit like reminding myself what I loved about Diadhan in the first place.
And, one afternoon, I was rereading Branagh’s Aubade.
There’s a line in that poem—do you know it?
” she asked eagerly, finally looking up at him.
He smiled. He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t know why she was telling him this, but he wanted to do everything he could to keep her talking. He wanted to know everything about her.
“I read it once, a long time ago,” he said, though that wasn’t entirely true.
“Well, there’s a line in the fifteenth stanza that has been translated about a dozen different ways.
I was reading the original and wondered if it was an idiom whose exact meaning had been mistranslated.
I read Diadhan text after Diadhan text to try to find another use of it, and it was during one of those reading sessions that I had the idea for my research.
You know that feeling, don’t you? That kind of what-if that leads to another what-if that leads to a why.
So I have this bench and this window to thank. ”
Arthur watched her look out the window. There was a wistful, sad expression on her face that he didn’t understand.
“I used to come here, too.” She looked up at him in surprise.
“The year after Simon was born, I’d fly out in the summer.
To keep up with my research, I’d drive out to Galloway and work in the alchemy lab.
It’s how I got to know Dean Clearwater and Dean Bobbin. ”
“I didn’t know that.”
Arthur shrugged. “I kept to myself. And, on weekends, sometimes I’d bring Simon out here to get away from the city and give my brother a couple hours to run errands.”
How long had their lives been running in this parallel until they crashed together last August?
It was strange to imagine another world where the Arthur he’d been four years ago ran into Maggie.
He’d been a different man then. One more concerned with his own ambition, with making a name for himself, than anything else.
Would they have given each other more than a passing glance?
The silence stretched on between them, but it wasn’t awkward or unpleasant now.
Eventually, Maggie’s lips, with their perfect divot, curved into a soft smile, and her attention returned to the view of the college and the Wilds beyond.
She reminded him so much of the Maggie he’d first seen on Beltane, sitting in the sand far from the party.
And after he’d made that inexplicable decision to sit down next to her, he’d been sitting much like this, with his leg bent.
All of it felt so familiar to him, but it seemed to do nothing to jog Maggie’s memory.
“Did you find something?” She gestured to the book in his hand, the one he’d forgotten all about as she talked. The one he hadn’t bothered to glance at before he’d picked it up.
He looked down: Difficult Conversations at Work: Talking to Colleagues with Ease. His ears grew hot and, he knew from experience, turned a blaring red that peeked out from beneath his hair. “Oh,” she said around a grin.
“It’s for my stepmom.”
“Sure,” she said as she gathered up her small stack of books in her arms. “We should get going. The sun is setting soon.”
He wasn’t sure if she said it because she was truly afraid of what they might encounter in the darkness, or if she was just giving him an easy out. Either way, he was grateful, and the gesture was enough to make his chest ache.
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