Chapter Thirty
Over the next two weeks, Maggie and Arthur clocked in long hours on campus.
The pall was growing, strengthening, but Maggie couldn’t have sped up time even if she wanted to.
They were at the mercy of the decoction, which was slowly settling into the dark eggplant purple they needed to show it was ready to use in their spell.
While Arthur worked to edit his calculations to factor in the convergence, even bringing in Jim at Maggie’s urging, Maggie focused on her incantation translation.
Dissipation incantations were old magic, and not particularly difficult, but because the pall was cast due to an incantation error, she was double- and triple-checking every word choice and spending hours combing through ancient Diadhan texts.
The additional power of the convergence threw everything in the spell off-kilter, and she was accounting for that as much as Arthur was in his calculations.
Campus was quiet. Rarely, they ran into another faculty member or an administrator as they alternated between working in their office and the libraries, which were mostly deserted over the summer.
Maggie always missed the students when they were gone, with their boisterous activities on the lawn.
They breathed life into the campus, and during the doldrums of summer, she often wished the time away.
But for the first time in years, she found herself wanting summer to slow down.
By nature of her apartment being closer to campus, Maggie and Arthur often found themselves tumbling into her bedroom when they had a spare hour or two, in between fortifying wards around campus and spellwork.
She almost didn’t recognize herself. She was insatiable for Arthur.
For the sex, yes, but also for his company.
She had completely and utterly shocked herself by liking Arthur Taliesin.
Sometimes, as they worked on their own individual parts of the spell, Maggie would lie down on the couch, her head on the armrest nearest to Arthur’s tiny desk.
She would let her mind wander, an essential part of any troublesome incantation, and marvel at Arthur sitting next to her.
Absentmindedly, he sometimes reached over and ran his fingers through her hair or massaged her shoulders, even as he didn’t take his eyes off the work in front of him. It was so easy. So normal.
Had she ever been this content? The truth was, she had, once.
It had been like this with Evan. They, too, had spent every day together.
Had lived in the same on-campus apartment building and later in the same apartment off campus.
They had taken the same classes and worked on many of the same projects together. And that comparison terrified her.
But slowly, she was starting to realize that, maybe, Evan had always made her feel small.
Less. Like he knew better than she did. It wasn’t blatant enough that she ever noticed it while they were together, but small, subtle things she could only recognize with hindsight, without the blinders of her affection, with Arthur in front of her as a contrast. In that way, Arthur and Evan were as different as night and day.
Arthur made her feel bigger, brighter. Smarter, kinder.
That should have made her feel better, but instead it made their looming deadline feel like a sentence.
As she lay on the couch one afternoon, staring at the ceiling, she said, “I think I’m going to spend tomorrow fortifying the wards around the Annex and Cedrus Hall. My brain needs to do something other than translation.”
Arthur didn’t look up from his work. “That sounds good. I could use a change of scenery. Some air that’s a little less damp.”
She bit her lip. “No,” she said quickly before she could lose her nerve. “I think I just need a little space to mull over a tricky part of this incantation.”
To his credit, Arthur didn’t ask what was wrong or pry for more information. He didn’t whine about being left behind. He just gave her a soft, inquisitive look and said, “Right. Of course.”
She immediately felt a wave of guilt wash over her. Arthur hadn’t lied to her. He hadn’t wronged her. Evan had done that, but even though it was years ago now, it felt like the time was slipping around itself and she couldn’t make sense of it. A day apart would be good.
—
Dahlia, who had recently returned from her annual trip to visit her family, was back to teach a summer catch-up course for students who needed extra help in runology. When Maggie had texted her asking her to meet at the Annex to fortify the wards, Dahlia hadn’t hesitated.
Maggie was sitting at the Annex steps, looking up at the window of the room where she had fought with Arthur, when she heard Dahlia screech from down the walkway, “Tell me everything.” Dahlia threw her bag down on the steps next to Maggie, who was shushing her friend even though the campus was quiet.
“He’s good in bed, isn’t he?” Dahlia went on, her voice still too loud.
“I will throw a pine cone at you.”
“Oh, no, I’ve been dodging tiny Hawberry cousins for weeks now, I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that.”
Instead, Maggie stood and hugged her tight around her shoulders.
It had been almost three weeks—a very busy, very distracted three weeks at that—but Maggie had missed her profoundly.
Midnight text messages dishing about everything going on were not nearly enough.
Dahlia returned her hug, but then pulled back, looking over Maggie. “What’s going on?”
“I’m so…happy.” Maggie muttered the word happy like it was miserable or devastated instead.
Dahlia gently guided Maggie to sit back down on the steps. “So why do you sound so upset about it?”
Maggie sighed. “I keep thinking about what I told you about the man I kissed on Beltane, before we knew he was Arthur.”
“Which part?”
Maggie had been thinking about this for days, in the quiet moments when she and Arthur couldn’t avoid each other’s touch.
When he curved around her at night, as her worries melted and sleep came to her easily.
When he was gone, she could still smell his cologne on her clothes, her skin, her hair, her bedsheets.
“That we fit together, like puzzle pieces.” Like the space beneath his chin where she had rested her head was made for her and her alone.
“But I have spent the last eight months hating Arthur Taliesin. And when I wasn’t hating him, I found him to be insufferable and annoying. He’s my puzzle piece?”
“Is he really insufferable and annoying?”
“No, but…”
“Do you still hate him?”
“No, but, Dahlia…” Maggie groaned in frustration, feeling like she was going in circles.
“We fit. We just do. He makes me laugh, and the sex is…well, it’s the best I’ve ever had, and I’m content to just sit next to him for twelve hours a day at work and then again for twelve more at home.
But what happens when the students are back?
When Dean Clearwater finds out? Summer isn’t real life.
” Dahlia looked at Maggie thoughtfully and started to respond, but Maggie kept spiraling.
“How did I let this happen again?” Her voice cracked, her throat sore as she tried to swallow the urge to cry.
All this over nothing. Nothing had happened.
Arthur was probably sitting in their office, wondering what she was doing only because he was curious.
He probably missed her. And, gods below, she missed him, too.
“Taliesin is not Evan.” Dahlia tucked back a piece of Maggie’s hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. “Don’t give up your happiness because you’re afraid. That’s a coward’s move, Mags.”
Maggie felt a twinge of anger at Dahlia’s honesty, but if she had wanted someone who was just going to soothe her and make her feel better, she would have called another friend.
“Trust yourself,” Dahlia urged. “Trust your feelings. Trust that Taliesin is telling you the truth when he says he likes you.”
That’s when I fell in love with the way you think…“I can’t,” Maggie whispered, banishing the memory of what he’d told her. “I thought I could trust someone, and look what happened.”
She wondered if she would forever question the way everyone loved her, just because of Evan. She hated that his betrayal had ruined so much. It wasn’t just their future together that he had torpedoed.
“You are not the same Maggie Linden you were four years ago.”
Maggie bristled. “What does that mean?”
Dahlia sighed and took her best friend’s hands in hers.
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong. Evan took advantage of you.
He broke your heart and betrayed your trust. I’m just saying that this Maggie Linden?
The woman in front of me? You wouldn’t let anyone else walk all over you like that. ” Dahlia squeezed Maggie’s hands.
“You have too much faith in me,” Maggie said, shaking her head.
“Of course I do.”
Maggie couldn’t quite take the kindness. “Oh, stop. Can we just go fortify these wards?” she asked as Dahlia gave her a knowing smile. And as they armed themselves with their vervain paint and warded charms against fantasmia, Maggie let Dahlia’s words burrow into her until she almost believed them.
There was only one ward on the Annex building, so they quickly moved on to Cedrus Hall, one of the newer buildings on campus that was used for student housing.
It had been empty for weeks now, but like Ilex Hall, it butted up against the edge of the Wilds.
The building’s wards were strategically placed on the wall facing the forest, standing sentinel against anything that came out of its shadow.
Maggie and Dahlia rolled up their sleeves and got to work on side-by-side wards, careful not to let the vervain paint drip and throw off the spell.
“I don’t know who drew this ward last, but it was sloppy,” Dahlia complained, trying to straighten out one of the rune lines until she was satisfied.
They moved down the building, chatting as they went.
Finally, Maggie asked the question she had been avoiding, if only because of the follow-up questions Dahlia was surely going to ask. “Are you busy on Saturday?”
“No, my students aren’t getting in until Monday.” She shook her paint pen, but her line was still spotty when it came out, so Maggie tossed her another.
“Arthur invited me to Atlantia. Well, I invited myself.”
Dahlia looked at Maggie over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. “What do you need me for?”
“His nephew’s last baseball game is that day, and he obviously needs to be there. I suggested we go to the beach another day, but he invited me to the baseball game instead. You, too.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“Obviously,” Maggie said with a sigh. “I’m sure this is a terrible idea, but he was so nonchalant about it. Maybe it really is just a baseball game. And if both of us go, it will be less strange for me to spend the day with his family. Right?”
For some reason, Maggie had the feeling that Dahlia really wanted to say something else when she said, “Maybe.” She stood back and admired her work on the last rune before saying, “Of course I’ll go.”
Maggie sagged with relief. “Thank you. What would I do without you?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”