21. Even Educated Fleas Do It
Even Educated Fleas Do It
Luna turned in a slow circle, taking in the incomprehensible space. “Where’s everyone else? The coven, Adrienne—”
“Gone.” Elias moved to one of the arched doorways and peered into the darkness beyond. “Or we’re gone. I’m not sure which.”
“What did that spell do?”
“I think,” Elias said, turning back to face her, “it might have been designed to create an ideal romantic setting.” He gestured at the candles, the music, the suspiciously perfect ambience. “A fantasy for two, from my time.”
“Oh.” Heat crept up her neck. “Oh no.” Of course this is how it goes. It couldn’t be some simple trap. No, this is an elaborate romantic glamour specifically engineered to make everything as awkward as possible.
“Oh yes.” Despite everything—the confusion, the danger, the complete uncertainty of their situation—Elias was grinning.
What does that expression even mean? she wondered. Is he grinning at the adventure of it all? Or at the me of it all? Does he even know why he might grin at me? Or did his feelings for me disappear with his memories?
My gods, my life is a rom-com written by a sadist.
The player piano shifted to something slower, dreamier. Luna recognized it: “Begin the Beguine.”
Of course.
“We need to figure out how to get back,” she said, trying to sound practical but landing somewhere around mildly panicked.
“Agreed.” Elias moved to the bar, but she couldn’t tell if he was looking for clues or cocktails. He picked up one of the bottles—gin, pre-war vintage—and turned it in his hands. “This feels real. Solid.”
Luna touched one of the tablecloths, half expecting her hand to pass through it. But no, it was real linen, cool and starched. “Is this an illusion? Some kind of glamour?”
“Maybe.” Elias set the bottle down carefully. “Or maybe it’s real, and we’ve been sent somewhere else entirely.”
Luna’s stomach dropped. “Like another dimension?”
“Or another time?” He was looking at the piano now, that analytical expression settling over his features. “You notice the player piano’s actually playing? It’s not rote. This thing is actually playing, with feeling.”
“So?”
“Player pianos play what’s on the roll.” He went to the instrument, examining it more closely. “Yeah, look. This one’s improvising. I’m thinking it was enchanted, specifically for this space.” He looked up at her, and his expression was difficult to read.
“If it’s a spell, we should try to break it,” Luna said, more firmly than she felt. “Whatever it is.”
“Probably wise.” But he didn’t move, and neither did she.
The player piano transitioned seamlessly into “Night and Day,” and she wondered if it was going to kill her slowly with the entire Cole Porter catalogue.
“You know what the worst part is?” he said suddenly.
“What?”
“I’m actually charmed.”
Charmed?! she thought. One can be charmed by a five-year-old’s birthday party. Or by a granny who curses like a sailor. But he says he’s charmed by this? Charmed is a low-stakes word. This doesn’t feel especially low stakes to me.
“Not by the spell . . . or at least, I don’t think by the spell. By all of this. The absurdity of it. The fact that we just accidentally proved our argument to an entire coven by getting trapped in some kind of . . . I don’t know . . . whatever this is.”
“Romance pocket dimension?” Her voice came out smaller than she wanted it to. “Can we get out?”
“Dunno, what do you think? I assume your friends are working on it? How long would it take to break a spell like this?”
Luna shrugged. “Could be minutes. Could be hours.” Her eyes flicked to a candle on the table, the flame dancing in sync with her own uncertainty. “So.”
“So.”
“This is um. This is happening.”
He nodded. “There are worse places to be trapped, I suppose.”
The piano transitioned into something slower, more intimate.
They were here. Alone in this beautiful lie.
In a place that existed outside of time, outside of consequence, outside of everything except the music and the way Elias was looking at her like she was the only real thing in the entire impossible room.
“Well, Melrose. Not much to be done, I guess.” He held out his hand. “Would you like to dance?”
She hesitated—not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t know what this version of Elias thought they were doing. “I don’t . . . I don’t really know how to dance. Not like this.”
“Lucky for you, I’m an excellent teacher.”
It would be so much easier if her fluttering heart were just a spell gone wrong.
If the warmth spreading through her was purely magical influence, something she could blame on CastR’s shoddy code and Ashton Vex’s questionable ethics.
But she knew better. She’d known since they embraced outside the town meeting, maybe before.
Since the basement, when he’d looked at her like she was the answer to a question he’d been asking for a hundred years.
Luna took his hand.
Suddenly they were moving. He pulled her close—not scandalously close, but close enough that she could smell whatever he used in his hair (something woodsy and expensive), could feel the heat of him through his waistcoat.
She wondered urgently whether he could feel their history without remembering it.
“One hand here,” he murmured, guiding her hand to his shoulder. “The other stays with me. And just . . . follow.”
“Follow where?”
“Wherever I lead.” He started moving, slow and easy, giving her time to catch the rhythm. “That’s it. You’re a natural.”
“I’m stepping on your feet.”
“Nah.” His smile was soft now, almost tender.
“This is insane.”
“Completely insane,” he agreed.
“We should be planning. Strategizing. We’ve only got ten days—”
“—nine days now—”
“—nine days now, to pull off an impossible plan and—”
“And instead we’re waltzing.” Elias pulled back just enough to look at her properly, and Luna felt pinned by his gaze. “Terrible timing, isn’t it?”
“The worst.”
“Although . . .” He seemed to be thinking something through.
“There’s an argument to be made that if we’re about to spend the next nine days in high-stress, potentially lethal situations, maybe we should take this moment.
While we have it.” His thumb traced a small circle on the back of her hand, and she could feel it all the way to her toes.
“Luna Melrose, I’ve been effectively dead for a century, trapped in the Void for most of it, and somehow the worst part wasn’t the existential horror.
It was knowing I’d never meet someone like you. ”
“That’s . . .” She swallowed hard. “That’s a hell of a line, Shaw.”
“It’s not a line.” His other hand had drifted to the small of her back, pressing her closer. “I mean it.”
“Sure,” she chuckled, “that’s how you ended up in the Void for eternity. Because of your great sincerity.”
“Wellll, it’s true, I’m a liar. But only professionally. I’m not lying about this.”
“Elias,” she said softly.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
So he did.
It wasn’t like the movies: no swelling orchestra, no perfectly choreographed dip.
It was clumsy and urgent and a little desperate, his mouth hot against hers, her fingers tangling in his hair.
His mouth was insistent and slightly clumsy, and there was something almost unbearably sweet about it.
About learning each other in real time. They broke apart, foreheads pressed together, the piano still playing its soundtrack to their disaster.
“We don’t have time for this,” she whispered.
“No,” he agreed, and kissed her again.
She melted into the embrace, her fingers laced behind his neck as his hands slid down her back to rest at the curve of her waist. His touch sent shivers down her back, and she could feel his heart racing, mirroring her own.
She could have sworn she heard the clock ticking somewhere in the back of her mind, counting down the precious minutes they had until reality caught up.
The player piano took a break, and the room itself held its breath. The air was thick with desire, hunger, and anticipation. Sweat glistened on their skin under the twinkling lights. They didn’t speak; they didn’t need to.
Elias pulled away slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.
There was something so raw and vulnerable in his gaze that made her heart ache.
He kissed her once more, softly this time, on the forehead.
He moved confidently toward one of the tables, sweeping away the gilt-inflected plates and ornate silverware.
He lifted her onto the table in one smooth motion, and Luna’s breath caught as her legs wrapped around his waist. His hands were everywhere—her thighs, her hips, sliding up her ribcage—and she was making sounds she didn’t recognize, desperate little gasps that should have embarrassed her but didn’t, couldn’t, because nothing mattered except this, him, now.
“Luna,” he breathed against her neck, and the way he said her name—reverent and ruined—made something inside her crack wide open.
She fumbled with the buttons of his waistcoat, her fingers clumsy with urgency. “This is insane,” she managed between kisses.
“Completely,” he agreed, helping her with the buttons because apparently even in the throes of passion, Elias Shaw was a gentleman. “But I’m done pretending I don’t—”
The world lurched.
One second Luna was on a table in a 1920s fever dream, halfway to doing something that would definitely make things complicated.
The next second she was on a table in Track 61, under the cold fluorescent enchantment of the Guastavino tiles, her legs still wrapped around Elias Shaw in front of approximately twenty witches.
Time stopped.
Her brain tried to process what was happening. Failed. Tried again. Failed harder.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
The coven stared at them with expressions ranging from delighted to scandalized. Hector cleared his throat. It was possibly the loudest throat-clearing in the history of throat-clearing.
“So,” Diego said, his voice carefully neutral. “The spell appears to be working as advertised.”