Chapter 22 #2
She looked at it for a long while. Then she signed her name.
When they stepped into the demarcation circles, he was struck by how very close they were to each other. He could see the hollow of her throat as it disappeared under her collar. Could hear her coat rustle and smell the orange scent in her hair.
He had the sudden, overpowering urge to close the gap between them and—
He backed out of the circle, mortified beyond description. “Inappropriate” didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Omnimancer?” she said, a tremor in her voice.
“I—I think I should destroy the other Vow first,” he said, offering up the first excuse he could think of to put air between them until he could get his heart to stop battering his rib cage.
“Oh,” she said, voice catching, and oh, the image that conjured up. Miss Harper on his bed, hair splayed across his pillow, saying that word in exactly that way over and over. God Almighty, why was he having these thoughts about her of all people?
He grabbed a maple leaf from his coat and aimed at the original contract lying on the table—the one that ensured she would never, ever, ever want him.
“Formeltan,” he said.
The leaf was consumed in a puff of smoke. The contract, to his surprise, was not.
“Formeltan!” he snapped, wondering if he’d been thrown so far off kilter that he couldn’t cast a simple burning spell properly.
The second attempt was similarly disappointing. No—this was a problem with the contract, not his spellcasting.
“Cast with me,” he said, moving to put the table between them.
She arranged herself in the just-so position. “On three? One, two—”
Spells coming to naught, they stared at the piece of paper with its single, ugly sentence. He grabbed it, trying to rip it down the middle, and it was as if the very molecules had changed. It looked like paper. It felt like paper. There the resemblance ended.
She gripped the table, staring at him. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know!” He tossed the contract aside. “It’s supposed to keep other people from destroying it, not me!”
She darted to the bookcase and pulled out an encyclopedia. While she read, he tried several more spells, each as fruitless as the one before.
“There’s no mention of the holder of a contract being unable to extinguish it when desired.” The tension in her voice equaled what he felt in his entire body. “But there’s also no mention of a pair of wizards Vowing to each other essentially simultaneously.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Because no one casts this spell if they can possibly avoid it. The government frowns upon it, and there are less binding ways to enter into a joint agreement.”
“Perhaps the only way to destroy this contract is to also destroy the one you signed,” she said.
He saw no reason why that should be, but he ran to retrieve it anyway.
He needed to sever the link between them without delay.
What if he gave himself away by dreaming of that moment in the demarcation circles?
What if she experienced, through whatever connection the Vows had given them, these particular, problematic feelings?
He laid the other contract on the table, next to his, and handed her a leaf. She stared at it, then at him, her expression showing how much this worried her.
“You will sign a duplicate if this works? You promise?”
“Yes,” he said, adding “I promise” when she did not seem reassured. “Formeltan on three—one, two—”
This time when they cast, the contracts scorched, shriveled, disappeared.
Miss Harper leaned against the table, taking in gulps of air like a woman just saved from drowning. His relief, he knew, was nothing to that. But he could feel only his own. She looked nearly about to faint from the strength of her emotions.
He held out a hand that he told himself was only to steady her, not because he wanted to touch her. “Come into the receiving room and sit down.”
“No!” She laughed. “Oh—that is the most beautiful word. I cannot properly express how wonderful it is to have free will again after having lost it.”
This was the moment to say he never should have done that to her. To ask how he might earn her forgiveness. To get down on his knees.
She stepped into the nearest demarcation circle, all business. “We’d better do this immediately, Omnimancer, before I’m inclined to run.”
She clearly expected no apology. Not because it wasn’t necessary, but because she assumed he would not behave properly.
The fact that he was now lusting after her only bolstered that point of view.
He bent to adjust the new contract, centering it at the point where the circles overlapped, and stood in his designated spot, trying not to look at her or think about her or breathe her in.
“Ic gehāte,” she said.
Like a moth to flame, he couldn’t help but watch as she put the pips in her mouth.
Her lips glistened. With great effort, he made himself stare at the contract instead.
The second it stopped glowing, he leapt from the circle and grabbed the pomegranate.
He had to get this over with and get her out of the house.
Temporary madness, that was all this was.
“I’ll rewrite the other contract,” she said, sounding completely unaware of what he was going through, and thank goodness for that. Now, at least, she would have no way of knowing, as long as he wasn’t obvious about it.
Then a horrible thought struck him.
“Wait,” he said. “We shouldn’t do this tonight.”
“What?” The word was sharp, her eyes sharper.
“We don’t want our Vows interpreted as a pair. If I take mine tonight ...”
“We might end up sharing dreams and feelings? Still?”
“It’s possible,” he said, and that possibility was a lump of cold dread in his throat.
“Couldn’t we just reset the demarcation circles? Move them to another room, even?”
He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I’d really rather not take the risk.”
“Well,” she said, voice rising, “I can’t risk having you outside the bounds of a Vow, particularly this weekend!”
When she had said he made her afraid, that was bad enough. Untrue, he’d thought, but at least not unreasonable. But this—this was a knife in the gut.
“You can’t think I have any intention of making life difficult for your sister,” he snapped. “Why for God’s sake would I have helped you tonight?”
Her glare was so icy he could practically feel it. “To maneuver me to this point.”
So, nothing he’d done this evening mattered in her eyes. He’d cast himself as the evil wizard and would never be allowed to play a different role. Not even occasional ally.
He opened the eyes he’d shut reflexively, too wounded to think of a reply, and found her looking at him with unexpected regret.
“I’m sorry, Omnimancer,” she murmured. He watched the tense rigidity leach out of her, rounding her shoulders.
“I’m sorry for what I said this afternoon about your father, and I’m sorry for assuming the worst—that was unfair.
It’s just ... you can’t expect me to have much faith in you, after everything that’s happened. ”
“No.” He extracted pomegranate pips, steeling himself for the repercussions of another Vow. “I can’t.”