Chapter 2 Octavius #5
She slid off the table and reached for her coat, moving with the slight disorientation of someone who had temporarily left her own body and hadn’t quite found her way back yet as she made her way toward the front.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You should come back,” I heard myself say before I had fully decided to.
My mind insisted I should be done with her—that this should be nothing more than a single appointment—because if there was more of that in her, I knew I’d have to clear an entire day to handle what she was feeling.
And yet, something in me resisted that conclusion.
Though taking in that much hurt was difficult, I didn’t think it was right for her to carry it either, not when I could do something about it.
Her brows lifted slightly, something curious and amused flickering back into her expression. “Was that professional advice or a terrifying order?”
“Both.”
She nodded, as if that answer made perfect sense, and a moment later she was gone.
I stood where I was for several seconds after the shell chimes settled, listening to the fading rhythm of her footsteps outside as they disappeared into the night.
And as if on cue, Mina appeared in the doorway, wearing the exact expression I least wanted to see on her face.
“No,” I said, already knowing she was about to badger me about the session with Kara.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
She crossed her arms, leaning casually against the frame. “Interesting,” she said, studying me. “She is either the beginning of a terrible decision or the solution to your personality problem,” Mina continued, entirely unbothered. “Possibly both.”
“She’s just a client.”
Mina’s mouth twitched, like she was holding back something far more annoying. “Mmhm.”
I wanted to argue further, to shut the conversation down before it went anywhere else, but the weight of Kara’s fear and stress still lingered beneath my ribs and I found I didn’t have the energy to waste on Mina’s imagination.
I locked up for the night as Mina headed off to her doom—I mean her anniversary dinner—and my feet carried me toward the cove without conscious thought. It was instinct at this point, a pull as steady as the tide itself, needing to drain it all as soon as possible.
I walked faster than usual, irritation simmering just beneath my skin. I hated how this felt, and I could only imagine what it must have been like for Kara—someone who, from everything I could sense, had far more human in her blood than magic... if she had any magic at all.
The thought crept back in, my pessimistic instincts lingering.
It wasn’t my place to question it, not my place to dig into something that wasn’t mine to expose.
But if she was here, in my town, among my kind, and didn’t truly belong, then why the hell was she here?
She didn’t seem dangerous, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t bring danger with her.
And despite all my suspicions... I had still invited her back for another session.
The realization sat uneasily in my chest as I continued down the path, the sound of the ocean growing louder with each step.
Something about her pulled at me in a way I didn’t like, a curiosity that refused to be ignored, and though I wanted to get to the bottom of what she might be hiding, what I really wanted to know was what—or who—had carved that kind of fear I’d felt tonight into her in the first place.
I pushed the thought aside, my jaw tightening.
Not your concern, Octavius. I reminded myself as I continued on.
By the time I reached the shoreline, night had fully settled over the cove. The world softened into shadows and silver, the waves lapping dark and reflective against the rocks. I stepped onto a flat stretch of wet stone and drew in a slow breath, filling my lungs with salt and night air.
Then, as if it were second nature, which by now it was, I opened the channels inside myself and finally let the day go.
Stress left me in dark, silken streams, unseen at first, slipping quietly from beneath my skin until they met the water and revealed themselves in faint, shifting light as the ocean accepted it without hesitation.
Pale luminescence bloomed where the ink dissolved, growing brighter the more I released, spreading outward in slow, rippling waves of blue-silver shimmer that turned the surface into something almost celestial, as if the stars themselves had sunk beneath it and were trying to rise again.
I stood there, watching it expand and fade into the water, until my attention drifted to the cliff above, where Kara was probably already sleeping off the aftereffects in her crumbling cottage that stood just above the cove. My cove.
I drew my coat tighter against the wind and turned back toward town, feeling relief finally settle into my system as the last of it bled out of me. There had definitely been far too much for a single day’s work, most of it hers, and I knew deep down there was more to Kara than she was letting on.
I was going to see her again, if she took my advice about another session that was. And this time, I intended to pay closer attention to what she was hiding and who she actually was.