Chapter 8 #2
“Focus on the earth beneath you,” Lucien says, his voice taking on that soothing quality that makes me think he could probably talk me into believing anything. “Not the surface. Beneath it. The roots, the stones, the pulse of the land.”
I try to do what he says. I really do. I imagine roots stretching deep into the soil, spreading out in intricate networks, connecting everything in some vast underground web of life and energy. But all I can think about is how the ground is probably cold and damp and full of bugs.
“I live in Massachusetts,” I whisper. “All I can feel is seasonal depression and the urge to buy decorative gourds.”
“You are spiraling,” Sir says with a weary patience.
“I am reflecting,” I argue, because there’s a difference between spiraling and honest self-assessment, even if the end result looks suspiciously similar.
Lucien tilts his head slightly as he watches my face, studying my expression like he’s reading a book written in a language only he understands. “Whatever Sir is telling you right now, I suspect he is not encouraging decorative Cucurbitaceae.”
I snort despite myself, opening my eyes to look at him. “Did you just. . .did you really just use the scientific term for the family of squash?”
“I may have spent some time studying botanical classifications,” he says with that small smile that suggests there are layers to this man I haven’t even begun to explore.
“Close your eyes again,” Lucien says gently. “Try to listen rather than force the moment.”
I try. I really do.
I close my eyes and attempt to sink past the noise in my head, past the frustration that feels like static electricity under my skin, past the constant awareness that my magic should exist somewhere inside me and yet still feels like an empty room I cannot enter, no matter how many doors I try.
For a moment, there is quiet.
Just for a moment, I feel something, a flutter, like a bird brushing against a window. Something warm and electric and alive, humming just beneath the surface of my awareness.
Then my brain decides that quiet is unacceptable and begins replaying the last two weeks in excruciating detail.
Ezra explaining complicated potion and tincture craft while I stare at recipes that might as well be written in hieroglyphs.
The way his dark eyes light up when he talks about magic, like he’s sharing secrets of the universe, while I sit there feeling like I’m missing some fundamental piece that would make it all make sense.
The Wizard is a major nerd and usually I can get behind that being a book nerd myself, but I feel completely out of my depth, like I’m trying to learn calculus when I haven’t mastered basic arithmetic.
Toni encouraging me to move ivy around The Cackling Hen, barking at me to stop thinking and just will it. She insists that magic isn’t something you figure out, it’s something you experience. Lin waving her hands around in circles telling me to cleanse my chakras.
Sir correcting my pronunciation of an archaic phrase with the disappointment of a professor who expected better.
Lucien standing in the doorway of the shop, watching me with endless patience, like he has all the time in the world and is perfectly content to spend it waiting for me to figure out whatever lesson I’m supposed to be learning.
Maceo brushing past me in the narrow aisles of The Grass Is Greener and letting his hand slide briefly along the small of my back, as if touching me is the most natural thing in the world, as if physical affection is a language he speaks fluently and I’m finally learning to understand.
Three men who have shown up for me again and again in the past two weeks.
Three men who look at me like I’m worth their time, their attention, their care.
Me. Well, I’m standing in the middle of it wondering if I deserve any of it, wondering when the other shoe will drop, wondering what I’ll have to give up when they realize I’m not the powerful Witch they think I am.
My eyes snap open.
Lucien watches me carefully, those violet eyes see too much. “Sweetness, you are not focusing.”
“I am focusing,” I argue, so used to him calling me Sweetness that I don’t even question it anymore. The endearment has become as natural as breathing, like it was always meant to be there.
“You are not,” Sir says flatly, his tail flicking with irritation.
“I am trying,” I snap, frustration bleeding into my voice despite my best efforts.
Lucien leans forward slightly, his movement fluid and concerned. “What were you thinking about?”
“Everything,” I admit. There’s no point in lying when he can probably read my emotional state like a book anyway.
“That is not particularly helpful for meditation,” he replies, those perfect arched eyebrows lifting in gentle concern.
Gods, this man is a distraction all on his own, sitting there like some kind of Fae prince who wandered out of a fairy tale and decided to take up residence in my increasingly complicated life.
“It is the only honest answer I have,” I say with a huff of frustration.
Silence settles between us while the breeze rustles through the trees.
“It has been two weeks,” I say finally, my voice smaller than I want it to be. “Two weeks of books and breathing and plants and spells and meditation and absolutely nothing has happened.”
Lucien listens without interrupting, his expression patient and attentive, like every word I say matters to him.
“I know what you are going to say,” I continue, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I know it has been thirty-five years. I know the binding is complex and deeply rooted. I know it will not break overnight like some magical switch being flipped.”
“Correct,” Sir says with something that might be approval.
“I know all of you can sense it,” I add, my voice tightening with frustration and something that feels dangerously close to desperation. “You keep telling me it is there, that my magic is practically spilling out of me, that you can feel it humming under my skin.”
I laugh softly, though it carries no humor, just the bitter edge of irony.
“Do you know what it feels like to be told you have something and still not be able to touch it? It feels like being starving in front of a table full of food you are not allowed to eat. It feels like watching everyone else speak a language you should know fluently but can only catch fragments of. It feels like being handed the keys to a car and then realizing you’ve forgotten how to drive. ”
Lucien studies me quietly, nodding in understanding.
“We should stop for today,” he says gently.
“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intended, carrying all the frustration I’ve been trying to swallow for two weeks.
“Keisha.” He says my name with a plea behind it, like he can see the edge I’m dancing on and doesn’t want to watch me fall.
“I do not want to stop,” I insist, my voice rising slightly. “I want to do something that works. I want to feel something other than this constant sense of failure. I want to stop being the broken Thorne who can’t access her own birthright.”
“You do not win by forcing it,” Sir says, his mental voice carrying a note of something that might be wisdom.
“Then how do I win?” I ask, turning my head to look in Sir’s direction, meeting those eyes that seem to hold secrets I haven’t earned the right to know yet.
Sir blinks slowly, considering, his tail twitching with what I’ve learned to recognize as his thinking pose.
“You persist,” he says with maybe a hint of pride ringing through it, like this is the first intelligent question I’ve asked in days.
Lucien exhales softly as if he can see the shape of that answer in my expression, as if Sir’s response has illuminated something he was waiting for me to understand. “Whatever Sir just told you, I suspect he is correct.”
I drag in a slow breath, trying to let the simple truth of it settle into the spaces where frustration has been living rent-free.
“What if we do not have time?” I ask quietly, voicing the fear that wakes me up at three in the morning. “What if the wards slip again? What if something happens to the town while I’m sitting here trying to meditate my way into my own power?”
Sir’s tail flicks sharply, a gesture I’ve learned means he has opinions about whatever I just said.
Before either of them can respond, footsteps approach the courtyard, familiar, confident steps that my body recognizes before my brain catches up.
Maceo’s voice carries through the open gate, warm and amused and exactly what I need to hear.
“There you are.”
I turn. He’s leaning casually against the wooden fence, broad shoulders relaxed against the weathered boards, those eyes bright with quiet amusement.
His black t-shirt clings to his chest in ways that should probably be illegal, and his cornrows are neat and fresh like he just came from getting them redone.
There’s motor oil under his fingernails and the faint scents of engine grease and something distinctly him carry on the breeze.
My pulse quickens in ways I’m trying very hard not to analyze.
He takes one look at my face and his expression shifts, amusement giving way to concern.
“You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he says softly, pushing away from the fence and stepping into the courtyard like he belongs here, like this space is as much his as anyone’s.
“I am fine,” I reply automatically, because that’s what you say, even when fine is the last thing you are.
“You are not,” Sir says with the kind of blunt honesty that makes me want to throw something soft at him.
I frown over at Sir and give him some serious stink eye, which only makes his whiskers twitch with what I swear is amusement.
“Are you arguing with the cat again?” Maceo asks, and there’s something in his voice that suggests he finds our dynamic more entertaining than he should.
“Yes,” I say, because there’s no point in denying it when it’s obviously true.
Lucien rises smoothly to his feet, brushing invisible dust from his perfectly pressed trousers. “We are finished for today.”
Maceo grins slightly, that easy smile that makes something warm unfurl in my chest. “Good timing. I’m a genius.”
He looks back at me, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe properly.
“Come have lunch with me.” Maceo says, inclining his head toward the shop.
It’s not really a question, more like a gentle command wrapped in an invitation, the kind of offer that assumes I’ll say yes because saying no isn’t really an option either of us wants to consider.
“I do not need—”
“Keisha.”
The way he says my name is gentle but firm, like he can see through whatever protest I’m about to make and has already decided it’s not worth hearing.
“I am buying,” he adds, attempting to tempt me with the kind of grin that suggests he knows exactly how persuasive he’s being.
I narrow my eyes at the offer that sound too good to be true. “That sounds suspicious.”
“It means you are not paying,” he waggles his brows suggestively, and somehow makes the simple act of paying for lunch sound like the most scandalous thing in the world.
“Fine,” I sigh as I stand, accepting defeat with what little dignity I can scrape together. “But if I get kidnapped by Wolfie here and forced to eat a salad, I am blaming all of you.”
“You will live,” Sir says dryly.
“Salad, me?” Maceo points to himself with both hands, looking genuinely offended by the suggestion. “Oh, Ki-Ki, I’m all about the meat.”
I roll my eyes, of course he would find a way to make it sexual. Everything with this man somehow circles back to innuendo, like his brain is hardwired to find double meanings in the most innocent statements.
Lucien offers me a nod, already moving toward the shop. “Enjoy your reprieve, Keisha. I’ll see you later.”
“Stop calling it a reprieve like I’m a medieval prisoner,” I grumble, but I’m already moving toward the shop, because lunch sounds like air and Maceo’s presence feels like exactly the kind of distraction my brain needs right now.
Maceo falls into step beside me as if that’s where he belongs, his shoulder brushing against mine as we navigate the narrow path between the garden beds. I do not think too hard about how natural it feels, how right. Nope, not at all.