Chapter Seven Kion #5
It’s fucking killing him. After their “date” makes the papers tonight, his team will believe that he and Cho are together.
The fact that he can’t even tell James is eating him up inside.
The contract he signed last night for this ridiculous plot threatens to immediately kick Taissa to the curb if he goes and opens his gob to anybody.
Including James. Bill knows him too damn well; the arsehole put that as a specific stipulation.
Ridgeshaw included. Even though the contract isn’t magically binding—probably out of laziness; Bill’s too busy trying to save this mess of a team to draw out any complex glyphs—it’s a risk Kion’s hesitant to take.
But he hasn’t been able to bring himself to lie to his team, either, and tell them that he and Cho are an “item.” They’ll find out from the tabloids, which is probably the fucking worst way to find anything out, but…
Kion doesn’t like lies.
He’s been told enough of them all his life. He still hears them ringing in his ears.
The boys at the Waywardly Home, luring him outside in the nighttime under the premise that he was finally being adopted, only to shove him into the freezing lake and throw stones at him.
Matron Louisa, telling him that it was only a matter of time, that one day he’d have a family just like other little boys.
Father Jameson, hissing that he had the devil inside of him after catching a glimpse of Kion’s magic. Wailing that he was a demon-boy. Encouraging the other boys to…exorcise him.
The professors at the Witchery, pretending to care about him, then sending him back to the Waywardly Home each summer to be kicked and spat upon.
No, Kion doesn’t like lies. Not at all.
But Taissa does. It’s one of the many things he can’t stand about her. She lies.
Even through the blood crusting her face, he can clearly see her acceptance of what tonight will bring. He’s sure that his expression is even more sour as Niamh flounces out of the infirmary, clearly content that everything tonight will go precisely as it should.
For the hundredth time, he wishes he’d used a bloody Unseen glyph.
Fifteen minutes later, Taissa—newly healed up—is bidding goodbye to Edward, who blushes like a smitten schoolboy. Fucking hells.
“Let’s go,” Kion mutters, eager to get out of the infirmary. But Taissa is already ahead of him, pushing open the doors and striding into the hall, clearly dead set on a destination. And if he knows her, she’s going right back to the pitch.
Even after spraining her wrist and bleeding heavily enough that she resembled one of those violent little faeries, she’s headed back.
His heart swells up like an angry balloon.
“Cho,” he snaps, catching up to her. The corridor’s walls are lined with life-sized printouts of the players. A polarized version of Knox, grinning like a cocky git, watches them pass. “I’m not in the mood to watch you fall again today.”
“Sometimes we have to fall,” says Taissa humbly. For a moment Kion thinks she’s going to say something deep and poignantly wise. But then she follows that up with, “That’s gravity, you numpty.”
“Cronus—”
“—is going to have to learn how to be ridden.” Taissa sighs, halting mid-stride and turning to face him.
Her back is to his own printout on the wall.
Kion’s own eyes glare at him from above Taissa’s shoulders.
Bloody disconcerting, that. “Look. I won’t lie to you, Locke, I know it seems bad. But I also know we can make it work.”
Kion drags a hand down his face. “Listen, Cho—there’s something you should know.”
She turns her warm brown eyes onto his, frowning. “I don’t like the way you just said that.”
“Yeah.” He bites the inside of his cheek. “Cato told me some things about his father,” he says, and curtly recounts what his stymph had told him, watching Taissa’s face grow progressively tighter.
“I,” she says, “am going to kill Markus.” He believes her.
“Don’t do it on Nexitory grounds,” he warns. That’d be a lawsuit.
Taissa shakes her head, her breathing quickening in the way it does when she’s resisting the urge to punch something—or him. “Dodds needs to let him go. That monster shouldn’t be anywhere near my baby.”
“I’m working on it.” Chances are slim, he doesn’t say. “But, Cho—your ‘baby’ is cannibalistic, geriatric, arthritic, and bloody traumatized.”
“Nothing time can’t heal,” Taissa snaps.
“Our first match is next Monday.” Against the rubbish Cockatrices. “If we lose—”
“We’re out of the bracket for the rest of the season. I know.” Her chin juts out. “That’s why I’m going back out there. By tomorrow morning, I’ll be riding Cronus. I’ll show him I’m different than Markus. You’ll see.”
Doubtful. “Will I?”
She visibly seethes. “Sixteen quid. I’ll bet you sixteen quid.”
“I’ve never met someone so eager to be rid of their money.”
“I’ve never met someone so absurdly incorrigible.”
“You have the vocabulary of an old woman.”
“You have the breath of an old man.”
“I do not—”
Taissa gives him a sharp smile from over her shoulder. As she resumes her stride and turns the corner, Kion stays back, cupping his hand and breathing into it.
Liar.
She’s always such a bloody liar.