Chapter Twenty-Three
Katherine got a sick satisfaction from watching Silas Khatri think he was getting stood up.
She was nearly twenty minutes late—a move she hoped he construed as a power play, even though it was actually because of the traffic that spawned in Los Angeles like a weed.
She was frustrated, hungry, and definitely past her bastard quota for the day, but watching Silas squirm through the glass windows of the restaurant was at least helping.
He had dropped the suit jacket and tie, and his broad shoulders filled out the chair.
His body was languid, leaning back as if he didn’t have a care in the world, one hand scrolling through his phone while the other alternated between reaching for his water and clenching at his leg, which was bouncing under the tablecloth as he fidgeted with nerves.
His attention lifted to Katherine the second she entered, his head cocking to the side as a lazy smile crossed his face. She was instantly disarmed, her lead snatched away by his dimple.
She wanted to punch him.
She sat down.
He smiled wider. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Well, what’s the excuse? Come on, dazzle me. I’ve heard every reason in the book.”
“Get stood up a lot, huh?”
Silas chuckled. “Not usually for dinner with women.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re incredibly cocky?”
Silas rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Most of my dates would describe me as cocky, yes.”
Katherine ignored the involuntary clench the look that accompanied that statement brought on. “Well, I apologize for my tardiness,” she said. “It was just good ol’ Los Angeles traffic.”
Silas tutted. “Come on, give me something better than that.”
Katherine hesitated. Bantering with him seemed like opening a door that should definitely stay closed, but the stress of the last few days had fried her desire to keep her defenses up. She wanted that moment of fun and normalcy—even if it was with Silas Khatri.
Finally, she said, “Attacked by a unicorn.”
“Scary. How’d you make it out alive?”
“Drove its horn into an electrical socket. Fried the beast.”
“Bloodthirsty.”
“Now that’s how my dates describe me.”
Silas laughed at that, a genuine belly laugh, and Katherine shifted in her seat at the real, true happiness that radiated from him in that moment.
The waiter saved her, walking by with menus and a too-long speech about the night’s specials.
Silas ordered a bottle of wine for them both—white, at her request; a sauvignon blanc, at his; the most expensive one they had, at the waiter’s, clearly having clocked the money wafting off Silas like perfume—and they spent a quiet couple minutes perusing the menu before the waiter came back with their drinks and a chance to break the awkward silence with murmured pasta orders.
Silas lifted his wineglass to her, his blindingly white teeth showing as he smiled. “Cheers to a mutually beneficial partnership.”
Something about the way he said mutually beneficial partnership did not call up boardrooms. At least, it did not call up being in boardrooms while still wearing proper business attire.
Katherine cheers-ed. “To your trip in LA being easy and uneventful.” And brief.
Their glasses clinked. Katherine took a sip. This bottle cost half her rent and it tasted the same as the one she picked up on her weekly Trader Joe’s run.
“Expensive wine…” Silas said, and Katherine steeled herself for the annoying faux-sommelier rant. “Tastes like shit.”
Katherine snorted, some of that expensive wine getting caught in her throat. “So why’d you let the waiter talk you into it, then?”
Silas shrugged, running a hand through his black waves. He pointed to the wall, where a teenage version of their waiter stood with a man and a woman—his parents, it looked like—in front of the restaurant, a GRAND OPENING sign tacked over the door. “His family needs the money more than mine does.”
Katherine’s heart fluttered involuntarily. “That’s actually … decent of you.”
“Sorry for shocking you. Would you like me to go back to being a rich prick?”
“Please.”
“You would not believe the insolence of the staff on my yacht last week.”
Katherine snorted. Again. It was deeply unflattering.
“You’re cute when you snort.”
“Cute is one way to describe it.”
“Would you prefer hot?”
God, he was a flirt. He was known for it, she reminded herself.
He wasn’t the only one who had looked into his opponent’s reputation over the last couple of days.
In the research she’d been gathering since his arrival, she’d heard of a dozen women who’d had fun with Silas as he traveled across the country.
All the reports were the same—fun always highlighted (alongside other words that Katherine tried not to think too hard about, like generous, and enthusiastic, and “Jesus Christ, his mouth”), with the caveat that you shouldn’t expect anything more out of him.
That when you scratched the pretty surface, there was nothing underneath.
She couldn’t reconcile that description with the man who had talked to her about magic and held her hand through the start of a panic attack.
But it didn’t matter—whether Silas was the surface-level player everyone described or the smart, insightful person she thought might be hiding underneath, she couldn’t afford to let this be anything other than professional.
“I’d prefer we talk about the business that’s brought us here.”
Silas straightened at that, leaning away from her and back against his seat. She was impressed at how quickly he recalibrated. Relieved too. Silas was already well aware that no one would use the word fun to describe her.
“Of course,” Silas said. The waiter brought over their food and set it down in front of them.
Katherine tried to be ladylike about it, but she was starving, and half of her shrimp scampi was inhaled in under a minute.
Her bad mood faded in degrees, layers getting stripped away by garlic and butter and carbs.
“I wanted to discuss Aestas with you,” Silas said, speaking between his own very prim and proper bites of pasta. “How do you think Sylvia is doing as leader?”
The bad mood slammed back down. It was a perfectly reasonable ask, she knew, but coming out of Silas’ mouth, it sounded less like a question and more like a threat.
“Sylvia is a fantastic leader,” Katherine said, fighting to keep her voice even. “She may not have the breeding or education you have, but she knows how to get things done.”
“I’m well aware that good breeding and education have no direct correlation to actual skill, Katherine.”
His tone was surprisingly hurt. Katherine was struck by the idea that he might be talking about himself.
“Well” was all she said. Silas took a bite of his penne arrabbiata, chewing slowly. Finding a way to make sure she was the one on the defensive again, she supposed. Everything about him, she reminded herself, was calculated. Down to the very expensive socks stuffed in his very expensive shoes.
“Would you say that she’s handling the pressures of running the coven well?” he finally asked. “I know it can be quite hard for witches to maintain the level of power needed, especially with a coven of this size and the length of Sylvia’s tenure.”
Katherine hoped the flash of fear didn’t show in her face.
Hoped he saw no hint of the memories of Sylvia with ordinary after ordinary, sitting in that chair in her office, giving up precious days of their lives to her.
It was a relatively harmless crime, Katherine reminded herself.
The ordinaries knew what they were giving, and Sylvia was doing what she needed to do to keep their coven afloat.
To make sure that every unsettled witch had a home.
No matter the cost.
“She’s handling the pressure phenomenally, as she has for the last fifteen years. I have full confidence in her abilities to keep the coven running and to ensure that every witch who is welcomed into Aestas is given all of the resources they need to succeed. Something your coven could work on.”
Silas bristled. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Aestas welcomes witches of all backgrounds. Settled and unsettled. Noctis’ closed-door policy leaves the most vulnerable witches alone and unsupported.”
“Noctis’ policies are designed to keep our members safe,” Silas said, parroting the words from Noctis’ handbook. “We welcome those born to non-witch parents to join once their magic has settled, but the risk is too high for us to provide our assistance before that point.”
“So, what?” Katherine snapped. “You leave them in the cold during the scariest time in their life, and once they’ve managed to claw their way out of that, they get the privilege of joining a group of people who look at them like they’re no better than the dirt on their shoe? Sounds like a bum deal to me.”
Silas shifted in his seat. At least he seemed to have the decency to realize what Noctis did was wrong.
Katherine had heard what they did with the few unsettled witches who came to them for help—told them they were too dangerous to be in society; that they should find somewhere far, far away from civilization and try not to snap for the next few years.
Those who didn’t take that advice were forced out of the city.
And when they came back, finally settled, the coven ostracized them so badly that most of them left the world of magic for good.
“There’s no better way.”
Katherine let out a bitter laugh. “My god, your parents have you brainwashed.”
He flinched at the word parents, the action miniscule.
“I know that Aestas has a training camp for unsettled witches, but there have been dozens of accidents. Most witches don’t make it out of there alive. They—”
“What?”
Silas hesitated. “I was always told that most of the witches who go to Oak Grove don’t come back.”
“Do you even bother to question the propaganda they stuff down your throat?”
“They’ve always said the camp wasn’t a safe place—”