by Jayla Kane
“Thank you, Sarah,” he breathed, and both of us clenched inwardly; I was positive he was right. Something was off about Sarah and Anna. Something… Magical. That was the only way to explain it. “If at all possible, could I have some more towels sent up?”
“Would the young lady like a dressing gown?” She directed the question to me, and I felt my teeth chattering as I answered.
“Y-y-yes, please,” I said. Was she a ghost? A spell? What?
“Will that be all?”
“Um,” I said, trying to get ahold of myself, and both of them turned to look at me. “Sarah… Jake and I were looking for some… Some old books. Books about… Magic. Do you know if there are any?”
“I believe you found all of Master Thomas’s collection,” she said immediately, and I swear my heart almost stopped beating in my chest.
“I can’t read them,” I said slowly, and she gave me the same nod she’d just given Jake, her face exactly as still and unreadable as a country pond, undisturbed and desperately full of secrets.
“You shall find them quite readable now,” she said, ducking her head one more time before standing up tall, surveying us methodically. “I’ll have your supper sent up momentarily. Can I do anything else for you?”
“No,” we said in unison, staring at her. And as if our tacit, unsure questions had given her permission to reveal exactly how fucking magical she really was, Sarah gave us both another brief glance before stepping backwards, directly into the solid wall, and disappearing.
“What. The. Fuck.” I was glad I wasn’t the only one taken aback. Jacob reached out and laid his palm against the wall, then drew it away, staring at it as if there might be some residual magic on his hand. “Holy shit—Rae, if you weren’t here, I’d be checking myself into the goddamn loony bin.”
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t,” he said, his voice low, both of our hearts beating rapidly. He grabbed my hand and I clung to him unabashedly as we pulled open the door and raced into his room. “I just—I just wanted to see.” We both halted in the center, slowly turning in a circle.
It was… Different.
There was a fire in the fireplace, warming everything in spite of the cool night air that poured through the windows. The books we’d stacked on his desk looked different, too—their covers were noticeably changed, some weathered and beaten and a few, creepily enough, covered in hide, like horse hair. His bed was made, there were flowers in a vase on the desk he’d never used, and hanging in the wardrobe was a white gown—mine. Silk, I saw; perfectly sized. Old fashioned, but beautiful and comfortable. And the veneer of dust that usually hung in the air was just… Gone.
This was a real master’s suite—as if the house recognized Jacob as one if its own and was welcoming him accordingly. We heard a knock on the door, and he turned slowly and opened it to find a single, slender-legged serving table, piled high with Anna’s biscuits, home-made jams, and butter. Hot tea piped from a gorgeous antique set, and the room filled with the scent of chamomile, lemon and lavender. Jake picked up the table and pulled it inside, setting it down as he closed us in and turned a new array of locks and bolts on the door, then turned to stare at me.
“Okay. What the actual fuck, Rae?”
“You live in fucking Hogwarts, dude,” I said, and we both exploded into peals of nervous laughter, the big room echoing with it. When I recovered, I stared around me some more. “Jake… This is fucking crazy.”
“Crazy awesome,” he said, turning to tap the door. “Dude. Jesus, I wish I’d had more of a goddamn imagination when I was a kid. Lucas never would’ve been able to set foot in here.”
“Why do you—why is it different now?” He turned to look at me, and I shrugged. “I mean, you’ve always been you. Is it just the Magi thing? Or the me thing? What?”
“I have no idea,” he said, turning to look at the stack of books on the desk. Now there were two plush chairs sitting in front of it, and the upholstery looked new. It was the same chair, just… Thirty years younger. “I don’t know if I have the stomach to do this tonight,” he said slowly, and instead of sitting at the desk and getting to work, he walked over, grabbed a fluffy pillow off of the bed, and laid down in front of the fire. He interrupted my unfettered enjoyment of the view of his long body, stretched out, by rolling to look up at me. “Can we talk? I’m freaked out. I can’t imagine that you’re not.”
I went over and grabbed the tea tray heaped high with food, then stopped when I heard his light footsteps behind me. Jake leaned over me to pick it up, and even the lightest brush of his skin on mine felt like a kiss; whatever bound us—magic, a twisted history, this love that neither of us could understand or control—I felt it rippling inside of me like a changing tide, sparkling across my body from the place where his chest briefly brushed against my shoulder as he took the tray from my unbalanced hands. I wasn’t turned on by magic. I was repulsed by it, most of the time. But… This was the first day I’d spent with Jake in our old stomping grounds, and in spite of the way it started… It felt really fucking good to be here with him, figuring stuff out.
Really, really, really good. So good I felt my entire body flush, hungry for him. Not magic—not anything else, not the tray of food or a sense of righteousness or glimmer of power... Nothing but Jake felt this good.
“Rae?” And when I turned around and saw him lounging by the fire, stretched out, the glow limning his copper skin with gold highlights as his green eyes blinked up at me and delicious smells of lavender and lemon mingled with the crisp autumn air pouring in through the window… I felt like I must be dreaming. “Did you just pinch yourself?”
“Just a precaution,” I said, and he shook his head at me, smiling. “This looked a little too good to be true, is all,” I explained, and he sat up, his eyes gleaming in the firelight.
“I’m just going to go ahead and assume you mean Anna’s biscuits,” he said slowly, reaching over and grabbing one, splitting the flaky layers apart and spreading jam and butter on it. He handed it to me, then made one for himself. I stared down at it for a long time before taking a bite. “I think if it was going to hurt us, it would’ve a long time ago,” he said, watching me, and I nodded.
“It might explain why it’s so damn good, though,” I told him. “I tried for years to recreate these in our kitchen so we could sell them in the shop.”
“That’s gotta be illegal,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me, and smiled when I playfully slapped his arm. “Just saying. Told you you were no saint, Keller.”
“Anna wouldn’t mind, and you know it,” I said, and he shrugged. It was true; Anna was forever lamenting the skinniness of the Keller girls, and sometimes she’d come right out and say we weren’t eating enough; well, except for Baby, because all three of us gave a little of whatever we had to her. “Do you really think they’re ghosts?”
“No idea,” Jake said, shaking his head. “None.”
“But you knew something was off,” I prodded, and he gave me a brief look.
“Well, I just realized… I hadn’t been down to the kitchen in ages,” he said, absently reaching over to dab a stray dollop of jelly off of my bottom lip; it was so casual, it almost felt like the last five years hadn’t happened. And sensual. I didn’t dwell on it, even when his eyes suddenly widened, as if he hadn’t fully realized what he was doing until it was over. “She was sweet and sour as ever—she knew I’d seen you, somehow,” he told me, his eyes sharp as he gazed at the fire, grateful I hadn’t snapped at him. “Maybe that’s what did it, actually. Because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how she knew. It didn’t make any sense. She just said,” he explained, his eyes softening as he turned to quickly glance at me, “that I ‘had that look about me,’ or something like that. You know how she is.”
I did. “Do you think it’s like that Ron Swanson thing, where every time he has sex, he—what?”
Jake was sputtering with laughter, choking down his biscuit so he could get it out; I t
humped him on the back until he waved me off, both of us laughing so hard tears were streaming down our cheeks by the time he could talk again. “Did you seriously just ask me,” he started, then had to gasp out another laugh again while I giggled madly, “whether or not I have some kind of sex strut the morning after?”
“He wore a red shirt,” I said defensively, then just about died laughing when he rolled on the floor and howled for a full minute. It took us a long time to settle down, and when he was finally upright and wiping his face off, he shook his head at me.
“No, I do not think Anna can tell when I get laid, Rae,” he said, his shoulders still shaking. “Jesus.”
“You don’t know,” I said, poking him with my finger. He was ticklish. I knew it, and I knew almost no one else in the world did.
“Don’t,” he said, his face painfully serious, which of course made me do it again. “Raven!” Jake rolled away from me, and we both collapsed into giggles again. “Goddamnit,” he said, grabbing a napkin, “I got crumbs everywhere.”
“Yeah, but your house is magic. Dude.”
“Well, okay dude, but—”
“But nothing. We’ll wake up tomorrow and it will have eaten all those biscuit crumbs right up.” We smiled at each other, twilight heavy in the air, and I sighed when his started to fade and I accidentally read his thoughts.
“It could’ve,” he said, already defending his hypothesis; I shrugged, glad he wasn’t mad when I heard him. “I mean, if it can do this—what even is this? A time warp? What?”
“I don’t know,” I told him, shaking my head. “No clue.” Jake thought that the house might have built the extension that Mina and Lucas lived in; why not, right, if it lived to serve the Warfield family’s every need? “So we’ve gone from ghost aunties making biscuits and clean bedrooms to full on haunted house?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, his voice baffled. He rolled onto his stomach, his broad shoulders hunching as he propped himself up on his elbows, his long back muscles stretching out like a tiger’s. I had to tear my eyes away, and was glad he hadn’t noticed—this time. “I really don’t.”
“We’re going to have to read those books tomorrow,” I told him, and he nodded up at me, the easy peace between us growing thicker even as we started to discuss the more uncomfortable things that had happened today.
“Definitely,” he sighed. “So. Tell me more about dinner.”
We settled in with cups of tea—mine a dainty gilded cup and saucer set, his a mug that said RUGBY in bold script—and I told him everything, showing him around my head as necessary, like it was a display in a museum. I really was getting better at it, the whole telepath thing; I’d been able to tune him out completely, even though his shield was damaged and he wasn’t bothering with it much, anyway, and mine was fully intact, retractable when I wanted it to be, and I was starting to get better about choosing what to bring out: words, images, emotions. Not such a tangle any more. It felt… Good, actually.
Everything felt pretty damn good.
It freaked me out.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I suddenly said, waving my hands so that he immediately jumped to his feet and looked like he was getting ready to kill something—“No! Jake, no, I’m sorry—I just… I just had a thought. A really intense thought.”
“More intense than Lucas’s blood brain? Or Mina’s cotton candy one?”
“Yes,” I said, and he sat down across from me, his head tilted in that way I was starting to love instead of hate. “Calm down, please. You’re distracting me, and this is a big deal. For me.”
“’Kay,” he said, his eyes watchful.
“So… This has been… Nice,” I said, swallowing hard. “In spite of the awful way my day started, and the weird dinner, and the fact that I’m now staying with you in your fucking ghost mansion or whatever… I have had a really good day, Jake.” He smiled at me: pure, angelic light poured out of his beautiful copper face. “But I don’t know what that means for us,” I said, and he bit it back down, swallowing it almost visibly. “When Monday rolls around, am I still staying here with you? Are you going to keep calling me Bird all the time? Say some other mean crap about—”
“Raven,” he said, shaking his head so hard I had to blink to see his face, “please, I wouldn’t—”
“Yeah,” I said, cutting him off, “you would, Jake. In a heartbeat.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, staring at me, and he was suddenly too wounded to keep his thoughts tidied away; I was bombarded with his feelings all of a sudden: disappointment, hurt, and rage. Bottomless, ruthless, reckless, all-consuming rage. But not directed at me, thank god. “Rae, I told you—”
“Yeah, but I lived with what you’re capable of for a long time,” I said, my voice shaking; he started to reach out for me and stopped himself, clenching his fist as he slowly, deliberately pulled his thoughts and feelings back inside, burying them somewhere in his mind. I looked down at the carpet where our fingers were almost touching and sighed. “I am terrified of being hurt by you again,” I whispered, “and it’s going to feel so much fucking worse this time. You know it will. If I… If I let myself enjoy this too much, it’s going to be so much worse.”
“That’s not going to happen,” he said, and the vehemence in his voice made me glance up at him. His eyes were burning, and the thoughts he showed me—pushed towards me—were sheer adamantine will. I sucked in a breath from the sheer force of it—of him.
“You can’t know that,” I said, but he reached over and grabbed my hand. I prepared myself for his thoughts, but the way his voice and mind spoke in tandem overwhelmed me, his thoughts echoing down through me like ripples in water, his words matching every syllable, spoken out loud in the otherwise silent room.
I swear to you, Raven Kintera Divinity Keller, that I will never, ever hurt you again. I will protect you and love you and serve you as you swore to serve me, and I will never, ever hurt you—for as long as I live, and beyond, if I’m lucky enough. As I stared into those inhuman eyes the fire behind him exploded, filling the room with a blast living, screaming heat—and then promptly disappeared into the ether before I could even duck, the room once again a quiet haven. Jake’s gaze was still locked on mine, his thoughts spare, focused, his will made of iron forged by blood.
What the hell do you say to that?
“I told you you were a poet, Jake,” I said quietly, after a full minute had passed, maybe five, maybe fifteen. He squeezed my fingers one more time and let me go; my hand was singed by his touch, and it wasn’t only the heat of desire. I don’t think he knew any spells; he was just the Magi, swearing his fealty to the lowly Sineater for all eternity. No big deal.
“Let’s get some sleep,” he said, standing, and after a moment’s hesitation, I reached up and took his hand, letting him tug me to my feet. We stood in front of the fire for another long moment before he let me go again, then gathered my nightdress and pointed to the bathroom. Once we were both finished getting ready for bed, he banked the flames with a wave of his hand and used a gust of air to lower the windows to a crack, the room instantly dark and cozy. I slid beneath the heavy quilted satin and looked over at him in the bed; he was shirtless, bare to the waist, the covers kicked down to his knees. He ran hot. I’d forgotten. I rolled to face him, allowing myself to once again enjoy the view; his dark curls were spread on the navy pillow, his skin glowing in the low firelight, highlighting every exquisite twist of copper muscle on his back and arms. He tentatively reached over to me and I wove our fingers together, entranced by his eyes; they were gentler now, softer, somehow, smoke, fire, earth and water, all blended together. These were always his eyes, though, even as a little boy. Was he always meant to be the Magi?
Was I always meant to be his Sineater?
Are you a dream-walker?
Not that I know of.
“Then good-night, Raven. I’ll try to stay over here,” he promised, and part of me was glad he was internalizing what I’d said, the distance I re
quested, the time and space I needed to heal.
Another part of me cried out for him, desperate for his touch—the kiss of his flames, so painfully sweet, still seared my soul.
“Good-night, Jake,” I whispered, and the last thing I remember was those eyes: silver threading through the brown, gold threading through the green.
Chapter Twelve
Jake
I’ve had the dream a million times before, but before the latest rash of it, I hadn’t had it in years.
It always starts the same way.
We’re about sixteen, I think—maybe seventeen. I can’t tell. And I’m watching Raven walk down the hall in our high school from a distance, just like I did many, many fucking times—I’m leaning against my locker, and Hunter is behind me, ignoring the banter and jokes of some people who are vying for our attention, and Raven is walking… She passes her locker, which is where the dream changes from reality—how I know I’m not in a memory, but creating something out of thin air—and she keeps walking, and now her face is up, searching for something in the passing sea of people, searching… And then her eyes lock on mine, and the most beautiful, joyful smile comes over her features, and she’s… She was looking for me. She’s happy to see me.
And she walks over, and I wrap my arms around her, and I lean down and kiss her forehead, her cheek, and finally, her lips. And she makes a sweet little noise of hesitation—because of course there are five dipshits whooping it up in the background, at least until Hunter shoots them one of his looks—and I don’t fucking care. Not at all. And I kiss her until I recognize that she’s pushing me back, and I let her, and she smiles up at me—her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling—and she murmurs, “well, good morning to you too,” her cheeks as pink as a fresh rose.
And then we go on with our lives. Our normal, as-it-should-have-been lives. Passing love notes that I shamelessly read aloud while the class screams with laughter when the teacher catches me and thinks it will embarrass me. Holding hands in the hall. Feeling her body against mine when she sits on my lap during lunch, letting her climb down when she can feel me beneath her, wanting her. Teasing each other, talking. Actually fucking talking, not just insulting each other, not hating each other. Talking.
