by Sarina Dorie
“I can never tell with Elric. I suspect it was more the idea of my presence that troubled him than the idea of her dancing with another man.” His lips twitched into a smile. “I did steal you from him after all. He wouldn’t want his rival to thwart his next love.”
“You did not. I broke up with him months before we started dating.”
“Admit it. You liked me better.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my grin. I hadn’t liked Felix Thatch better. I loved him. My feelings for Elric had always been influenced by my magic and his. It wasn’t that I hadn’t enjoyed my time with Elric. I’d been happy. I might even have been content, if I hadn’t doubted he was telling me the truth.
Our food arrived a few minutes later. The yucca root mixed with onions and bacon reminded me of potatoes O’Brien, but better. The pulled pork was seasoned with a combination of spices I’d never tried before.
I closed my eyes and moaned at the culinary perfection. “Oh my God, this is the best Latin food I’ve ever had.”
“It isn’t Latin food. For one thing, nothing is wrapped in grape leaves, there’s no eel, nor a cornucopia of wine. No one is wearing a toga. If you had gone to a Latin orgy, you’d know the food is only so-so, but the recreational activities are more . . . interesting.”
I laughed. “Shut up. You’ve never been to an orgy.” He was so conservative and formal. It was hard to imagine him in a toga, let alone participating in an orgy.
“True.” He shrugged. “I might be old, but two thousand years ago was before my time. You could ask Khaba about it, though.”
After dinner, we strolled along the busy boardwalk, taking in the view of the bright lights reflecting on the water. The air was warm and humid, but slowly cooling to a more reasonable temperature. The slight breeze felt nice against my skin. Thatch placed my hand in the crook of his elbow in an old-fashioned gesture. He was more similar to Elric than he would have liked.
I tried not to think about the Princess of Truth and Lies and her gift of a formaldehyde-soaked dress, but worry wormed its way under my skin and stayed there. I could understand Thatch’s desire to spite our enemies by showing off the dress, but I didn’t like the feeling of it against my skin. I no longer felt sexy in red. It was like a dark red stain that contrasted against all the other bright colors people wore.
I watched the ripples of light dancing over black water. “We should go swimming before going dancing.”
He waved a hand at his legs. “I’m saving all my energy for salsa. Do you really want to get sand stuck to your feet and then dance?” A smile stole over his lips. “We can see if you still want to go skinny-dipping afterward.”
“I’m not going skinny-dipping!”
“You didn’t bring a swim suit, did you?”
“No. You didn’t tell me swimming was part of the plan.”
His dark eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. “Your secret admirer didn’t leave one for you? Are you certain?”
“Ha ha.”
Some of the light in his eyes faded. “I assume there wasn’t a note with morbid poetry this time?”
I nodded. “She left a note, but I thought it was from you.” I should have questioned the fancy calligraphy. She must have known I would recognize her handwriting.
“Do you recall what it said?” he asked.
“I think it just said, ‘Cinderella’s gown. You might turn into a pumpkin at midnight.’ Or something along those lines.”
“Did you read the back of the note?”
“There wasn’t anything on the back.”
“Are you sure?” His expression was grim. “Perhaps it said something about a bikini for tonight.”
It took me a few seconds to realize he was trying not to smile. “You’re teasing me?”
“Yes.”
I elbowed him, and he laughed.
We strolled away from the waterfront and down a side street. The sky was dark, but there were plenty of people still at the beach. Someone played a boombox with rap music in Spanish somewhere in the distance. The humidity hadn’t let up yet, and the breeze brought with it a pleasant relief. Cars belching out pollution passed us, moving slowly along a winding road. Music blared out of a club nearby.
I considered the note and the dress. Cinderella.
Vega had hidden the shoes. They had obviously matched the dress.
“There is one more thing that was kind of . . . strange,” I said.
He turned to me, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“These shoes. They go with the dress. They’re my size, so they’re obviously supposed to be mine. But I found them in Vega’s wardrobe.”
He shook my head as if in disbelief. “Do you usually make it a habit of stealing your roommate’s shoes?”
“No, of course not. She would kill me if she caught me. But she wears a size nine, and I wear a size six, so they obviously weren’t meant for her.” Yet I wouldn’t have seen them if I hadn’t opened the doors to Vega’s wardrobe. A red shimmer had caught my eyes. I thought of that sensation that had been under my sternum, a tugging that had drawn me near so I would find the shoes. “Oh, crap. That was magic. I got tricked with magic, and I didn’t realize it.”
I had been hooked.
Vega had hidden the shoes. Had she been trying to . . . help me?
Thatch eyed the red heels. “Why did you neglect to tell me about the shoes?”
“After Vega dumped that potion on me tonight to try to make my vagina disappear again, I just thought that was Vega being nasty. It wouldn’t be out of character for her to steal something of mine to make my life less pleasant. I didn’t think much about it.” I had been preoccupied with other matters on our date. “In the restaurant I was more focused on the dress. Then I was mad that you were acting superior and upset because I thought you were ashamed to be dating me.”
“What exactly did the note say would happen at midnight?”
“I don’t remember anything besides turning into a pumpkin at midnight. I thought it was a joke.”
Thatch tugged me into an alley that smelled like urine. He untucked his wand from his pocket and waved the black twisted wood at my feet. In the dark, it was easier to see the movement of his lips form the shape of the purple spell, the runes drifting from his mouth down to where the wand pointed.
The light glowed around my feet. After a few more seconds, it turned acid green and the stench of rotten eggs wafted toward my nose. Never before had anything Thatch tested done that.
I eyed my feet with trepidation. “I take it that means they’re cursed.”
“A minor hex. I believe it would have indeed transformed you into a pumpkin or some other vegetable at midnight.” He crouched down in front of me. “All right, Cinderella, shall we be rid of these slippers?”
I rested a hand against his shoulder for balance as he lifted my foot and tugged on the shoe.
It was stuck. Of course it was. Or in my case, of curse it was.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Other Shoe Dropped
I would not panic. I was with Thatch. He knew the solution for every problem. Except when his pride got in the way. He hadn’t even realized I’d been hexed until now.
He aimed his wand at my feet and muttered a different spell. This one sounded like Gaelic and tasted green in my mouth. He tried again.
“It’s not working.” My voice rose in panic. “She’s going to turn me into a pumpkin at midnight.”
“Stay calm. Let me think.” He muttered another spell.
A middle-aged couple dressed in Hawaiian-print shirts walked past the alley, the man glancing in my direction. Thatch’s back was turned away, his body shielding his spell from nosy Morties.
This time as Thatch worked his magic, the light prickled my skin like ice. “It’s not a curse, nor a Fae enchantment. It’s a hex made with Witchkin magic.” He smoothed a finger over the leather of the shoe. “Celestor magic with flavors of Amni Plandai a
nd Elementia thrown in.”
“Celestor magic means Vega, right? But she was the one who tried to hide the shoes from me. Why would she hex me?” She’d also asked me to have dinner with her and Elric. She’d dumped the potion on me. I didn’t know what she was up to. And likely if I asked her, she would say she was bound to secrecy.
I told Thatch about the details of the evening.
He stood. “Indeed. Her mixed messages are most disconcerting.”
Maybe she was being coerced to do one thing, but she was also rebelling by trying to help me at the same time.
Thatch tugged me back into the main street, through a crowd of people bustling along a sidewalk. A group of young women dressed in skimpy clubbing attire shot us dirty looks as Thatch pushed through them. We came to a café full of teenagers and college-aged youths. He pushed through the groups, his footsteps as certain as when he’d taken me to the restaurant. Groups of teens were huddled at computer terminals. There were five computers in total.
A man hailed Thatch by name from behind a counter. Thatch ignored him. He headed around a group and straight toward the wall. He heaved a table with a computer on it aside, shifting it away from the outlet. He unplugged the computer.
A kid in a baseball cap yelled at him.
Thatch stared at the outlet. “Clarissa, don’t ever do this on your own.”
Already this sounded ominous.
Thatch crouched next to the wall. He shoved his wand into the outlet and pointed his hand toward my feet. The lights flickered and went out. The glow of the computer monitors died. An electric arc of lightning shot from his fingertips to my shoes. I squeaked in surprise, expecting an electric shock of pain.
The sound of cracking ice thundered in my ears. This wasn’t like when I used electricity to burn someone. It was cool and refreshing.
People shouted and shrieked. Someone jostled into me. It was difficult to see what was going on in the dark. Thatch circled an arm around my legs and held me steady as he tugged at one of the heels. It came free. The shoe clunked to the floor. I set my foot down. He worked at the other shoe. It dropped away.
He used his wand to light our way out of the din of chaos. People used their phones to find their way out the door. The lights flickered back to life. Thatch dropped the shoes in a garbage can outside.
“Wow,” I said. “My hero.”
“I’m certain you’ll reward me handsomely later.”
The uneven sidewalk of the street jabbed into the ball of my foot. “I would happily reward you now.”
“Would you?”
I stepped on a pebble and stumbled.
Thatch eyed my stocking feet and grunted. “You probably have delicate feet that can’t take walking on pavement barefoot.”
I wasn’t completely barefoot. But my polka-dotted tights weren’t going to protect me much.
Thatch stooped and lifted me into his arms. “It’s my hope we won’t be too late for our dance lesson.”
He carried me down a smaller street. The evening had started off a little rocky, but this date was definitely improving. Thatch had confessed his love for me and saved me from turning into a pumpkin. I’d lost a pair of cute shoes, but that was better than losing my life.
My limbs felt antsy and restless. I felt like I’d drunk a Slurpee-sized cup of coffee. My brain was awake. My body was alive and wanting to move.
“Is this magic? I feel like I want to learn something.” I laughed.
“It sounds like you’re ready for a dance lesson.”
Cars passed us, moving too quickly along the winding road. Thatch stopped before a dive-looking bar called Caribe.
“Cinderella’s ball.” Thatch set me on my feet.
I eyed one of the boarded-up windows. “I don’t know about this.”
“Trust me. I did my research. I always do.”
The downstairs was busy with a crowd of locals, a few lost-looking tourists among them. The bar was dim. A Corona sign flickered on the wall.
“Wow, baby,” some middle-aged man in Hawaiian shirt said, watching me as I passed. I looked around.
“He was talking to you, Miss Oblivious.” Thatch poked me in the arm.
We walked up a flight of stairs and found ourselves in a dance hall. The floor was wood, and the lights slightly brighter than the bar, but not by much. Salsa music played quietly in the background. An older woman greeted us at the door. Thatch nodded to her and spoke in Spanish, mentioning something about reservations. She frowned at my bare feet and polka-dot tights but made no comment. Groups of tourists laughed together at tables on the periphery of the room. Thatch tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow, guiding me over to a table. I tripped over the leg of a chair and jabbed my toe.
Thatch sucked in a sharp breath. I had no doubt he could feel my pain.
“That was nice. Are you certain you can’t stub your toes more often?” He poked me playfully.
“Funny.” I didn’t doubt he was absorbing the throbbing in my toes. “I think your supplement is a dud. I’m just as clumsy.”
“The magic is supposed to help you learn a new skill—dancing. I can’t teach you how to walk. That would have taken additional magic.”
I poked him in the ribs. He squirmed back.
After another five minutes, ten more people arrived. There were only fifteen of us in the class. The instructor was an older woman with gray hair who introduced herself as Yaimara. She spoke Spanish, her instructions occasionally punctuated by an English phrase for the benefit of the tourists.
Yaimara walked us through a simple sequence of steps. It had been a while since I’d done any salsa. As I followed the set of moves, I started off just as bumbling as everyone else. After ten minutes I was as good as I had once been after six months—which wasn’t to say great—but it was something. The teacher circulated, offering students pointers.
With each couple she spoke to, it became easier to understand her Spanish. I listened to the feedback she gave others to improve my own movements. Occasionally I looked to Thatch and asked him for the meaning of a word, which he supplied.
When she came to Thatch and me, she took us aside. By then, I understood her perfectly. “You two are too advanced for this class,” Yaimara said. “I’ll give you a few other moves to work on.”
Thatch winked at me.
Every time Yaimara came back to us, she gave us new moves.
“Do you dance back home?” she asked in Spanish.
Thatch waved a hand at me nonchalantly. “Only when she forces me.”
Yaimara nodded to me conspiratorially. “He’s a funny one. You should keep him.”
I was pretty sure my language skills had improved too. I had a feeling anything I tried I would be good at, maybe even magic.
The class lasted an hour. By the end of it, we were Yaimara’s favorite pupils, and she made us show off what we could do for everyone. Afterward, there was a short break before the lights dimmed and a dance party started up.
When I focused on Thatch swiveling his hips across from me, he looked out of place among the dancers in their tank tops, Hawaiian shirts, and tans. Thatch’s pale complexion starkly contrasted with his dark blue ensemble: so formal and professional. He didn’t look like he belonged in this era, let alone in a tropical nightclub. Amazingly, he wasn’t sweaty. More magic, I assumed.
Yet he moved as though he were made of music. No one gave him a second glance. He blended in with the locals at the dance party more than the tourists did.
After half an hour of freestyle dancing, he threw in a complex sequence of moves, imitating one of the more advanced men on the floor. I followed his lead fluidly without thought. My feet fell into step. I forgot about my lack of shoes. My hips hit the beat, the percussion moving through me. With my red dress, I felt as sizzling as the music. I could see how Vega fell into the thrall of a good beat. For another half an hour we danced without stop. The room grew hotter and stuffier as more peopl
e joined the party.
Several times people stepped on my bare feet, but I was so good at everything I managed to effortlessly convert the pain to a more palatable energy.
“What do you think about resting for a moment?” Thatch asked, leading me toward an empty table between songs.
“Is your salsa pill wearing off?”
“Hardly. I just want to make sure I don’t tire you out. I should get us something to drink so we don’t become dehydrated.”
He had hardly broken a sweat, whereas the muggy heat left me drenched in a marinade of my own perspiration. He fetched us bottled waters. I was thirstier than I’d realized and drank mine all at once. I rubbed at the tender places on my feet, chasing away the building ache by drawing away the heat and infusing the muscles with cooling energies. The ability to do this came naturally to me, and I didn’t question how I could do it. Thatch’s pill improved more than just dancing and language comprehension.
A man strolled over, pausing at our table. He wore a flower-print muscle shirt and pair of pink pants so snug Khaba would have been jealous.
“Hey, beautiful.” He hooked an arm through mine and tugged me to my feet. He nodded at Thatch, his English flavored by a thick accent. “You don’t mind if I dance with your girl for one song?”
His girl? I tried not to laugh.
“She doesn’t need my permission.” Thatch raised an eyebrow, managing to look down on the man from his seat, as if he were one of his less intelligent students. “However, you will need hers.”
“Um. . . .” the man said to me, his suaveness deflating under Thatch’s disdainful glare.
Thatch said to me in English, “If you want to dance this one without me, it will give me a chance to watch you move.”
“Are you sure?”
He waved me off. “I prefer to attend to a blister on my foot.”
The man I danced with was younger than me, though it was hard to guess how much so. Maybe around eighteen. He was an incredible dancer, and it was fun to learn a few moves from him. But the guy was a definite horndog.
Every time he slid his hand too low on my back, squishing me to his chest and semidrunkenly whispering sweet nothings in my ear, I jabbed him in the gut to put more space between us. Dancing was movement, and friction brought out my magic. I doubted my touch magic was going to make me complacent for some sweaty guy with octopus hands, but I didn’t know. I was starting to regret my decision to keep dancing.
