“That didn’t happen.” Mira laughed. “We definitely would have remembered if it did.”
But there was something familiar about those names…
“Was this a few days before Christmas?” I asked.
“Yes.” Harper sat straighter, and she smiled. “You met them?”
I thought harder, but couldn’t put my finger on it. It was like the memory of them ordering drinks at the café was there, but blurry.
“One of the girls had brownish-reddish hair, right?” I asked. “And the other was blonde. With unusual colored eyes…”
“Violet eyes,” Harper said. “That’s Selena. She’s half-witch, half-fae. Only fae have eyes like that.”
“I think we talked to them,” I said. “But they just came in for a drink and left.”
“Hm.” Alice sat back and pursed her lips. “Interesting.”
“They must have gotten their answer somewhere else,” Harper said. “Anyway, it’s time for dinner. I heard a certain someone will be at one of my favorite places tonight…” She looked to me and gave me a mischievous smirk.
A pit formed in my stomach.
“Benjamin?” Mira asked.
“Got it in one.” Harper smiled at her, then looked back to me. “He asked about you.”
Ethan also looked to me, his eyes glowing with sparks of ember. “Do you think that’s a smart idea?” he asked. “You have a lot of reading to do. Dinner in your quarters would be far more sensible.”
Mira frowned. “A short dinner out won’t hurt.”
“No.” I sighed, hoping I sounded disappointed. “Ethan’s right.”
“You’re no fun.” Mira pouted, and then she looked to Ethan for approval. “But fine. We’ll do our reading.”
“Good choice.”
With that, we packed up our books and headed back to our quarters.
And I didn’t care how long it took—I wasn’t going to sleep tonight until I got that dream spell to work.
18
Gemma
By the end of the week, I was finally able to do the “easy” spells. But I was still no better at using my fire and earth magic than I’d been when I’d arrived in Utopia.
Mira, on the other hand, was improving. She could create a small icicle in her hand, although it melted pretty quickly.
I needed to catch up.
So I held my hand up in front of myself and steadied my breathing, feeling the embers spark inside me and willing them to come to life.
A small flame ignited in my palm. Excitement rose inside me, and I imagined tethering the flame in place so it wouldn’t go out.
“That’s it.” Ethan watched the fire flicker and dance. “Feed more magic into it, and picture it growing bigger.”
I inhaled, imagining that my breath was feeding oxygen to the fire, and pushed more magic into the flame.
It expanded to the size of a tennis ball, and the fire grew taller. The goal was to get it to eye-level. Ethan said that once it got that high, there was enough magic in the fire to keep it under better control.
So I held steady, as focused as ever, watching the flame inch up. Almost to neck-level. Just a bit more…
The cord that connected the magic inside me to the fire in my hand snapped apart, and the fire snuffed out.
I cursed and tried to gather the magic again, but nothing happened.
“All right.” Harper brought her feet down from where they’d been resting on the table. “We’ve pushed ourselves enough for the day.”
“I almost had it,” I said. “I’ll get it next time.”
“That’s what you said the last five times,” Mira said.
“This time felt different. I was so close…”
“Which means you should definitely be able to do it tomorrow,” Harper said brightly. “But Friday’s the best night to go out. Are you guys in?”
Excitement danced across Mira’s face. “Can we go to one of the restaurants by the lake?”
“The best restaurants are by the lake.” Harper smiled, looking like she was about to bounce out of her seat.
They both looked to me, waiting.
I studied my palm. I’d been so close to getting that fire under control. Just a few centimeters more, and I would have had it.
“You’re right about your magic,” Ethan said to me before I could answer. “With another try or two, you would have had control over that flame.”
“I know.”
He held my gaze for another few seconds, and I had to remind myself to breathe. Then he nodded, satisfied, and looked to the others. “The three of you should go to dinner tonight,” he said. “I’ll stay back with Gemma and help her train.”
Mira sat back, shocked. “You don’t want to come?”
“I do want to come,” he said. “But training comes first. It’s my duty to protect the two of you and to make sure you can protect yourselves. So I’ll stay back and help Gemma.”
“I’ll stay back, too,” Mira said. “It never hurts to practice more. Right?”
“I’d normally agree. But you’ve been improving steadily this week, which is amazing,” he said, and she smiled at the compliment. “Gemma hasn’t improved. I feel like it might be easier for her with fewer people watching.”
Mira pouted, but she quickly got ahold of herself. “I’m her twin,” she said. “I don’t count as ‘people.’”
I smiled, since it was true.
At the same time, my stomach fluttered at the thought of being alone with Ethan.
Maybe if we were alone together again, I’d know for sure if the connection between us in the cove had been real.
But I shouldn’t have been thinking those things about Mira’s boyfriend. It was wrong on so many levels.
Why wouldn’t my feelings for Ethan just go away?
“Mira’s right,” I forced the words out. “She can stay.”
Ethan didn’t even look at Mira. “I think it would be best if it were just the two of us,” he said.
My heart leaped. “Why?”
“Because Mira doesn’t have fire magic. I do. And I can feel her water and air magic in the room even now. It might be easier for you to harness your fire without other elements in the room distracting you.”
Mira frowned at the last part.
“It’s just a theory, but it’s worth a try,” he continued. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll call it a night and meet up with everyone at the restaurant.”
I bit my lower lip as I thought about it. Because Mira definitely wanted me to say no.
But if this worked, maybe I could make some forward progress with my magic.
“All right,” I said, and Ethan’s eyes brightened—like he’d been worried I wasn’t going to stay. “Let’s do it.”
19
Gemma
Once we were alone, Ethan walked around the table and sat down in the chair next to me. His skin burned so hot that I felt the warmth against mine.
He was sitting so close that I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes.
Breathe, I told myself. Focus.
“Gemma,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. “Look at me.”
I did.
Electricity buzzed through me and filled the space between us, just like it had when we’d sat close together on the beach.
If I felt like this from simply being near him, what would it feel like to touch him?
Stop.
I moved my chair away to put a few more centimeters of space between us.
He blinked, then snapped back into focus. “I didn’t want the others to know until we test it out, but there’s more to my theory than I said before,” he said. “Because sometimes, dragons who share the same type of elemental magic can boost each others’ magic.”
“Like when we killed that griffin at the beach,” I said, and he nodded. “But why don’t you want the others to know?”
“It’s not that I don’t want the others to know,” he said. “It’s that I don’t want Mira to know
.”
I held his gaze for a few seconds, waiting for him to elaborate.
He didn’t.
“You’re asking me to keep something from my sister,” I said. “I need to know why.”
He exhaled slowly, looked off to the side, and then refocused on me. “You and I both have fire magic, and Mira and I both have air magic,” he started. “Your magic and my magic boosts each other’s. I’m sure of it after what happened at the beach. But my air magic doesn’t interact with Mira’s the same way. If she knows it didn’t work with her and that it worked with you…” He trailed off, like he didn’t know how to say it.
“You think she’ll be jealous,” I said.
“More than that. I think she’ll be angry. And you know how she gets when she’s angry.”
I nodded slowly, since when Mira got angry, things got messy. Like that time Kenny Tannen called me the boring sister, and Mira told our entire class that Kenny was the worst kisser ever. Or the time Pamela Bains tried cheating off one of my tests, so Mira “accidentally” crashed into her while they were surfing. Pamela sprained her ankle so badly that she couldn’t surf for months.
“Why would your magic boost mine and not Mira’s?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But Mira’s making good progress, and I don’t want to throw her off. Anyway, do you want to try this? Again?” He smiled slightly, as if he was sure it was going to work.
Why wouldn’t it, since it already had?
“We’re going to have to tell Mira eventually,” I said. “You know that, right?”
“I do. But the time has to be right.”
“It does.” At least we agreed on that. “So, what do I have to do?”
“Exactly what you were doing when you created the flame earlier. Try to get it to eye level.”
“And what will you be doing?”
“The same thing.” He moved his chair toward me, closing the space I’d created earlier.
Heat swirled through me. Embers of it ignited in my core, ready to be set loose. My magic felt more alive than ever.
I sat forward, held my hand out in front of me, and focused. He did the same.
I barely had to tug at my magic before a flame burst out of my palm. Excitement rushed through me, and I glanced over at Ethan.
The flame in his hand was a mirror image of mine. Everything about it was identical, down to the way it flickered and moved.
“Good,” he said steadily. “Now, make the flame grow.”
The magic warmed within me, and as it did, it fed fuel to the fire. The flame grew to my eye level, and the cord that bonded me to my magic strengthened.
Grow higher.
The flame shot up—all the way to the ceiling. The smell of scorched wood filled the air.
Crap.
I pulled back on the magic, and the fire shrank and disappeared.
Two identical scorch marks had charred the ceiling. One where my fire had been, and another next to it, where Ethan’s had been.
“Gemma,” Ethan said slowly. “Don’t make any sudden moves. Just look at the table.”
I did.
The table was levitating a few centimeters off the ground.
The wooden table.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my muscles strained, and the table thumped back down onto the floor.
I stared at it in silence. Because the table was huge and heavy, and until I was aware of what was happening, I hadn’t felt its weight at all.
I turned my head slowly to face Ethan.
He was watching me with pride. But it was beyond pride. He looked positively mesmerized.
“I did that, didn’t I?” I asked, even though I already knew I had.
“You did,” he said. “With your earth magic.”
“But it wasn’t just me. You helped with your magic. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if it wasn’t for you.”
“Yes, you would have,” he said. “My magic helped, but that power is inside you. And the earth magic was all you.”
My blood heated, and my heart pounded. I heard the faint pulse of another heart, too.
Ethan’s.
His heart was beating in time with mine.
A thrill buzzed through me, and we sat there, eyes locked. It was the same way he’d looked at me on the beach. Our magic connected us like magnets, and I didn’t want to pull away. Every instinct in my body urged me to move closer, to feel his skin against mine.
It was like Ethan had reached into my soul and left his fingerprints on my heart.
Then my sister’s face flashed in my mind. Because if Mira were to walk in and see Ethan and me sitting like this, what would she think? What would she do?
As if he knew what I was thinking, Ethan stood up so quickly that his chair nearly tumbled backward.
“I’d call that a success.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “We should head down to the restaurant to meet up with the others. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
My stomach rumbled, as if responding on command.
But I couldn’t face my sister right now. The guilt would be splattered all over my face, and Mira knew me well enough to see it. And the buzz between Ethan and me was a living, tangible thing. I didn’t trust myself to hide it.
I needed time to cool off—to get my feelings back under control.
Especially because these feelings were only a result of Ethan and me sharing the same element.
I couldn’t let myself believe anything else.
“I’m actually heading back to my quarters,” I said. “I want to practice the spells from this morning. Maybe the increased control over my elemental magic will help with my witch magic, too.”
“Good plan.” He sounded relieved, and my heart fell. “I’ll walk you back.”
“No.” I stood up and backed away. “Go join the others. I’ll be fine.”
I spun around and headed out before he could respond.
Leaving him, just like he’d left me that first day at the beach.
Every bone in my body ached to turn around and go to him.
But I ignored it.
And when I got back to my room, I didn’t practice any spells. Instead, I got into bed, curled up into a ball under the covers, and cried until falling asleep.
20
Gemma
Ten days passed, and even though Ethan and I didn’t train privately again, I felt the heat of his gaze during our lessons. He helped guide me as much as he helped Mira, but the connection buzzed between us every time he got close to me.
The scorch marks stayed on the ceiling, along with plenty of new ones I’d made during our lessons. Getting a flame to touch the ceiling was easy now. My earth magic had been improving, too. I’d been able to get the table to levitate to right below the ceiling.
Which was exactly what I was doing now. I felt a slight strain on my muscles, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
“How long do you think you can hold it?” Alice asked.
“An hour?” I guessed. “Maybe more?”
“Well, we don’t have an hour, and I’m hungry,” Harper said. “Let’s stop for the day. We can test out your table-levitating stamina tomorrow.”
I was hungry, too. I was always famished after training. So I lowered the table to the ground.
“Gemma,” Harper said, sounding much more serious than usual. “I think it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“For you to come out to dinner.” She smiled, and I sighed in annoyance, since this wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation. “It can’t be any good for you to stay cooped up in your quarters,” she continued. “Come out. Live a little. Have some fun.”
“I have fun,” I said, although I wasn’t even convincing myself. Because since coming to Utopia, I hadn’t even read for fun, despite knowing where the library was. All I’d been reading were textbooks.
And while it was interesting to learn about the supernatural world, the textbooks were so dry that it wasn’t exactl
y fun.
“Fine,” I gave in. “I’ll go.”
“Yes!” Harper pumped a fist in the air, and she gave Mira a high five. “Victory!”
Even Alice smiled.
The only one who didn’t look happy was Ethan.
We ended up at a Mexican restaurant overlooking the water. Harper ordered two pitchers of margaritas the moment we sat down.
“Make one of them a virgin,” Ethan said.
Harper rolled her eyes, but did as he asked. “Don’t worry,” she said to me. “You can drink from our pitcher.”
“You shouldn’t drink,” Ethan said. “You need to be on your A-game with training.”
His bossy tone stirred up a fire inside me. So when the pitchers came, I reached for the one with alcohol and poured myself so much that it nearly spilled over the top of my glass.
“Maybe you do know how to have fun,” Harper said with a smile.
Ethan’s eyes hardened, and I moved my glass as far away from him as possible, not wanting him to take it from me.
Mira also went for the margarita with alcohol. The only ones who had the virgin drink were Ethan and Alice.
“One of us has to stay sober to keep you protected,” Ethan muttered as he poured his drink.
Mira rolled her eyes.
I sat back and took another sip of my drink. I hadn’t felt this relaxed since before the ascension ceremony, and Harper was right—it felt good. Like things were normal for a change.
Except that everyone in the restaurant kept glancing over to look at us. They were trying to be discreet, but it wasn’t working.
“Have they been doing this every time you go out?” I asked Mira.
“Yep,” she said. “Eventually one of them will come up to the table and ask us to show them our magic.”
“And you do?”
“No one ever complains about a little ice added to their drink.” She pulled an ice cube from the air, plopped it into my margarita, and smiled.
I matched my sister’s smile with one of my own, and said, “I guess if anyone needs their food warmed up with a bit of fire, I’m your girl.”
The Dragon Twins (Dark World: The Dragon Twins Book 1) Page 8
