by May Dawson
Airren’s arms close around me suddenly, pulling me tight against his body. I bury my face in his shoulder; the scent of the starch on his shirt and his hair cream and aftershave are almost enough to distract me from the stink in the room.
“Come back to me,” he whispers. “I know that look on your face, T.”
I shake my head. Tears sting my eyes—what is wrong with me today?—but he tilts my chin up to meet his deep blue gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I shouldn’t have—I wanted you with me. It was selfish.”
“I’m trying to be a good partner,” I whisper.
“You’re the best.” He kisses my cheek, a quick, comforting peck unlike his usual passionate kisses. “And I am going to make this up to you.”
“You should buy me a cake.”
My shaky attempt at a joke makes him grin far wider than it deserved. He kisses my cheek again, squeezing my hands in his.
I nod to him that I’m fine. Airren nods in return before he looks around the rest of the room.
When I take a step forward, I bump into something that isn’t there.
Airren waves his hand, muttering a quick spell, and a table appears in front of me.
On the walls are weapons: shields and battle wands, longer and thicker, almost like batons, and explosive pendants on thick gold enchanted chains. I’ve never seen this anywhere but in stories about long ago, during the Avalon wars. My father tried to keep me innocent—of some things.
There’s also a printing press, an old fashioned one—even by our standards—alongside wood-and-brass letters in small wooden boxes and stacks of oversized paper.
Airren slips on leather gloves. When he picks up one of the papers, he steps next to me so I can read it too. His shoulder bumps mine.
The True will rise again!
Beneath is the same kind of long, bullshit manifesto I read too many times when I was a kid. I skim the small black print. It’s the same old nonsense.
“You’d think they’d find something new,” I mutter.
“Let’s go,” Airren whispers. “We know we found the True cell. And their armory.” His jaw tightens. “Mycroft and I might come back here with an enchantment for their weapons. Leave them a small gift. I’ll have to do some research.”
“Bring me with you.” I’m strangely compelled to prove I’m not really afraid. It’s a room, after all. Nothing but a room, no matter how many ghosts it raises for me.
He cocks his head to one side. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” His lips turn up. “You’re a tough little thing. But that doesn’t mean you can’t let your partners do some work now and then.”
A few minutes later, we stumble out the front of the bakery. Airren carries a brown paper bag with a ridiculous assortment of pastry, and his arm is tight around my waist. He kisses me passionately, the bag bumping against my ass as we head down the sidewalk, so entwined in each other that he almost walks me into a tree.
He gives the lacy leaves a dirty look, then flashes an apologetic smile my way. I can’t help giggling.
My lips are still parted in a smile when he kisses the corner of my mouth, and I twine my arms around his broad shoulders.
Pretending to be Airren’s girl? It’s an easy cover to lose myself in.
14
When we walk into our office in the library, Mycroft turns to us with a grin across his face.
That smile makes me start to smile back—it always does, Croft smiling is such a rarity—before I’m jolted by my anger. The tears that dried stiff on my cheeks are gone but the groggy, sick feeling that always follows a good cry rises again in my head.
“I found it.” His eyes gleam with triumph and crinkle at the corners.
Airren slips off his jacket and folds it across the back of one of the chairs. “Where did she lead us? Who is she?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Croft says. “I found something more important.”
Cax doesn’t seem to share Croft’s enthusiasm. He leans back in a chair, with his rich-brown-leather boots on top of the table. He toys with his wand, bending it between his fingers as he stares at the ceiling.
“Are you all right?” I ask him.
When he looks at me, he brightens slightly. “Oh—of course.”
The smile he offers me feels fake, and I ignore Croft’s enthusiasm and Airren’s grumpiness over their mission. As the two of them talk, I boost myself onto the edge of the table, sitting next to Cax’s ankles. “What’s wrong?”
Cax tosses his wand in the air and catches it. “It turns out that the woman we followed is an old friend of the family. Sometimes, it feels like you can’t trust anyone.”
Cax speaks lightly, but his show of indifference isn’t fooling me one bit.
Airren breaks off from his conversation with Croft, and his eyes flicker over to us. “Except each other. We have each other.”
“I’ve got a way to bring back Tera’s magic,” Croft says, his voice irritated as if he can’t stand the distractions. He casts a look at me then says, softly. “If it works. No point getting our hopes up.”
There’s something sweet about his urgency; it’s so unlike cool, professionally-disinterested Croft. It makes bravery bubble up in my throat. I tug my ponytail over my shoulder, twirling it around my fingers anxiously, as I look toward his chest. “If it works, I just might forgive you for making me cry.”
Croft’s eyes widen, almost in panic. But his voice is gruff when he asks, “Excuse me?”
The front legs of Cax’s chair slam into the floor, as he leans forward. The noise makes me look at Cax, but his attention is on Croft, one eyebrow quirked as if he’s waiting for an explanation.
“Nothing.” I shake my head, regretting my words now that they float in the air.
“It was just our cover story.” Croft grumbles. He looks back down at his book, flipping through the pages with his gaze fixed on them intently.
“You are not an idiot, Mycroft. You knew that would hurt my feelings.”
“We can’t break up. We aren’t dating.” He doesn’t bother to look up when he delivers this new treat.
Airren groans.
“How are we going to restore my magic?” I ask loudly. “So that I can turn Mycroft into a toad?”
Mycroft rolls his eyes, unimpressed by my threats. He brings the book over to me. When his shoulder bumps mine, my hurt feelings war with my curiosity. The book brings us so close together that I can smell his aftershave and feel the heat of his arm radiating into mine. Strangely, his warmth makes me shiver.
The text is written in tight, cramped letters—some foreign language I can’t read—and I stare at it without understanding. It doesn’t fill me with hope. Croft’s enthusiasm just makes me ache.
“We don’t need to worry about why Tera lost her magic,” Croft says. “Whether it was stolen or taken, the spark it grew from is still here.” He palms my head, and I look up at him in irritation.
“It’s a mighty small spark then,” I say.
“It just needs kindling.” He winks at me, a quick flash, as if we haven’t just been fighting. Something in me wants to cry all over again. “And we’ve got kindling.”
“What are you going on about?” Airren’s eyes are fixed on Cax, and he frowns like he’s worried about him. Then he rounds to join us, as if he’s shaking off whatever worries are on his mind.
“My magic!” Croft says. “I’ll give some of my magic to Tera. It should activate her own magic.”
He talks about it so confidently, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about magic—and men—it’s that nothing is as simple as it seems it should be. Something about this makes me uneasy.
I stare at him warily. “What if it doesn’t work?”
He shrugs. “It’s worth trying.”
“I mean, what happens to you and your magic? Is there a cost—do you lose some of your magic?” Croft’s magical genius, the raw talent that o
utstrips almost everyone at this school, is part of what makes him him. And while everything that makes him him also makes him maddening, I don’t want him to lose any of it.
He rests his hands on my shoulders. “With your own magic, you’ll be safer. And more mission-effective.” He adds that last sentence like an afterthought.
“What do we need?” Airren asks.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I say.
“I’ve got most of the supplies rounded up, but we’re missing a few,” Cax says to Airren. Something passes between the two of them—unspoken, as usual, leaving me out—and Cax stands. He pats my knee as he passes by. Airren and Cax head out the door behind us.
“I’m saying you’re worth the risk,” Croft tells me, his voice gentle.
Goddamn him. What the hell am I supposed to do with these shifts—the coldness interspersed with his sudden warmth, the way he pushes me away and then rests his hands on my shoulders like nothing ever happened.
I take his wrists in my hands, my thumbs brushing his corded forearms, and pull his hands off my shoulders. I’m too angry to let him touch me, and yet, I don’t let him go. “You haven’t even told me what the risk is.”
He braces his hands on either side of my hips, which brings his face intimately close to mine. “It doesn’t matter.”
My lips twist. “You’re ridiculous, Croft.”
His eyebrows lift, and he nods at me to go on. Condescending bastard.
Caring, condescending, confusing bastard.
“You claim you don’t care about me, but you’re willing to risk your magic for the mission.” I lift my fingers in air quotes. “You couldn’t be honest if your life depended on it.”
“I’m a spy,” he rumbles. “My life usually depends on a lie.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve already dealt with a lifetime’s worth of other people’s lies.” My father’s quick smile flashes across my memory. Never again do I want to be protected from the bitter truth—sooner or later, every lie comes home. “I don’t want any more.”
His lips are in my line of vision, since he’s leaning so close to me. Those lips press together over his big jaw; he has a distinct cupid’s bow, and a wide lower lip—perfect for drawing into my mouth. The little lines at the edges of his mouth deepen. “Tera. Let me do this for you.”
I shake my head. His magic defines him, even if he doesn’t realize it. He must be sure there’ll be a happy ending, but I doubt it. I don’t think he’d really risk his magic for me. “I don’t understand why.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
I raise my eyebrows as my gaze moves up to meet his. “You’re not helping your case here.”
His big palm brushes against my jaw. His golden-brown eyes are tender. “It’s not an insult. I’m keenly aware that—despite my gifts—I’m an idiot.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know what to do here, Tera.” For once, he sounds completely honest; his voice is a low, rich rumble. “Everything between us is…”
When he seems stuck on a word, I volunteer one. After all, the dark lord’s daughter and the veteran of the Divide War make an unlikely combination. “Complicated?”
“Wrong,” he corrects.
Well, that’s worse than complicated. I rake my hand through my hair—he is exhausting—even though we’re so close together that my elbow brushes his chest. “You’re the one making it so difficult.”
“Just let me do this for you,” he says. “Just let me fix the one thing that I can fix.”
I glance away, although there’s nowhere else to look in this small room with his eyes still intent on my face.
He takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turns my face back to his. I part my lips, although I’m not sure what I’m going to say yet. Talking hasn’t gotten me anywhere with Croft, anyway.
He presses his lips to mine. His grip on my jaw is possessive, but those lips are soft. There’s so much tenderness underneath that bossy, cold exterior.
I kiss him back hard, despite myself. My lips do the talking, or maybe even the thinking, when words have failed us. My fingers wrap around his biceps. He sways forward, his hard abs against my knees, and I part my thighs, wanting him close to me. My thighs rest on the narrow, hard bones of his hips as he leans into my kisses. His thumb caresses my cheek in gentle circles as he kisses me, his lips searing-hot against mine now.
When my tongue sweeps against his upper lip, he groans into my mouth. The tip of his tongue brushes against mine, sending sparks flying through my body. My hips tilt up, almost against my will, and his hand settles on my ass, pulling me across the smooth wooden table so that I’m pressed to him. My fingernails dig into his biceps. I might hate him sometimes, I might love him sometimes, and right now all that emotion is blurring into one desire for release, as my thighs tighten around his lean waist, as his fingers tangle in my hair…
Something bumps the door outside, and I pull back, raising my hand to my lips. They’re swollen from the kisses we’ve traded.
Mycroft reaches out to smooth my hair, tucking it behind my ears. “I’m sorry.”
It’s a tender gesture, but it feels like a rejection. “Sorry for what?”
He shakes his head, not willing to answer that question.
“You are impossible,” I tell him. Or rather, I tell his back, since he’s walking away, back to his book.
The door swings open just as Croft scoops his book off the table, his face disinterested, as if his pose hasn’t changed since they left. Airren carries a mirror under each arm and a bowl in his hand, and Cax carries a bundle of flowers and herbs, their intact roots scattering crumbs of dirt behind him as if he’s just ripped them out of the earth.
“Where did the flowers come from?” Croft asks.
“The dean’s private garden.” Cax looks more cheerful than before, after stealing from the dean. I’ve fallen in with a bunch of miscreants, that’s for sure. I slip off the table and grab Airren’s forearm, pulling him with me toward the door. His momentum takes him another step past me. Then he turns, tossing the bowl on the table where it lands with a metallic clang, and allows me to tow him out the door. He kicks it shut behind him with his foot as I turn to face him, out under the bright lights of the warehouse.
“What’s it going to cost Croft?” I whisper.
“His magic should recharge—just like you’ve been hoping yours will.”
“I’m still…” I mime casting with my wand, and then spread my hands out, shrugging my shoulders. It hasn’t worked for me. Croft shouldn’t gamble on it working for him.
“That’s different,” Airren says firmly.
“So you’re telling me there’s no risk?”
He hesitates, his teeth catching his lower lip for a second before he releases it. “I’m not saying that. But it’s a calculated risk. And it’s one he wants to take.”
I shake my head, staring over Airren’s shoulder at the polished wooden door back to our little office. My emotions feel raw, freshly-grated, and I don’t want to make any decisions right now.
“You’re worth it,” Airren promises me.
My gaze meets his. “What if I’m not ready to have my magic back yet?”
He cocks his head to one side.
I don’t want to explain myself. My father tried to tear down Avalon. The Crown wants me to look like I’m rich with power. They want it to like I could make Airren and Cax and Croft fall in love with me under a spell—imagining that makes a sick, out-of-control feeling yaw through my stomach—because then the True will want me. Tera, the dark lord’s daughter, second coming of Padrick Donovan.
I don’t want anything to do with my father’s legacy. But I ache for my magic back, for the feel of it tingling in my fingers and the release, the sudden lightness in my body when a spell flies true. My father craved more magic, always more, deeper and richer and darker. The very depth of my desire makes me anxious, and the thought I could have it back in an hour, this very afternoon, feels l
ike too much, too soon.
How can I want something so badly and be so afraid of it, all at once?
“You’re ready.” Airren sounds sure enough for both of us. “You’re not your father, Tera.”
“But I am his daughter.” I try to smile to lighten my words, but Airren’s face is grave, his eyes intent on mine. “No one will let me forget it.”
“You’re a whole hell of a lot more than your father’s daughter,” Airren says roughly. He folds me into his arms, and I let him pull me into his embrace, into warmth and into the smell of a man’s fresh sweat and woodsmoke and cloves. His jaw rests on my forehead, and his heart pounds against my ear through his starched shirt. He starts to say something else, but then stops himself. He kisses the top of my hair.
As I look up, at his clean-shaven jaw and the bright blue eyes above it, I long to know what he was about to say.
But it feels like too much to ask. Instead, I say, “You think you can win arguments by hugging me?”
“I’ve been told I give exceptionally good hugs.”
“By who?” I let the thread of jealousy sound in my voice, to be funny, although it’s real enough. I don’t like the thought of anyone else hugging Airren.
He grins in response, then kisses me again. When his lips graze my cheek, I turn my face into his for a second kiss, his lips tender against mine.
When there’s a breath between us again, he whispers, “Just promise me that you won’t really turn Croft into a toad.”
He’s assuming that they’ve won the argument, that I’ll them risk something for me.
“What about a hamster?” I ask.
He wraps his hands around my hips and his lips are still smiling when they meet mine. His kiss is triumphant—cocky—but I don’t mind.
15
Cax sets one of the mirrors on the floor, then looks at me and pats the floor alongside it. Airren is intent on his matches, blowing careful life into the fire in the bowl, which is filled with a mix of kindling and green herbs.
