“Only until midnight, right?” He shrugged, taking a long sip from his can. “Come over after. The darker the better for opening an outdoor breach.”
Chancellor Singh’s face floated into my mind, etched with a severe expression of warning. If anybody saw me sneaking into Braden’s room after midnight, it wouldn’t take but ten seconds for the news to get back to Dash. There would be no way to explain, and he would be crushed. Then, unless Leia was right and the Chancellor had just been bluffing, someone I loved would get crushed.
“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to admit all that to Braden. “Our chances of finding Rhea are shrinking by the second. My wand, too. Dash said it may have already been absorbed back into my family magic.”
Braden snorted. “Are you sure you’re not just saying that because you’re afraid of what your boyfriend will think?”
I could feel my cheeks tinging pink. “I told you he’s not really my boyfriend.”
Braden regarded me over his can of beer. Finally, he rested it on his knee. “But you’re going to keep dating him?”
Staring at my lap, I played with the hem of my shirt. “For now…”
“And you’re going to keep kissing him?”
I shrugged, unable to look him in the eye for some strange reason.
“Well then.” Braden chugged his beer and crushed the can in his fist. “Sounds like he’s really your boyfriend.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I don’t feel that way about him.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “What way?”
“You know,” I mumbled, nervously rubbing my hands on my knees. “I’m not, like, in love with him.”
Braden choked on his beer. He wiped the droplets from his beard, laughing. “Meena, you don’t have to be in love with someone to date them. That’s the point of dating. To see if you could be in love with them one day.” He jerked a thumb at his chest. “Take me, for instance. I’ve dated tons of girls, and I never fell in love with any of them. But we had fun while it lasted, so it was all cool in the end.”
“Girls here?” I tried to sound casual, but my voice came out too thin. Probably because my stomach had twisted itself into a tight knot when I thought about Braden ‘having fun’ with anyone I might unknowingly run into on campus.
He looked away. “Ah, you know. A few early on, but nothing major. I don’t date witches anymore. I’m waiting until I get out of here, and then if I do settle down, it’ll be with a nice non-mage girl.”
“Oh,” I said. It was the sound of something deflating inside me, something that was very foolish anyway and probably needed to be deflated, but it stung all the same. “And why is that?”
He made a face. “Too much competition. I don’t want to be with someone who’s always trying to one-up me.”
I made a face of my own. “So you just prefer women who make you look good?”
“What? No.” He looked appropriately horrified. “That’s not what I meant. No. I just want to be with someone who’s good at her thing and lets me be good at mine and neither of us ever tries to make the other feel like they’re second best.”
“And you can only find that with a non-mage?”
He lowered his gaze to his beer can. “Yep.”
“Well,” I said too breezily, “I guess that will make my fake boyfriend feel better.”
Braden chuckled. “Not sure that’s how guy minds work, but knock yourself out. It’s not a secret. My opinions are pretty well-known.”
An awkward silence descended on the room. Braden got up to get himself yet another drink, and I stared at the afternoon sunlight streaming through his slatted blinds. I shouldn’t feel this disappointed by his revelation. He really wasn’t my type at all. We’d probably kill each other if we tried to date. I needed to focus on learning magic and solving weird mysteries, not rehabilitating a grief-stricken, day-drinking misanthrope. Things would get messy, and since fate had thrown us together as drifters-in-training, we should avoid messy. The only thing in our future was a mutually trusting friendship.
Braden cleared his throat. “Do you want some guy advice from a guy?”
I eyed him warily. “I guess?”
“I understand that the origin story of your relationship with Dash is less than ideal… maybe even downright shady… but as far as I’ve seen, other than being kinda pompous and spoiled… he’s not a bad guy. He obviously likes you a lot.” Braden touched his throat where Dash had poked him with his wand. “So, maybe if the problem isn’t that you find him repulsive… Do you find him repulsive?” His eyes cut toward me, and I scolded myself for imaging something hopeful there.
“No,” I admitted, remembering the way I had been drawn to him in the clearing. “He just got so clingy right away. It was overwhelming. And then the Chancellor got involved. I don’t guess I would mind dating him for fun. I just don’t want to feel like we’re engaged.”
“Well, there you have it.” Braden’s thumbs stroked the rim of his unopened can as he dangled it between his knees. “Just tell him that. If he really likes you, he’ll have to respect that.” He cleared his throat, gruffer this time. “And if he doesn’t respect that, I’ll turn him into a coat rack.”
I laughed, and the idea of Braden avenging my honor made my head feel light and fuzzy. It was nice to have such a good guy friend. Braden would be my new Eric. And, if I were lucky, he wouldn’t take my best girl friend to bed the second I stepped foot out of town. I felt a weight lifting off my chest.
But then it came crashing down.
“The Chancellor, though. If I date him for fun and he falls in love, I’ll break his heart.”
Braden’s jaw tensed. “Or maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll fall in love, too.”
Chapter 10
“How was lunch?” Leia asked before I had even shut our front door. I couldn’t tell if her tone was snippy or just strained from all the blood rushing into her head. She was doing a headstand in the center of the common area, just as she been doing when we first met, only this time she had clothes on.
“Didn’t happen,” I grumbled. “Listen, I’m sor—”
As Leia gracefully back-flipped herself upright, she revealed a truly enormous bouquet of bright red roses, each blossom appearing to float on a delicate spray of tiny white flowers. There were dozens of them. Way too many of them.
“Please tell me those are yours,” I whispered, rubbing my temples.
“Nope.” Leia said, spreading her arms wide. “All for you. Forty-eight. I already counted.”
I walked slowly around the overwhelming display. “This is… insane. We just… Is he some kind of stalker?”
“Girl, why are you so dark?” Leia shook her head. “He’s some kind of romantic.”
I sank onto our couch, but immediately jumped up again. The smell, like the entire gesture, was too intense. “This would be a very romantic gift for our first wedding anniversary, but it’s a lot for our first day.”
“I guess.” Leia shrugged. “But I think it’s sweet. No one’s ever done anything like that for me.” She let out a wistful sigh as she caressed the nearest petals.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I owe you an apology for being so difficult earlier, so I’m re-gifting them to you.”
Leia rolled her eyes, but a tiny smile appeared. “Apology accepted. And I’m sorry if I came across like I was belittling your concerns. I only meant to make you feel better, but I can see how it sounded dismissive. I think it was just my irritation with the whole Serenity situation shining through the wrong subject.”
“Apology accepted. And I guess another one is owed for not realizing that was bothering you?”
“Not realizing? I think I made it pretty clear yesterday that I thought you were crazy to even consider it!”
“Well, you were right. She totally tried to kill me.”
Leia’s jaw dropped. “Like, for real?”
“No. I guess not. She had the decency to lure me into the Arena so whatever she had planned wouldn�
�t stick.”
Leia clutched at her head. “Meena! Don’t tell me you went!”
I shrugged. “I’m not the brightest crayon in the box. But hey, I won! She probably has a bounty on my head, so I was terrified to walk home from Braden’s, and I should maybe really think about running away before the Chancellor finds out what I did...”
Leia goggled at me. “What did you do?”
“Well...” I reached out to play with one of the velvety red petals. “Hey, wait a second… where did Dash even get these out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Leia gave me a patronizing look. “Meena, he made them. With magic. Obviously.”
“Oh,” I breathed, bending down to inspect them closer. “But they’re real. And the smell...”
“You’ve changed the subject. Don’t think I didn’t notice. But yes, of course they’re real. Who would waste magic on fake flowers? He went a little overboard on the scent if you ask me, but otherwise...”
“They’re perfect.” My heart thumped a little faster... in a not entirely unpleasant way. Spending money on an absurd amount of technically useless flowers was not the way to impress me, but... crafting them with magic? That was a lot closer to being legit romantic.
“Looks like it’s a good thing I wasn’t going to accept your re-gift.” Leia smirked and pointed at a small white envelope resting against the simple glass vase. “There’s a card, too, you know.”
I snatched the envelope, eliciting a snicker from my roommate. I shot her a ‘shut up’ look and carefully broke the seal. There was a simple piece of white cardstock inside, adorned with Dash’s jauntily slanted handwriting:
Dearest Meena,
Please accept this ironically over-the-top apology. I fear I may have come on a little too strong.
Yours (if you wish),
Dash
“Oh no,” I moaned, setting the card gently back on the table.
“What? Is it a proposal?” Leia teased.
“Worse. He realized what he did wrong without me having to explain.”
“Uh-oh, girl. Self-awareness is hella sexy.”
I returned to the couch. The scent wafting off the roses wasn’t quite so cloying now that I was picturing Dash’s brow furrowed in concentration as his fingers went through whatever motions this type of magic required. I realized I didn’t even know what his specialty was. Had he told me last night when I was only half paying attention to his monologue?
Leia flopped down in the armchair, drawing her knees up to her chest. “You know, I might be able to offer better accidental relationship advice if I knew exactly what happened last night to bring this about.”
My voice was still raw from telling Braden everything that happened, so I gave Leia the shortest possible version of events, leaving out my psychic conversation with a wolf and my grandmother’s spirit giving me a wand which I promptly lost. I knew that unlike Vicky, Leia was predisposed to believe in such things, but without any proof, I worried she might think I was making things up to make myself look super special. I could tell her later if necessary. For the moment, she had only asked about Dash.
When I was finished, she frowned and rested her chin in the dip between her knees. “I don’t want to make this more complicated for you, but what you’re describing… it sounds like Dash may have been wearing a glamour in the woods. I mean, girls do it all the time, so, I guess, in the interest of equality, it’s not that big of a deal if he wants to spruce himself up, but—”
“Whoa, slow down, back up.” I held up both hands. “Raised outside of magic, remember? What’s a glamour?”
“Oh, right. You’re so good at everything I keep forgetting you didn’t grow up around it.” She smiled warmly. “A glamour is any spell that changes your physical appearance. Glamours can be really simple, like hiding pimples or whitening your smile, or they can be really complex, like giving yourself a totally different face and body. It sounds like Dash was just tweaking himself a little bit to impress you.”
I chewed on my lip, thoughts torn in two directions. First of all, where was the line between a tweak and a trick? Taking magic out of the equation, if I had been wearing a ton of makeup last night and a push-up bra, would it be right for Dash to accuse me of lying when he saw me without them? I would probably feel like he was just supposed to know that women sometimes artificially enhance themselves. And Leia was right in if it was okay for me to do that, then it should be okay for him, too. I knew that rationally, but I still felt like I’d been duped somehow. But that might be because when I asked him about it, he made a lame excuse instead of just telling the truth when he had the chance.
The second line of thought going through my mind was whether a glamour could be responsible for turning Rhea into a wolf, and if that was the power I had unwittingly used to transform Serenity inside the Arena.
“So a glamour must be a form of transmogrification?” I asked.
“No, glamours are just illusions. Nothing about you is actually changed. Only the perception of the people looking at you.”
“Wait.” I tilted my head and scrunched up my face. My brain felt too full. “So, when I kissed the tall version of Dash, you’re telling me he was actually still my height, even though I was having to reach up to kiss him? How does that work?”
Leia shrugged. “Hey, I’m still just a first-year, too. Just because I know we can do something doesn’t mean I always understand the metaphysics behind it.”
I shook my head hard and pressed my fingers into my temples. “Wow. Okay. I guess I’ll just table that for now so my head doesn’t melt and I have to cover it up with a glamour of my own.”
Leia giggled. “So which Dash do you actually prefer?”
Cringing, I twisted and buried my face in the couch cushions. “Listen, he’s cute no matter what, but I did like him better in the forest. I don’t think it’s a shallow thing, though. I hope it’s not. It’s more that he just had a certain swagger out there that faded when we got back to campus.”
Leia giggled again. “He was probably just terrified his aunt would call him out on it in front of you.”
“I guess. Hey, let’s talk about how creepy it was that she called him her ‘prized possession.’”
Leia made a face. “Um, that’s real creepy. You know I’m her biggest fangirl, and I don’t think I can just turn that off—she may have just been having a really bad night, too, for some reason—but your story does raise some red flags.”
“Yeah…” My voice trailed off in a yawn. “I think I’m going to go take a nap so I don’t fall asleep in class tonight. Wake me up for dinner?”
“As long as you promise to sit with me and Oliver and not your new BFF Serenity.”
I grimaced. My initial panic had passed, and I no longer felt it would really be necessary to run away from the Academy because of what I’d done, but there was still bound to be some kind of retribution headed my way.
“Of course,” I assured Leia. “But I might need you to show me how to do a full-body glamour before we get there.”
***
“So, you and Dasharath, huh?” Oliver asked with a sly grin the second Leia and I emerged from Boleyn Hall into the crisp evening air.
He fell into step on the other side of Leia as we headed toward the dining hall, but kept leaning forward and backward to look me in the eye as he peppered me with questions. I gave him the most sanitized version I’d given anyone so far, leaving out the part where the Chancellor had threatened me not to break her prized possession’s heart.
Oliver chuckled. “Well, I sure had it wrong.”
We had reached the steps, causing me no small amount of embarrassment as the morning’s memories came flooding back, but I paused to ask what he meant by that.
He shrugged. “I was sure you and Braden were going to be the next big thing. I had already come up with your couple name: Breena.”
“Why not Meedan?” Leia interjected. “Why does the guy’s name have to go first?”
“I don’t know. It just sounds better that way.”
“Not always. What if we were a couple? If we did it your way, we’d have to be Olia, which is stupid. Leiaver has a much better ring.”
Oliver’s only response was a startled squeak and an intense reddening of his face. Leia looked at me with an ‘I’m so bad’ expression. I had to lovingly roll my eyes at both of them.
“Well, there’s not going to be any Breena or Meedan,” I said. “Just because we’re both drifters doesn’t mean we have to pair up. And even if I were into him—which I am not—he’s sworn off dating magic girls anyway.”
Oliver made a sound of total understanding. “That makes sense, considering.”
“Considering what?” I asked, just as Leia slammed her elbow into Oliver’s ribs. “Oh, that was subtle, Leia. What’s up? Considering what?”
Oliver moved away from Leia, glaring at her and rubbing his side. “That he used to date Serenity. I might have sworn off girls entirely if that happened to me.”
My mouth fell open. I was surprised that a beam of angry red magic didn’t shoot out and set the whole world on fire. Braden and Serenity? That’s who he was ‘having fun’ with before I got here? How… why… what could he have seen… and talk about shallow! He was even more of a fixer-upper than I thought if that’s how low he was willing to stoop for a good time.
My mind threw together a horrifying montage of kissing scenes featuring the two of them in various stages of undress. If I didn’t close my mouth soon, I was going to projectile vomit.
“Meena?” a gentle voice called from behind me, and in that moment, it was like a calming salve applied to my soul.
I turned and found Dash standing several feet away, hands clasped formally behind his back as they had been the first time we’d met. He ducked his head when our eyes met, and a shock of his glossy black hair fell across his forehead.
“We’ll see you inside,” Leia whispered, and I heard the tapping of their feet scurrying up the steps.
Broken Wand Academy Page 28
