Page 40 of Morning's Light

Elon took her hand and drew her back to crouch on the ground. Together they hovered over the flower, frost decorating the ground with icy lace. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected but it certainly wasn’t the delicate exquisiteness before him. She’d created something filled with detail and richness, almost more than the real thing.

He couldn’t think about the implications of what she’d told him. It was purposely choosing to look behind the curtain. It might take time before he was ready for that. Then he looked at Aisanna, at the same face he’d seen almost every day for the last two years, the same face he’d come to love. And he couldn’t find it in him to see anything different.

“It’s too cold.” The night air was biting, with a cross-breeze frosting over the ground and wind-whisked clouds shifting across the sky. “I don’t want to see the chill destroy this beauty. Can you return it to…?”

Aisanna snapped her fingers and the poinsettia dissipated in a shower of green sparks. “You have a caring heart.”

“So I’ve been told.” Elon dropped her hand and rubbed his eyes. “This is certainly not what I expected. Pretty much the opposite, in fact.”

“Hard to imagine something like this.”

“You know, I always thought magic would be like something you read about in books. There’s an old man with a beard waving his magic wand and shouting the right words to the heavens. Some kind of incantation to get the forces of the beyond to do your bidding.”

“It’s…complicated,” she said finally. “Not especially hard to do if you have the right blood, but there are herbs and potions and spells to help focus your energy. The magic might not come from us originally but it’s part of our makeup now. Wielding power means working with enormous resources from a world on top of our own. We only learn how to become one with it. Not conquer or possess it.”

He could imagine how she must feel having him there. Barging in on her family, on her secret. He’d forced her hand. From the look on her face, she hadn’t intended to let him in.

Instead of feeling upset or bitter, he tried to picture how it would be if the roles were reversed. He would not have been able to handle it with the grace and decorum she possessed.

Elon couldn’t help but regard her with a strange sort of displacement. He no longer felt like the fuck-up he’d been the day before, her employee and inconvenient, unwanted suitor. When he looked at her now, he didn’t feel the innate deference he used to feel. Somehow, her revelation made her more human, when it should have done the opposite.

It had evened their playing field.

Her gift—her magic—was outside the box of normal in which he lived. He was not sure how to react. Anger at her having lied to him? Fear? What other otherworldly power did she wield with those small hands?

Betrayal also came to mind, but he told himself not to go there.

He held out his hand once more and she clumsily took it, allowing him to draw her up. “I need time to think about this,” he said.

Her stomach clenched. “How much time?”

“As long as it takes to come to terms with it.”

“Elon, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you not to tell anyone about this. Our lives would end if this ever got out. People can’t know that magic exists. They’d freak, and we’d be hunted to extinction. We have sot of a governmental system in place to police ourselves. If they find out what you saw, you’d be deemed a threat. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

He stopped her with a touch. “Don’t. I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not that person. Freaked out and a little insecure, yes, but never that kind of man. This flower was beautiful.” He glanced down to the pristine ground, no hint of her power evident. “You are beautiful. But I need time to think. Okay?”

Aisanna swallowed hard. Nodded. Elon drew her nearer with the smallest touch on her shoulders. She couldn’t ask him to wait, couldn’t force him to speak to her and reveal what he truly felt about the discovery.

Hell, she wouldn’t if she could.

“If you can, try to act like this never happened tonight,” she told him. “That way we can pretend to have a happy Imbolc. I mean, Groundhog’s Day.”

“You know I can’t pretend.” Nor could he stop himself from placing a kiss on her forehead, a simple touch which spoke volumes.

They said nothing else to each other as he moved down the drive to his car. Elon started the engine, spinning out of the driveway and onto the darkened street.

Aisanna remained outside until she lost sight of his lights. What a mess she’d made. And make no mistake, she blamed herself. Most witches like her only went into business with other magic users. But oh no, she thought she could handle it all.

Her father was going to kill her when she went back inside. If the Claddium didn’t get to her first. Leo had better not say anything.

Only when she turned back to the house did she notice the discarded spray of flowers lying near the last step of the front stoop.

That made her blame ten times larger.

“Well, shit.” She bent to lift them up and draw the scent of them into her nose. Pink camellias, flowers that bloomed only in winter. Elon may not know the meaning behind them, but she did.

I long for you.

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