Page 7 of Until the Stars Fall

Neither of us spoke. He tucked his hair behind his ear again and leaned across a candle, swooping his paintbrush over a farther spoke of the wheel. He was, perhaps, even more handsome in candlelight with his eyes reflecting the flame, but thinking that addled me more.

After a moment, he glanced up from under thick eyebrows. “You okay?”

“Peachy.” I was not.

He jogged his head toward a wooden box. “I’ve got another brush in there if you wanna—”

“Certainly not,” I said, enunciating every syllable. “I don’t have magic anymore.” That I’m willing to tell you about.

He pressed his lips together and went silent. Impending doom settled on me, stealing around my headache and still-queasy stomach. I’d already been apprehensive about this journey with my sister and her coven. How would I get through it in a constant state of panic over how the ship was still sailing, fighting off my magic every minute of every hour? And now I had to work with a male witch who already hated me?

“Suit yourself,” he said finally.

I felt his gaze linger on me as I stood, then perched on a stool, but when I looked at him, he was focused on his work again. What could I even say to him?

“I’m surprised you gave up your plush ride off-world with Noble Industries. Why are you here with us scrubs?”

I swallowed hard. “That’s a personal question.”

He stood up suddenly. “You don’t look like you feel so good.” He grabbed a package of crackers and a lemon-lime soda from a little fridge on his side of the room, placed them on a workbench beside me, and went back to sit on a stool across the area. He nodded at his offering. “You need somethin’ a little stronger than water? I don’t know what’ll happen to my spell if you get sick all over it.”

I stared at him as he threw back a swig of orange soda, my heart still stumbling in my chest. “Are you making fun of me?”

He shifted on the stool, hooking one bare foot onto a rung. “No! Sorry. I’m an Aquarius.”

As if that was any kind of explanation.

“Well, I’m a scientist,” I shot back, “and I don’t understand how somebody with as much education as you could possibly believe this”—I waved my hands at the shield— “—and what’s upstairs is superior to science.”

“Spoken like a true Sagittarius.” He paused, looking down into his soda can. “But I know that’s not the first time you’ve seen magic done.”

I popped my soda open and gulped some down. The fizziness cut through the yuck in my throat and bubbled down into my stomach. Hannah must’ve told him what month I was born in.

“Not like that.”

“You thought your sister and the rest of us were just dancin’ around naked at the solstice, adorning ourselves with oils and sigils drawn on with lamb’s blood?”

I shook my head, heat coming into my face. His voice wasn’t unkind, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. The way he laid it out sounded ridiculous. And now I was trying not to picture him naked.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. We only do that at the spring equinox.” He coughed what might have been a laugh without a smile and cleared his throat. “Just kidding about the nudity and lamb’s blood.” He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side. “But there’s a fair bit of dancing.”

I dug in the packet for another cracker, saying nothing, unable to imagine the tall, smile-less man before me actually dancing.

“Magic’s pretty powerful. Some people have a natural affinity for it,” he mused. “Some people don’t, and other people”—his gaze landed on me—“don’t want to admit they have it. A lot of witches go into science.” He shrugged. “Seems like the closest thing to magic, to me, but scientists almost never go into witchery.” He gestured to my dwindling cracker supply. “Do you want anything else to eat, Gemma?”

I shook my head, eating another cracker. The soda bubbles were settling my stomach, starting to calm it down. I was trying to ignore the irresistible way his full lips formed my name beneath his beard, and how his words terrified me.

My magic came out roaring when I turned twelve. I’d embraced it, was drunk in love with it, until my selfish, irresponsible actions caused my parents’ death. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. Since then I’d devoted myself to science like a frightened child lighting candles against the dark.

I could have told him all of this. Some of this. Instead, I stuffed more crackers in my mouth so none of my thoughts would tumble from my mouth. He was a stranger I wouldn’t know for very long.

I shook my head. “I can’t...do magic. Anymore.” Another lie. “And I don’t want any part of yours.”

He frowned and tilted his head at me, as if to say, come on.

I shook my head harder and chased the crackers down with more soda. “Regardless, I don’t want the ship to break apart, because I’m one of the idiots in it. What happened up there, in that room? Do y’all not have all that written down somewhere?”

“We were so rushed to hit our new launch slot. We threw all our notes and things into a box. It’s on the stage, top-of-ship. But no.” His gaze snagged on something above him, and he stood and reached overhead to tighten a lug nut by hand. “We don’t have it written down and organized by any means.”

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