Page 45 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

I'm reminded of this fact in Group Combat, when the twins wind up on opposite sides and tackle each other to the ground. Reggie's shirt gets twisted up, so he just yanks it off, grinning as he reveals his taut abdomen and muscular pecs—which was no doubt the point. Little bits of blue dust start to spill out of me, and I turn red with embarrassment as I have to take the twins' hands to channel it away, staring at my toes and trying not to think how close they both are to me.

By the time classes are over, I'm relieved—for a moment. Then I remember that today is one of the days I'm scheduled to meet with Xavier in the library to do more research. He stills insists that we might findsomethingabout familiar bonds written down in books about magic and witchcraft, or even histories and biographies. He's had the head librarian, Beatrice Trout, requesting books from other magical and supernatural libraries.

Yesterday one of the books from Stromhaun, a mage school in Germany, arrived. He's been unable to stop talking about it ever since, and I couldn't find a good excuse not to join him in the library to skim through it—especially when the true reason why I don't want to come is because I spend half our time together squirming in my seat instead of focusing on the words in front of me. He probably thinks by now that I'm the slowest reader in the world, since around him I'm basically illiterate. I can't stop wondering what would happen if one of these days, I leaned across the table and...

My mind trails off, and I shake my thoughts away. Swiping into the library, I find our usual spot in the corner and settle in to wait for him to arrive. We had our last class of the day, Weapons Combat, together, but he always takes a long hot soak after, while I just rinse off and wash my hair. Reggie likes to make fun of his brother for enjoying baths, but Xavier claims it's the best way to relax sore muscles.

Sore, muscular muscles in need of a massage from willing hands.

Needing a distraction from my line of thought, I grab a random book on the shelf and open it up to a page in the middle. My eyes barely find the words; it takes me four times to get into a single sentence and steer my mind away from dirty thoughts and towards boring ones. But eventually I get there, and then the book starts to nab my attention as I realize what it's about.

First discovered by a rogue, covenless witch and a necromancer somewhere in Italy in 1282, Husks are the result of a dark experiment performed on those who wish to rid themselves of the supposed "taint" of magic. The necromancer's son, born with the sight, wished to be rid of his prophetic dreams. So he went to a witch who lived in a rural village and knocked on her door. A bargain was made in gold, and together they used sharpened ceremonial daggers to cut the boy's skin and drain the blood from him until he was nearly dead, his spirit gone from his body. The necromancer then performed a ceremony to reanimate his flesh, while the witch whispered a spell to call spirits from the spirit realm, and together they created what they did not know then was a terrible, empty shell of a boy with black eyes and—

"Ari!" I jump in my chair, shocked to find Xavier standing a few inches from me. Lowering his voice, he jokes, "You were really into that book. Sorry I startled you. I guess I should've used an inside voice."

Behind him, the short, intimidating head librarian swivels her head around like the owl shifter she his andharrumphspointedly in his direction. There's something about her sharp, beady eyes that makes me think she's considering eviscerating me in lieu of charging me for overdue books. Thankfully she eventually moves down an aisle to re-shelve some of the books, taking her menacing aura with her.

"There was just something... familiar about the ceremony described in this book."

Glancing down, I memorize the page number I was on and quickly shut the cover, pushing the book away. The last thing I want to admit to Xavier is that I think I found out how my soulless, murderous father was made, and may even understand what drives his lunacy and heresy.

"You said there was something special about this book." I pull Xavier's attention away from what I was just reading and towards me. "Well, spill. What exactly does it have that none of these other books have?"

"Well, for one thing, it was written by... oh here, I'll just let you read the cover."

Glancing down curiously, I read the title first, then the author name.

The Savvy Hedge Guide to Naturalistic Magic: From Tracking to Taming, All You Need to Know

A Guide by Viveca Wolfe

A cold, strange feeling washes over me, and I find my fingers tracing the letters of her name. "This was my great great grandmother's sister. She was kicked out of the coven for doing magic in front of mortals—it nearly got all the other witches killed. I... I didn't know she ever wrote anything down."

"Apparently she did. After she was kicked out of her coven, she traveled the world, fell in with some rebel mages who didn't like the lines between casting and witchcraft, then decided to become a sort of historian. In her foreword she writes that if no one put this knowledge down on paper, it would be lost to history." He rubs the back of his neck guiltily, admitting, "I may have skimmed a page or two while I was walking it over here."

"You?" I say teasingly. "I wouldneverexpect such a thing of a handsome nerd like you."

His cheeks flush, a dark color on his complexion. Then his eyes suddenly flick up to mine, and I realize too late what I've done. "You think I'm handsome?"

"I... Did I say that?"

"You did."

The table we're sitting at now seems far smaller than before, as if there's no space at all between us. And the library is empty right now, even the head librarian nowhere to be found.

All I want to do is vanish.

But when I try, looking down at my hands and picking at my cuticles, I feel a finger against my chin. Slowly, inexorably, Xavier redirects my gaze towards him.

He's looking at me with this pained, almost rueful expression. In a voice pitched low for my ears alone, he tells me, "I think you're beautiful."

A moment hangs between us. There's no air in the room, but my heart is beating so fast that I feel like something dramatic might happen—like me fainting. I find myself leaning forward in my chair, even as a voice inside my head screams that I have no idea what I'm doing.

I don't need to know.

Xavier kisses me with all the knowledge of the world sitting at the tip of his tongue.

Chapter 22

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