Page 104 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“Bloody…all right! Listen, there are simply some things Ican’ttell you. Whether because I am bound by my oath or by magic, I cannot. But if that is the case, I will inform you. Will you accept that?”
I gazed at my hand, just an inch or so from the truth by touch. It wouldn’t be hard to procure—at least determine if he was being honest right now.
At the same time, I recognized the cost: taking the truth rather than accepting it freely could cost me a lot more than Jonathan’s patience. It might cost me a friend. And I had very few of those to spare.
I withdrew my hand. Jonathan’s chest deflated with obvious relief.
“All right,” I said. “So…how did you know Penny was dead? Or can you tell me that?”
He shook his head, as if he were searching for the right words, but was unable to locate them. “I can’t explain it well, but for whatever reason, people tend to volunteer their most private information to me. I have a gift, although to be quite honest, I don’t understand it very well myself. I’ve just found that if I want to know something from someone, they tell me. Information…comes to me.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” I said dryly. It was clear I wasn’t going to get a solid answer. Either I could discover his source one day or I wouldn’t.
Perhaps it didn’t matter.
“If it’s any consolation, it’s not easy with you. Most people say whatever I want if I just ask. You, though, you’re very…”
I turned. “I’m what?”
“You’re slippery.” Sunlight flashed in his eyes along with something that made my heart speed up. “Like water trickling through the smallest crack.”
He smiled, a bit shyly. Our eyes met, green to sky blue, and for a moment, the interior of his car seemed brighter than the sun outside.
Both of us quickly looked away.
“So, do you want to tell me what’s between you and your mum? It’s important that we see her, I can feel it.”
I heaved a sigh like I was thirteen again, not a few years from thirty. “All right.” I put my glove back on, watched as the car dropped into one of the tunnels burrowing under Boston, and started to tell the story of my birth.
“Sybil met my dad when they were really young. I don’t know if it’s the same with other fae but with seers, all those hormones mixed with magic coming on at the same time means trouble. And the witches in our family are…powerful…in their appeal.”
“And you know this because?”
I just raised a brow. He had the decency to grunt in acknowledgment of the fact that, yes, therehadbeen some sexual tension between us at various moments.
I didn’t mention it was one of the reasons his own reactions to me were so confusing. There were times when I had thought I’d sensed something similar in him to what I’d picked up from plain or even the occasional fae man who passed through town and caught a look at my mother, Gran, or, yes, even myself. Not the lecherous thoughts or idle fantasies that crossed the mind of men simply admiring a beautiful woman, though those happened too.
But there was a quality far beyond the skin that drew people together.
Obsession had its own particular feeling.
So did passion.
I’d Seen many shades of both of them.
I was taken back to that night by the fire, before Gran’s house burned down, or even the afternoon we spent on the mountain. Jonathan was more skilled than almost anyone I’d met at shielding his thoughts but hadn’t quite been able to hide his feelings. His instincts.
It was why I’d kissed him by the fire.
But we both knew how that turned out.
“Anyway,” I said purposefully. “It was why Gran tried her damnedest to keep Sybil away from people. My mother’s not powerful, but she’s still a seer. She had half the town chasing her by the time she turned fifteen. Except she only wanted one of them just as badly: Jimmy Whelan.”
“Your father.”
I nodded. “He, of course, didn’t stand a chance.”
Jonathan snorted again. “I’m sure he didn’t.”
