Page 80 of Her Dreadful Will
Achan ignored her, his mouth moving with words so soft she couldn’t catch them.
A few minutes later, he stepped back, drawing a few deep breaths. “There. That should help.”
“Thanks for fixing what you broke,” she said sourly. “Where are we headed for the lesson?”
“Back side of Hatter’s Fall Park,” he said. “Where the old mill ruins are. There’s a dirt road the caretakers use—you can follow me and I’ll show you where to go, and where to park.”
“Right.” She swung in, closed the door, and turned the key, expecting the VW to choke and stutter as usual. But it started instantly, the engine growling with a smooth purr she’d never heard before. She glanced out her driver’s side window at Achan. His mouth curved up at one side and he backed his car out, zooming onto the road before she could say anything.
He’d fixed her engine. Whatever was going wrong in the mechanical bowels of the old VW—he’d repaired it. With magic.
“Damn,” she said softly, and surged out of the parking lot after him.
The sheer range of his magic and its applications astounded her, lured her with a compulsion stronger than her fear of the Institute and its teachers, or the Convocation and its laws—a desire more dreadful than their ravens of death.
She followed him along the roads and down the dirt tracks, her curiosity morphing into a deep craving for what he had. She needed to see if she could make this power hers as well. The good she could accomplish with it—the things she could fix—unimaginable. A neverending flow of power, chaos feeding on itself, sustaining her.
When they parked, she lunged out of the car and strode up to Achan, her body taut with eagerness. “Where do we start?”
His smile flowed over her. “This took me years to master, and I was born with an affinity for it. Give yourself time.” He started down an overgrown path, beckoning to her. “We’re going to start small. Come on.”
Start small? Seriously? Soleil let out a low whimper of impatience.
Already half-hidden in the trees and tall grass, Achan turned around slowly. Licked his lips once.
“You make that sound again, and I’m going to have to kiss you,” he said. “And that will end the lesson. I won’t teach you anything. Understand?”
Soleil’s entire body thrilled, her skin tightening. She nodded.
“Good.” He kept walking.
The path turned out to be a short one, breaking onto the sloping bank of a river, the offspring of Hatter’s Fall. Along the shore stood chunks of rock and ragged brick walls, the broken remnants of the old mill that had once provided jobs to most of the people in Wonderland.
“Here’s a good spot.” Achan stopped on a flat patch of sandy shoreline.
“You’ve got your necklace along, right?” Soleil said. “So we can check on Florence? I felt bad leaving her alone there—but there’s no way she could come with us.”
“I’ve got it.” He tugged his T-shirt collar down to show her. Soleil tried not to think about the cut of his collarbones, and the way they set off the angle of his throat. “I never leave home without it. And don’t worry about Florence—she’s got the brain of a much younger woman in that body now. She won’t go wandering off or getting in trouble.”
“What about Zillah?” Soleil kicked a broken bit of brick into the gleaming river. “She might decide to—finish the job.”
“She won’t. She’s one of mine,” said Achan. “A cognizant, and therefore a member of my coven.”
“A murderer.”
“Almost a murderer, yes. In the grip of desperation she nearly killed. She was willing to cross that line, to wreak the ultimate chaos of severing soul from body.” He shook his head. “Much as I might dislike her as a person, I may one day need someone like her.”
“You should let me mind-flex her.”
“Zillah’s fear and awe of me is enough to keep her in check for now. Besides, Florence has Cerberus with her, right? He’ll watch over her.”
Soleil couldn’t help smiling. “He does like her. It’s cute.”
“Yeah it is.” Achan grinned back. “Florence is good people. Clever and feisty. What’s not to love?”
“She’s a cognizant now, too,” Soleil reminded him. “We need to register her and Zillah with the Convocation.”
“Why?”
