Page 35 of Witchlore
I feel weirdly okay with it. I find myself smiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kira and her friends deep in conversation, their eyes flicking over to me and Bastian. I try not to pay them any attention, because the evening September sun is setting, bouncing gorgeous rosy light off the three-story Victorian Fred Aldous building, making it glow like a cherry, and the orange umbrellas advertising Aperol spritz seem summery and Mediterranean. It’s still warm enough outside not to need a jacket, but the air smells of the turning leaves and it mingles with the tart taste of hops on my tongue. A nice guy is making jokes with me and for a moment, things feel okay. Then someone knocks against my chair and there’s beer spilling down my back.
“Shit!” I quickly pull off my plaid shirt, forgetting for a moment that I’m actually trying to hide my new boobs.
“Christ, shifter, what happened to you?” Carl Lord laughs, pushing past us so our table lurches and Bastian has to clamp his hand over our glasses to stop them spilling. Carl squashes in beside his mates, lounging back in his chair. His ring is giving off a telltale pink glow. Now I know that there was a little bit of magical mischief in that accident. “Get boobier overnight or did you shift and murder someone else?”
Everyone in his group laughs. He slings his arm around who I can only presume is the latest boyfriend. It’s the same first-year I saw him kissing last week, blond and doe-eyed and looking like he’s on cloud nine. I feel a cringe of embarrassment for him.
“Leave it,” Bastian says to Carl. His voice is level and steady but it travels, and a momentary hush descends among the drinking witches. Everyone else around us, the rest of the Northern Quarter, continues laughing and basking in the very last dregs of summer, but the witches watch Bastian. The sapphire in his ring glows. I instantly remember what he did to the boggart, and while imagining him blasting Carl across the square with an unearthly gust of bright light is deliciously vindicating, I clamp my hand on top of his. I’m relieved when Bastian doesn’t pull away. Carl merely glances at our hands, smiles tightly, and laughs.
“Oh, mate, I get it, you’re new and she’s a shifter and that. You think she needs your pity!” Carl’s laugh rings in my ears. “Thing is, she doesn’t need your pity. She just wants to get laid!”
“And you don’t want to shag that!” one of Carl’s other friends pipes up, tapping his glass against Carl’s. “It’s like a black widow spider, it kills who it mates with!”
That produces uproarious laughter from Carl Lord.
“Don’t be sexist.” Kira scowls. I feel like that’s less about me and more about my form. I’m a “girl” again so now she can defend me. I shoot her an angry glare and she looks away, eyebrows drawn tightly together as she sips her Aperol spritz.
“Can you leave us alone?” Bastian asks, and once again, his voice travels. Kira and her friends all stare. There aren’t many people in college who stand up to Carl. Mostly, the technique is to roll eyes and ignore him. “We’re having a conversation.”
“Yeah, we’re all having conversations.” Carl smiles. “No need to get stroppy, it’s just chat, isn’t it? Just banter.”
“Yeah, I don’t need your banter, actually.” Bastian’s voice is getting sharper by the second.
“You say that now,” Carl sneers, giving me a sudden, viciouslook. “Come and find me, mate, when she screws you over. She’s nothing but a cocktease.”
I stand up abruptly and glare at him.
“I’m not a she,” I say.
“That’s all right.” Carl gives me a cruel, predatory glance that immediately tells me I’ve done the wrong thing by engaging. “‘Murderer’ isn’t a gendered term, is it?”
That gets a laugh, a genuine one. Bastian tries to grab my arm, but I brush him away. As I push past Carl’s group I catch a glimpse of him moving his fingers rapidly under the table, and more drinks fall, directional splashes of cold beer that soak me, made colder and more intentional by witchcraft. Everyone on this square sees a poor clumsy sod, rushing home to dry off after an accident, not someone fleeing the scene of some well-placed magical bullying. Carl’s always been good at taking advantage of the fact his spells aren’t powerful enough to last. Leaves no evidence.
I walk fast, out of the square and down Hilton Street, past college and the tall industrial mill buildings down to the wide paved walkway beside the canal. I ignore the Canada geese strutting around and the lads on either side listening to music and smoking vapes. I sit myself down right on the stone edge, dangling my feet toward the murky water. I breathe in hard as I press my palms into my eye sockets, smelling eucalyptus on my skin and that particular cold pondweed smell of city water. One word chants in my head:murderer, murderer, murderer.I shake my head and roll my shoulders, just like Counselor Cooper taught me when I find myself overwhelmed with anxiety (physically moving our bodies can help us release tension), but it’s like I’m trying to dislodge the physical feeling that my bones are calcifying.
“Hey.”
I look over my shoulder. Bastian is standing there, holding my wet plaid shirt. I sniff, wiping away any rogue tears quickly with the back of my hand, and he sits down beside me, gently draping my shirt over my shoulders. It’s a sweet gesture and for a second, tears threaten to overwhelm me, so I stare down into the water beneath my boots, concentrating on the shadowy bodies of fish I see there.
“I don’t know why I bothered coming,” I mumble, when I’m finally sure I can speak without howling.
“I honestly didn’t know he was going to be here.” Bastian frowns. “Kira invited me.”
“Yeah. Well. She doesn’t think much of me, either.”
“I thought she was Elizabeth’s best friend.”
“She was. She was the only one Elizabeth told about us, but we never talked, and she definitely wants nothing to do with me now.” Bastian gives me a questioning look and I reluctantly carry on speaking. “She blames me for her death, I think.”
“Or maybe she’s just grieving,” he says reasonably. “Here.”
He puts his hands in the preparatory triangle.
“Oh, you don’t need to—” I begin.
“It’s no problem,” he says, and his sapphire ring glows. His hands move in a sweeping motion, the left over the right with the fingers spread wide and then twisting around until his left faces his chest and his right touches my shirt—a Neptune’s Rise into a Logi’s Spear, a combination I’ve not seen before. The shirt begins to dry, the splash marks steaming away, the smell of his magic, today lighter and softer like the smell of burning paper, catching in my nostrils.
“Whoa,” I whisper as Bastian’s ring continues to glow. On the other side of the canal, the lads start clapping.
