Page 59 of Witchlore
“I can’t do magic, remember?”
With that, I slam my way out of the bathroom. I can hear the lilting tone of Elizabeth’s mother’s voice as she gives her seminar from the library, and deliberately walk in the opposite direction. I message Bastian and tell him I’ll be waiting for him, and stand outside college, my back pressed against the graffiti on the walls. I stare down at my hand that glowed when Bastian was doing his spell. It looks exactly the same as it did that morning, long fingers, a bit of gingery hair coming down from the wrists, freckles and blunt nails. Tentatively, I take a deep breath and put my hands in the preparatory triangle, then slowly twist them through the heating spell that Bastian’s been teaching me—a Neptune’s Rise and a Logi’s Spear—but nothing happens except that some passersby look at me curiously. I blush and stuff my hands into my coat pockets.
“Hey.” Bastian slumps against the wall next to me. One of his eyes is swelling up, looking puffy and uncomfortable, probably from a rogue elbow of Carl’s.
“Are you okay?” Without thinking, I trace my fingers over his cheekbone underneath the swelling. “It looks right grim.”
“I’m fine—it was worth it.” Bastian smiles, gently batting my hand away. He squeezes my finger for a moment and there’s a fluttering in my chest, like a bat has got loose inside my rib cage.
“You didn’t have to do it for me,” I say, feeling awkward as our hands drop apart. I want to keep touching him, to assure myself he is all in one piece, but I content myself with leaning against the wall beside him, our shoulders pressed together.
“I didn’t do it for you, I did it because he’s a wanker and it was the right thing to do,” Bastian says, his eyes sharp. When he looks at me like this, I feel very… watched. Noticed. It’s the first time it’s ever been pleasant for me.
“Well, it was still kind of… gallant.”
“Gallant?” He smiles.
“Yeah.” I flush because it’s an absurd word, an old-fashioned one, but it’s the best word I have without using the word that’s truly in mind: “chivalrous.” Like a romantic knight in an epic medieval poem. The word gives me a little pulse, deep in my abdomen, butthat probably says more about the kind of reading material I find sexy than it does about him.
“Well, gallant or not, it’s two weeks of suspension.” He sighs heavily.
“What about Carl?”
“Only two days.”
“What?” I exclaim. “Why?”
“Because only one of us used ‘witchcraft that is inappropriate for an educational context,’” Bastian says, smiling wryly. “I’ve been given a warning, too, and been told I’ll be very closely watched until the end of the year.”
“God, it’s so hypocritical.” I shake my head. “If Carl had known the spell you used, he wouldn’t have hesitated.”
“He wouldn’t have had the power for it.” Bastian’s voice is dismissive as he looks down at my hands. “Did it stop?”
“Yeah, as soon as I stopped touching you.” I berate myself for wording it so gracelessly and blush like a flipping tomato, but Bastian only nods thoughtfully.
“That’s weird,” he says. “Maybe it means our magic is compatible or something like that? I know some witches work in pairs for certain crafts, partners within covens and stuff. I can look into it.”
I’ve heard of such things but I’ve never imagined I could be part of them. To be a shifter is to be solitary or only with other shifters, and to be me is to be lonely. Plus, the idea of a shapeshifter sharing magic with a witch in any way at all is so taboo I actually start to sweat a little. From nervousness or anticipation, I can’t quite tell. Even between witches such things are considered unusual at best and dangerously misguided at worst.
“You’d want to try that?” I ask awkwardly. “With a shifter?”
“I’d be up for exploring it with a witch, if I found someonewho I was genuinely magically compatible with. I think the benefits outweigh the risks.” He shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I do it with you?”
Because my father would murder the both of us if he found out,I think. I still remember his characterization of powerful witches:Of course, they would rip the magic out of our blood if they could.Despite those warnings, ingrained deep in my psyche, I’m not averse to the idea. Quite the opposite. I want to feel the way I felt when I touched Bastian and my hand felt more alive with something new than it ever has.
“Maybe,” I say, trying to conceal how shockingly keen I suddenly feel. “Maybe it will help us with the Black Shuck. If you still want to do it?”
I wonder if he’s thinking that all of this is a lot of trouble for a potential place at the Merlin Foundation, especially if he’s on thin ice at college.
“Totally. We’ll go to the cathedral next Tuesday,” he says. “We’re nearly finished.”
“Yeah. We are.” I feel weird, suddenly, like when I’m reading a good book and I realize I’m over halfway through and suddenly I try to read slower. “I mean, maybe we could do it next month?”
“No, we want to do the final spell at Samhain, if we can,” Bastian says. “Otherwise we’ll have to wait until the winter solstice and that’s not until the end of December.”
I don’t have a reason to disagree. If we do this, I get Elizabeth back and everyone will leave me alone. Everyone will know that I didn’t do anything wrong, because she’ll be here, telling them, telling her mother the truth, and proving that our relationship was real.Isreal. Then I won’t be alone anymore, and everything will be the way it was supposed to be. So why do I feel so hesitant?
“Lando?” Bastian presses.
