Page 72 of Witchlore
“Was she your girlfriend?” I hate myself for asking, but I do.
“No, Cameron was a study partner, a…” He struggles for the word.
“A companion?” I sneer, and he winces.
“A friend,” he finishes. “But once Cameron was gone, I was on my ownagain,but then I came here, I met you—”
“Wow, so I’m not just a replacement ingredient, I’m a replacementfriend!” The fact that he keeps saying her name is making me unreasonably upset. I believe him, unhelpfully, that Cameron was just his friend, but for some reason I wish she hadn’t been. I remember what Bastian’s dad said when I first met him:Not another Merlin Foundation wannabe, I hope.He was talking about Cameron, already fashioning me as her potential replacement and warning Bastian. No wonder he didn’t want to tell his dad he had been suspended.
“No!”
“So you didn’t seek me out because you knew where the book was and you knew you’d need another shapeshifter?” I stare at him, daring him to lie. “You didn’t find out my girlfriend was dead and think that would be a way to get me on board?”
“That might be how it started, but it’s not how it is now.” Bastian’s voice is suddenly urgent. “Meeting you, getting to know you, it changed everything.”
“Then why do you still have this?” I pick up the jar and wave it at him. “With all the other ingredients?Ouringredients? ForElizabeth’sresurrection?”
Bastian grips the edge of the doorframe, his fingers white with tension. I already know the answer, but there is a crushing feeling inside of me that desperately needs to hear the truth.
“Oh my god, Bastian, just say it!” I shout.
“Yes, when I moved here, I wanted to do the spell for him,” he admits. Even though I expected this, it hits me in the stomach like a kick from a horse. “I felt guilty about his death.”
“You said it was a car accident.” I stare at him. “Why would you feel guilty?”
“Because I’d gone to a party that night. I was celebrating getting into college with some mates and I got drunk. Shasta picked me up and I was messing around in the car, being a twat,” Bastian says, the words tumbling out, heavy with despair and self-recrimination, his face twisted with anger. “It was my fault; Shasta was distracted, he didn’t see the truck, he could have swerved so it hit my side and not his. He bled out in the car, right in front of me, there was nothing I could do. I tried everything, every spell, everything I could think of, but he… just died before the ambulance arrived. My parents never said it was my fault, but if one of them had been there…” He looks at me with pleading eyes andthere’s a lump in my throat because I can imagine it, sharp as a pin inside my mind, Bastian pumping up and down on Shasta’s chest like he did for me on the beach. “It’s like my dad said, if magic can’t save someone, what’s the fuckingpointof it? I needed it all to have a point. I just needed him back, Lando, you know how that feels—”
“Yeah, I do know!” I explode, fighting tears. “Because you got me on board by saying we would use it for Elizabeth! But that was a lie. What else did you lie about? Do you even care about the Merlin Foundation?”
“Yes, I do, it’s what Shasta wanted,” Bastian whispers hoarsely. “Witchcraft is what held our family together. We wanted to do it together.”
“So it’s all been about getting your brother back, all of it, so you can do mad witchcraft together in your elitist sodding coven, being the most powerful witches you can fucking be, impressing the Merlin Foundation and using needypatheticshapeshifters to get there.” Bitterness is curdling the despair inside me, turning it to hatred. “That’s why you saved me from the boggart, that’s why you were so angry that I nearly drowned, you needed mybloodto bring him back—”
“I was angry because I care about you!” Bastian yells. “I was angry because I didn’t want you to DIE!”
“Yet! You didn’t want me to dieyet!”
“No! Everything changed when I met you,” Bastian says desperately, limping into the room with a wince. “I might have kept the jar for sentimental reasons, but I wasn’t lying, Ihavemoved on. When I came here, I thought I would just get the spell done and get Shasta back but you changed everything.” He steps closer and gently puts his hands on my shoulders. I can’t pull away, how canI? All I want to do is to fall into his grip, to be held and make all of this not happen.
“You changed me, Lando. You made me realize there are better ways to be and this wouldn’t be what Shasta wanted for me, and I… I started to feel alive again.”
“Yeah, so did I,” I say harshly, stepping out of the reach of his warm hands. There’s a coldness descending inside me, the same way it settled the night I walked into the bathroom and saw those blood flecks fall like rose petals on the green-and-white rug. It’s the coldness of being cut off from everything I care about, of being alone with no one and knowing there’s no way back. It hurts more this time than it did last time.Because you really believed him,a chilling, sneering voice whispers inside me, the same voice that urged me on in the bathroom.You pathetic piece of shit.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I wasn’t doing it just for the spell anymore,” Bastian pleads, his eyes wet. “I was doing it for you, too. I wanted you to feel better, to move on—”
“And when we did the ritual?” I snap. My hands are shaking but my voice is ice. I don’t care if he cries. I won’t care. “When you had a pint of my shapeshifter blood and the conjuring circle, whose dirt were you going to use? Who were you going to bring back, Bastian?”
“How can you ask me that?” His eyes have filled with tears. He wants me to trust him, to believe that he has good intentions, but I know in my bones that I don’t. It’s a horrible feeling. So I tell myself I will feel nothing.
“How can I not?” I snort. “You lied to me.”
“Lando—” He reaches out for me but I step back, shaking my head.
“Don’t touch me. It’s fine. It’s like you said, right at the beginning?” I shoot him a glare. “We’re both in it for what we want?”
“You know that’s not true anymore.”
“It is for me.” I grab the ingredients, pushing them all into my bag. I leave the jar of Shasta’s dirt on the desk. “You’ve been using me to get over your brother and to replace your friend? Well, big shock, I’ve been using you, too. I’ve been using you for a serotonin boost and to get this spell done, but none of that’sreal.” I can see from his stricken face that my words are hitting him hard but I don’t care if I hurt him. He’s already done much worse to me. “What I have with Elizabeth, that’s real. I’m in this for her, and no one else.”
