Page 38 of Magic in the Woods
“This place happened to me,” Gideon answered as he continued staring at me.
I turned around, dropping the book of fairy tales on his desk. A plume of papers flew, fluttering to the ground. He was quick to fall to his knees, gathering pieces of paper with something black smeared on their surface.
I watched him on his knees, picking up the papers. Was I being rude? Yes, I was probably being rude. This man hadn’t kidnapped me or refused to feed me when I was hungry. He’d kindly pulled me off his lips afterI’dkissedhimand brought me back to his room so I wouldn’t further embarrass myself.
I could be cordial. I could be nice.
Falling to my knees, I tried to help pick up the papers that’d fallen. Gideon snatched them away from me before my fingers could graze the page. Curiosity got the best of me.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Stupid things I collect,” he replied as he pressed the papers just as close to his chest as I had the book. One paper was facing me, the white letters surrounded by some sort of black substance.
“You collect Latin words?” I asked.
Gideon looked down at the page I’d been reading and quickly flipped it over so I could only see the back—a blank white page. “Wait, they’re Latin?” he asked.
“Yeah, I recognized the wordperdereon that page you just flipped,” I said. “It meansdestroy.”
Gideon looked at me, tilting his head to the side, staring at me again with those dark eyes. “You can read Latin?” he asked.
“Yeah…” I walked over to him, a new air of confidence in my step. I knew something this experienced witch didn’t.
He held out the papers to me, shaking them slightly as if he was debating letting me take them.
I pulled at the papers he still gripped in his hand.
“You can really read Latin?” he asked.
“Of course, I can.” My grandmother had taught me to read Latin at the same time she’d taught me to read English. It’d been part of the training she’d given me for when I’d enter the Coven. “Can’t all witches read Latin?”
The corner of Gideon’s lip twitched.I guess not.
He let go of the papers, and I flipped them over. The first one wasperdere,whichmeantdestroy—I’d already read that one. The other two readalloco, which meantlet, andille,which roughly translated tothe.
“Destroy,let,the… That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, Gideon.”
“That’s because it’s a code.”
“A code?”
Gideon ran his fingers through the hair on the top of his head. The strands strewn, poking out at all different angles after he brought his hand back down to his pocket.
“Another stupid thing. When I was young, I’d always pretend it was a secret code or language—that once I understood it, would unlock a door, any door, to the outside so I could escape this place.”
I looked up from the papers, our eyes meeting. The way he was looking at me—his gaze—made the darkness around his eyes, the lines down his cheeks look like tunnels to his soul.
Dropping my gaze, I shook my head to clear it. I couldn’t get lost. I couldn’t lose my way. Getting mixed up with Gideon would be a terrible idea.
He tilted his head at me the same way I’d been continually tilting mine at him, trying to figure him out. “I don’t know your name.”
My name? No, he didn’t need to know that. This was just a minor detour—an unfortunate detour that ended in me getting my first kiss…or taking my first kiss. The memory that I’d try to rid myself of for the rest of my life. “I have to go,” I stammered, shoving the papers back at him.
He grabbed them, moving aside to let me through the door. “I hope you’re not disappointed in how I look.”
I froze right as my hand turned the knob.
“It would ruin the whole knight-in-shining-armor thing I’m working on.”
