Page 45 of Magic in the Woods
Sleep in his room? In his bed? My body heated. Why didn’t that repulse me? It should’ve repulsed me. But I could still remember the way his chest felt beneath my hand in the closet. His chest had been hard but still soft enough that it would be comfortable, maybe just to rest my cheek on…
I shook my head.Snap out of it.“We hardly know each other. I’m not sleeping in your room.”
Gideon paused for a moment before he continued rubbing the chalk on the paper. I grabbed hold of Brooke’s injuredankle, where it dangled by the floor. I began cleaning her wounds, trying my best to ignore the way she sucked air through her teeth.
“Just so you know, I wasn’t smiling at the witches fighting,” Gideon said.
I held the soap too long in one spot, and Brooke pulled her ankle back toward the bed.
“I was smiling at you.”
I continued cleaning her skin, biting my tongue between my teeth. What was this feeling? Like bubbles beneath my skin? Were there remnants of the love potion still releasing in my bloodstream? I couldn’t control it. I didn’t like it.
I stood, the bar of soap in my hand. Gideon stood right after I did, the chalked piece of paper in his hand. I could see Brooke out of the corner of my eye, looking back and forth between Gideon and me as we stared at each other. I tried not to blink.
He stood there with a steady, wide-open gaze, not showing the slightest sign of blinking either. Was it the black beneath his eyes that made him strangely good at staring contests? How were his eyes not dry yet?
My eyes closed, and I squeezed my lids together tightly, willing my eyes to hydrate themselves to a level where I could see clearly.
“Gah!” I yelled, my fists clenched at my sides. “Okay, you win again!” How could he stay so calm and collected all the time? It was like he was constantly at room temperature, no fluctuation. “Are you torturing me because I haven’t said thank you yet? Is that why you’re still here?” Storming over to the door, I gripped the handle. “Thank you, Gideon. Thank you so much for your help.” I opened the door, wishing he’d leave along with the ache in my chest.
“You’re cute when you try to intimidate me,” he said.
“I’m not trying to—” I gave up and blinked several times, my vision fully returning.
Gideon ran his hand through the hair on the top of his head before taking a few steps toward the door.
Fantastic, he’s leaving.
“Can you translate this?” He held up a piece of paper with the wordconventussurrounded by black chalk.
I crossed my arms in front of my body, holding the door open with my foot.
“Please?” Gideon asked. The way he tilted his chin down toward his chest made his eyes even darker and look deeper. Could witches hypnotize someone? I should find out about that.
“It loosely meansassemblyor, in this case, probablycoven,” I said as quickly as possible.
He walked through the open door and into the hallway before turning around. “Thank you, Dafni. Thank you so much for your help.”
I slammed the door closed, breaking myself of his hypnotizing stare.
“That was intense,” Brooke said.
Turning around, I found her sitting on the bed, her red ankle the only part not covered in mud.
“I can’t believe he knows your name…and now he knows mine.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t care what he knows, nor do I want his help.” I crouched down in front of her again, this time grabbing the cloth I’d left on the bed before the whole Gideon stand-off. “I can’t get used to relying on someone who wants to support the Academy and the games they play.” I wrapped the worst of her broken skin with the cloth.
“When I looked at him, before the task began, he looked bored—definitely not amused,” Brooke said. Shemoved her ankle in circles, testing the binding. “I’ve heard he doesn’t hang around the other witches…human or witch-born.”
“Who did you hear that from?”
“The witches in my element.” Brooke stood, gingerly placing weight on her ankle, before sighing and sitting back down. “What was he doing just now by the wall?”
I looked back at the wordconventusetched into a brick near the floor. I could barely see the letters. How had he found it so easily? “He collects words he finds etched into the brick around the Academy. It’s one of his quirks, like smiling at inappropriate times and calling me cute.”
Brooke laughed. “Speaking of other witches, Arcana actually taught us something today.” She lowered herself onto the ground next to me and used her finger to writeplanto arborinto the dirt floor. Her lips moved, mumbling the words right before a tiny plant pushed itself through the dirt, its green leaves vibrant for just a moment before they wilted, turning brown, the stem buckling to the ground. She laughed again. “It’s stupid—no one can make them stay alive, but it’s fun to explore my powers.”
