Page 12 of The Spell Caster

Something subtle shifted inside me, like a light being turned on in another room. I couldn’t ever remember feeling safe like this, having someone figure it out with me. His body was solid against mine, this warrior who would fling angels over a railing with his bare hands to protect me. Fate, he saved my life.

He ran a hand over my head, stroking my hair gently.

I untangled myself from him in a hurry, my cheeks burning painfully. “S-Sorry,” I mumbled, unable to look up at him, my mind caught in an awkward mess. I felt like a child, crying about my problems like this.

“Don’t be.”

I scrubbed at my eyes and cleared my throat, trying to push the sobs back down. “I decided I would try one last time, and if it didn’t work, I would give it up. I didn’t have much of a plan, I just wanted to get away from my mother for a while. She already hates me enough.”

“No one could hate you,” Costi murmured.

I didn’t argue, but I knew the truth. “I’m sorry I let you down,” I said, nearly a whisper.

“Me?” He looked genuinely shocked. “Why would you think that?”

“I ruined our plans to pair up. I know you were waiting for me, but you can’t just go without a spell caster, especially with all of this going on.” I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling chilled in the sterile hotel room.

Costi scrubbed a hand through his hair, then opened his lips and closed them again.

I blinked at him, my stomach twisting in alarm. It wasn’t like him to be nervous.

“I thought… maybe you didn’t want me. As a guardian.”

My mouth popped open. “No, I—”

His ringtone sounded, and he cursed under his breath, grabbing the phone from his pocket. “Holly,” he said, looking at the screen with a wince. “She’s probably wondering what happened.”

“Oh… you should, um…” My heart turned over painfully. Holly and Costi were still friends? Of course they were. It made sense. It was only me she had decided to ditch.

“Hey,” he barked into the phone.

“Where are you? Everyone’s saying you got hurt and left already. What’s going on?”

I could hear Holly’s reply clearly even though it wasn’t meant for me. Her singsong voice carrying through the phone made me tear up all over again. I sat on the edge of the bed, ducking my head to examine the frantic pattern of the bedspread.

Costi turned, bringing a hand to the back of his neck. “In town. We’re evacuating to the Mountain Circle.”

“We?”

“Layla’s with me,” Costi rumbled.

Holly was quiet for a moment. “Is that a good idea?”

“Don’t.” Costi pushed a hand through his still-damp hair again, turning on his heel to pace away from me while he talked. He listened, agitated. “I know perfectly well,” he said, turning his eyes on me.

Costi sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face once he had tapped the phone off. “You heard?”

“Yeah, a little.” I fidgeted.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

But I’d been worried about it for more than a year.

The three of us spent our childhood together. From the outside, we looked like an unlikely group. I was a cherished young initiate spell caster, Holly an ordinary witch who was the daughter of a chef and a food server, and Costi… once they had slapped him with the label Troubled, people assumed all sorts of things about him.

But we understood each other in a way that other witches didn’t. I never quite fit in—loved for my potential and not myself, hanging back shyly on the outskirts of every group. Holly didn’t talk about her home life much, but she was eager to escape it. Costi’s kindness and intelligence went overlooked because his English was bad and he didn’t take direction well. We were the ones left behind by the rest of our society.

Until Holly pulled away without explanation, they were my closest friends—really my only friends. With Holly gone and Costi training as a guardian, my life became empty in a way I hadn’t really recovered from.

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