Page 21 of Truly Madly Magically

Protection. Sent from people who care about us.

I point that out to Ruth. Should you ever feel like doing your actual job.

The way she hoots at me is the owl version of a middle finger. I almost smile.

“I spent a lot of time last night thinking,” Zander says finally.

I focus on the cat in my lap, the sun in my face, the sound of the river in my ears. “Do you want me to applaud?”

“Listen. I’m not telling you what to do. I know how that goes, and this is too important to reverse psychology you.”

I laugh. “Do you think reverse psychology works on me?”

He turns and looks at me, and everything in me...shivers. I know that look. I know it too well. It’s Zander in total control, and I normally only see it when we’re both naked. “I know it does, Ellowyn. You were all ready to give one of your my magic isn’t reliable speeches back there in the kitchen—until I even hinted that two Summonings might be too hard for you.”

I try to tell him I wasn’t set to do anything of the kind, but of course I was. So I can’t say the words. You’d think that by now I’d be a beacon of truth and never even try to lie, since I can’t. But I’ve never done a single thing the easy way, and I don’t start now. “It must be so fun to be a man and know everything. What I’m thinking. What I’m feeling. What I was about to say even though I didn’t.”

This is usually the point where he rolls his eyes and storms away. Or where he throws a barb my way and smirks, depending on his mood.

He doesn’t do either today, and that shiver works through me again.

Especially when he faces me, crosses his arms over his chest, and says, “Okay, say you weren’t.”

I blink. That response is a throwback to old-school Zander. Literal old-school, high school Zander. Back when we challenged each other. Stood up to each other and for each other. Back when we didn’t let each other get away with our dumb shit.

Because we loved each other and expected to love each other forever.

His storm cloud eyes are trained on mine, the bastard. “Say, ‘I, Ellowyn Good, was in no way, shape, or form going to remind everyone who knows and loves me and is part of my coven that I can’t do the magic even the Joywood know I can do.’”

I’m too bullheaded for my own good, because I try.

Twice.

And fail, also twice.

Then, because I can’t say it and because I’m a little too tempted to punch him, and we know where punching leads, I flip him off instead. “Fuck off, Zander.”

He shakes his head. “That’s what I thought.”

I consider breaking our rule and getting into his head to tell him what I really feel, but he would view that as another victory. I can already hear it. Is that you coming in hot so you can lie to both of us, Ellowyn? Keep that shit to yourself.

He lets me sit there awhile, fuming.

“This changes things,” he says, in that low, quiet, too real way that makes me...hurt. Even though I don’t know which this he means, specifically. The attack. Ascension.

The baby.

Maybe I don’t want to know.

He keeps that brooding gaze on me like if he glances away for even a second, I might disappear, which is fair. I might. “Like Litha ten years ago. Or the moment my mother died. Now this child’s existence... Nothing can be the same. Nothing is the same. This changes everything.”

I hate the way he says my mother died, like every word is a wound. Like there’s blood pouring from him with every syllable.

I hate it because there’s no fixing it. No one can bandage him up or heal this for him. Some losses are disfiguring, and some grief never fades. Whatever I might like to tell myself about what I do or don’t feel for this man, if I could take this pain from him, I would.

“We’ve got to get our shit together, Ellowyn,” he says, like he’s laying down the law. Like he’s corralling me and my apparently untamed, un-together shit.

“We?” I scoff at him. “My shit is—”

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