Page 144 of Junk Magic

“Son of a bitch!” Caleb said, scrambling back. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I said, as I looked from one hand to the other. “Nothing at all.”

“Could have fooled me!”

“It’s . . . a long story,” I said, looking up at him. “But you need to trust me; this is wonderful. A cure for a terrible disease. Or it might be, if Jenkins left any records intact.”

“He left them,” Caleb said. “The loyal Corpsmen locked everything down once the situation you created was contained. They were subsequently attacked by the others, but followed procedure and sealed themselves behind the lab’s wards until we came to sort everything out. Whatever he had, it’s still in there.”

“Good. Jenkins did a lot of terrible things for his research. It would be nice if at least something good came out of it.”

“Uh huh.” Caleb was still looking at my hand. “Does that . . . come off?”

Cyrus came up and deliberately kissed my Were hand, then sat down as I let it melt away. “Thought Weres couldn’t do magic,” he said, crunching my apple.

“Guess I’m the exception.”

“Always were,” he said, and kissed me.

It tasted better with apple, I decided, and deepened it.

“Would someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Caleb said.

But no one did.

* * *

Half an hour later, everyone had been rounded up and accounted for, and we were riding back to town in the old van turned school bus. Caleb was driving, but kept shooting me glances, probably wondering how to mention all this in a report and whether or not he should even try. I left that up to him.

I was who I was, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I was good with that.

“What did Sebastian have to say?” Sophie asked, leaning forward from a middle seat.

“A lot of things,” Caleb informed her. “No one else feels like challenging—”

“I bet.”

“—and as a result, he’s bardric for another year and the alliance with the Circle has been confirmed.”

“So, basically, everything stays the same?”

“No. No, it does not.”

I’d been looking out the window, watching the desert stream by, and enjoying the scent parade. I’d been able to tell where we’d caught the unfortunate rabbit, where we’d scampered around and over a hill, what had to be a dozen times, chasing each other in joyous abandon, and where we’d paused to—

Huh. Well. I guessed our beasts knew each other pretty well now, all things considered.

But at Cyrus’s comment, I turned to look at him. “What?”

He had a look on his face that I wasn’t sure how to read. Happy but anxious, excited but wary, hopeful but unsure. He saw me noticing and gave me a kiss on the top of my head.

Weres were always touchy feely, but today he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off me. I didn’t mind, but it showed even more than his expression what he was feeling, and that he needed reassurance. I covered his hand with mine.

“I proposed an idea I had, and Sebastian accepted,” he said.

“What kind of idea?”

“You told me what Danny said.”

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