Page 14 of The Most Wanted Witch

I didn’t go for the hat I had tucked in my pocket. It was too late anyway.

There was an awkward silence as Oscar and Zab didn’t say much. They didn’t have to. I saw the wheels turning. Musso cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything. Bertha was the only one with enough restraint to not look at my hair, even though they’d arrived in time to see the flash of color.

“Let’s check your leg, just in case,” Hawk said, stepping in and breaking the silence.

“Huh?” Bibbi asked.

“Your leg, where it tried to bite you? I want to make sure it didn’t break the skin.” He stepped in front of me, disrupting her concentration on my hair.

“Oh. Yeah.” She nodded and then tugged up the pants, as if the wheels in her brain had finally found something else to spin on than the muddy rut of my current dilemma.

She knelt down and tugged up her pants, letting everyone check out her skin for any possible penetration as I took a few steps back.

I’d always known something was off, that I’d been connected to it in some way. But flashing the same magic? I took another step back before catching myself and locking my legs down so my feet couldn’t take me anywhere else.

Frozen in place, I felt like a human slushy machine, spinning but too cold and numb to think straight.

What did that mean? Why did that light look like mine?

Musso edged toward me while they continued to examine Bibbi. “Don’t worry about it, kid. There are worse things in life than flashing the same color magic. Doesn’t mean anything.”

I shrugged. “No, yeah, not a big deal. I’m sure it’s happened before.”

His lips parted and his eyes closed up a bit as I waited to hear his words of wisdom. “Well, that I can’t say. But nothing to do about it. If there’s a similarity, then there’s a similarity. Like I said, doesn’t mean anything.”

When I looked at him, his eyes shot away from my hands. “Not sure I’ll ever get used to the fifth wind of Xest.” I shoved them inside my jacket pockets so he couldn’t see the tremble.

Hawk pointed to the gem on the ground. “Someone grab that and let’s head back.” Hawk began walking, pausing for a second once he got to where I was standing.

I started walking, falling into step with him the way we usually did, out of habit.

“But what did that mean?” Bibbi asked, trailing behind us as we all walked from the alley.

“It meant nothing,” Hawk said. “Absolutely nothing.”

7

When we got back to the broker building, everyone went their separate ways while I lingered by my desk, flipping through some cards.

Hawk was on the other side, by Zab’s desk, not pretending to do anything but wait for the room to empty out.

He was the only one who didn’t seem rattled by the revelation, almost as if it hadn’t been a surprise. It was hitting me all wrong. Something was off. He wasn’t bringing it up in front of anyone, not showing any curiosity at all.

The room downstairs emptied with unusual quiet. No one stayed to talk about what had been revealed. No one was talking about anything. They left with a few curious looks backward.

As soon as they were gone, Hawk straightened from where he was leaning and walked into the empty back room.

I followed him.

The absence of all other sound meant he’d muted the back room. As soon as he did, my suspicions turned into a landslide of murky truth.

“You knew something was going to be weird, that I was linked to Dread somehow. That’s why you didn’t want Bibbi to go through with her plan. That’s why Jasper thought I was evil. He knew too.”

He settled on one of the couches. “I didn’t know but thought it might be a possibility.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never seen magic like yours, the way it threw off that kind of intensity and that array, not with any other witch or warlock in Xest.”

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