Page 3 of The Misfit Mage and His Dashing Devil

“Why apologize?” I did my best to keep my face from making any frantic or curious or shocked responses, fighting to not appear hopeful because I could very well be misinterpreting where I thought this discussion was heading. Something I did too often.

“I’ve sort of been dropping hints, hoping you’d ask me out. Not that you need to ask me out—I can very much do the asking. Just wasn’t sure if you were interested. And then you needed help with the exam, and it felt weird asking, like ‘hey, I’ll help you, but only if you go out with me,’ which is slightly creepy and not the vibe I wanted. But I sort of…I don’t know.” Ian’s lips pulled into a tight smile. “I wanted to ask. Unless this is a platonic vibe, and I’ve gone and ruined it with a crush.”

Crush.

He said crush. Ian had been thinking about me as much—or close to—as I’d thought about him. And hehaddropped cues.

“Not entirely platonic or creepy at all.” I cleared my throat, desperate to buy time in my response and bury any rambling words that wanted to find their way out of my mouth. “I hadn’t really given it much thought because I’ve been so behind on work—seriously, the Magus has us processing a thousand different artifacts a month these days, which is like ten times the usual workload—and then I’ve been focused on the exam. It’s coming up soon, and the next one is three months away, which I know because I’ve already signed up for that one too, in case I fail this one, which is a terrible way to prepare for success, always planning on the contingency of failure, I know, but I try to think of it as proactive. Which is why I haven’t given you much thought. I mean, I have. Thought. Think. About you. In a normal amount of ways that are both platonic and non-platonic.”

Why couldn’t I shut up? This was me tragically attempting to play it cool. Not working. If a Diabolic could just leap through one of these portals and rip my tongue out of my mouth so I’d stop making an utter fool out of myself, that’d be wonderful. A blessing. And yet… I had the overpowering desire to clarify what really didn’t need more clarification.

“I’ve thought about you, but sometimes I overthink things, which you might’ve noticed or recall me mentioning multiple times because I have this tendency to properly and thoroughly and fully explain—”

“Would you like to go on a date?” Ian interjected, his voice steady and confident, leaving my entire body ready to collapse into a puddle of insecurity. “It’d be a group setting. A few sentinels I work with are heading to this Mythic bar. Apparently, it’s really fun. Plus, even though they have hired mages working to handle any humans who waltz in and glimpse magic, I’ve heard a lot of the patron practitioners assist with glamouring. We could drink, chat, and practice our magic.”

“A win-win-win situation.” Because my glamouring was even worse than my saturation.

“Exactly.” Ian rubbed the back of his head, tousling his shaggy brown hair. “Which, to clarify, was how I intended on leading this discussion, but then you bolted off and got all ramble-y.”

My entire body vibrated. I resisted the urge to say the same thing because if he could overlook my babbling, I would gladly not remind him of it. “So, a group date?”

“That was the intention. Casually ask you, hang out with some other folks…maybe break away from the group and see how things go.”

“That sounds like a fun, casual, cool, pleasant time.” My cheeks twitched as I forced a smile and held back a dozen other comparative words. “When were you thinking?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?” I gulped.

“Unless you plan on locking yourself in that repository all night.”

“No. I’m very much leaving on time today. Six o’clock.” I often worked extra hours to help the archivist practitioners catalog their findings, handing out free labor in hopes it’d offer some advantage. After three years in the repository department, the only advantage it’d given me was back pain, exhaustion, and a dirty apartment I lacked the energy to clean.

“Perfect. That gives you plenty of time to meet us at seven.” Ian strolled toward a glittering green portal, a definite swagger in his step. “In the meantime, I’d say we both went over on our lunch break. You think I can blame traffic, or do these things pretty much nullify that excuse?”

He scanned his badge and hopped through the portal.

“Wait—” He never said where to meet him.

My pocket buzzed.

I approached a crimson portal leading back to the Magus Estate, beaming at the text message and attempting something polite in response. I reached into my pocket to fish out my badge and…

Dread consumed me. It was missing. Shit.

I patted myself down. An open portal wouldn’t take a person anywhere without the proper clearance thanks to how everything magical became so entwined with technology adding extra measures in security—a truly amazing thing that I loved, but I’d lost the only thing offering me access to the repository.

It could be anywhere in the Dimensional Atrium, which would take hours to search. The Magus would kill me. Searching every pocket three times over, I finally felt it tucked inside my back pocket and took a calming breath.

Weird. I must’ve been so frazzled meeting with Ian, I stuffed it in my back pocket. So outside my routine. But all of this was outside my routine. That was the point. Become a practitioner so I could escape the mundane routine of filing amazing work and join the archivist regiment to actually find my own. And if this date with Ian led to dating, which turned into something potentially romantically awesome, that’d be a cool change in routine too.

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Beelzebub

An irritating off-rhythm buzz had joined the flicker from the light on the ceiling nearest my prison. Orb. Whatever. A tiny little ball in a huge room.

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