Page 11 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“But today it didn’t?”
Again, I wasn’t sure how he knew that. I shuddered as the memories of those hundreds of past threatened again.
“No,” I said. “Today it didn’t.”
I stared out the window toward the growing number of pedestrians on the sidewalks bordering the Cleveland Circle T stop, around which a small hub of bars and restaurants served the mostly student population of the area. A group of young people laughed together, their voices echoing raucously in the snow. One pair’s joined hands swung to and fro between them like a ribbon tossing in the wind. The girl leaned into the man’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her close. She smiled, and a warmth passed between them.
“Whom did you touch that caused the episode?”
I tore my gaze from the couple and scowled. “The ground.”
The stranger reared. “You felt the thoughts of the ground?”
I sighed irritably. “If you must know, I saw the histories imprinted there. Jumbled and simultaneous. A lot of things can happen in a single spot over thousands of years of human history. Don’t ask me how it happens, because I don’t know. And don’t ask me what I saw, because I don’t know that either. It was just…everything at once.”
“You felt hundreds, maybe thousands of years of history through the soles of your shoes in a moment?”
Could this man say anything without sounding skeptical? I had a feeling that if I stated the sky was blue, he would demand to see my data.
But when I didn’t respond, he didn’t press. Instead, he only examined me for a half-second before turning onto Sutherland Road. “I see.”
He drove the final few blocks, then pulled the car over to the curb.
“Thank you for the ride,” I said woodenly, back to staring at my hands. “And for pulling me out of the water. Though I really didn’t need it.”
Didn’t you?
This time the voice was definitely mine.
Now the stranger didn’t bother to mask his penetrating gaze. I could practically feel its force gliding over me, cool and calculating like his kind was. Or so I’d been told. I’d never actually met a sorcerer before today.
His eyes glittered.
This time I was the one to look away.
“You’re welcome,” he said carefully. “I…” He trailed off, tipping his head this way and that. “I’d like to…”
I frowned. “You’d like to what?”
Was I imagining the way his eyes dropped to my lips?
Yes, yes, I was. I really was going crazy today.
“What’s your name?” I burst out. He had somehow managed to elicit so many of my personal qualities, secrets even, in such a short time. It only seemed fair that I should know the most basic thing about him.
Did he shrink?
“I—no,” he said. “Not yet. I’m a very private person. I’m sure you understand.”
I gritted my teeth. “I could just ask Dr. Cardy.”
This time his gaze flew to my hands, naked in front of the heating vent, like he knew just what I meant by “ask.”
“You won’t though.” He was almost thoughtful about it. “Besides, Rachel is as discreet as anyone else would be in her situation. She won’t betray me.”
Before I could ask what the hellthatmeant, he reached out. Very slowly, almost reluctantly, he hovered his palm over the top of my hand for a second before he frowned and rested it there. It was a brief touch, completely within the realm of social graces, no longer than a few seconds, as if he were trying to be comforting to me. This time, the cold, calculated chill of a sorcerer’s mind flooded mine along with flashes of some sort of laboratory and a lot of very complex math equations that made about as much sense as cuneiform.
His conscious thoughts, however, were primarily focused on what he wanted to say next. He was fighting the urge to tell me something, but that was muddied somehow. A tribal beat pulsed latently. He might have been the man from the club, but it was too faint to See if he wasn’t explicitly remembering it.
