Page 130 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“Go to bed, Cass,” Jonathan said in a strained voice. “Things will look different in the morning. Gods, they had better.”
And before I could say anything else to change his mind, he turned, walked to his bedroom, and shut the door with a slam. I tried to follow, but as soon as my hand touched the knob, I was propelled backward as surely as if I’d been pushed.
“Coward!” I called. “You can’t hide behind your magic forever, Jonathan.”
But there was no answer. Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe the door really did swell and thicken, as if daring me to try to break through.
I’d never succeed. And now I wasn’t even sure why I wanted to try.
Rejected. Again.
It would always be the same. I should have known better than to try to be something I wasn’t.
38
THE MORNING AFTER
I load myself down with chains and try to wriggle free.
— AUSTIN CLARKE, LETTER TO ROBERT FROST
The fog had lifted, but the sky was still chilly and gray the next morning as we waited for our final flight to the Aran Islands.
Jonathan hadn’t said more than was absolutely necessary for the last several hours. We had checked out of The Carson in solemn silence while the sky was still dark, taken another chartered plane to Galway City, and sat in the cab to Connemara airstrip as if we were each completely alone.
I might have chalked his behavior up to alcohol-induced amnesia if he hadn’t been avoiding my touch as well. Even his broad shoulders kept a safe two inches from mine. For most of the flight from Dublin, he had kept one hand pressed firmly between his brows with his eyes shut, occasionally muttering under his breath. Spells, I supposed. Perhaps to ward off a headache, though they didn’t seem to be doing much good.
It didn’t help that he looked better than any man with a raging hangover had any right to, even with the shadows under his eyes and his skin a bit dewier than normal. A quick glance in the mirror told me I strongly resembled a stereotypical banshee with hollowed eyes, sallow skin, and my hair a messy thicket around my face.
So I waited—though for what, I wasn’t sure. An apology, maybe? Or at least recognition that something had, in fact,happened last night. That it wasn’t justmylips that tingled from too many soft, but demanding kisses to count. Or that the purple mark on my neckwasactually a remnant of the way he had sucked the delicate skin between his teeth.
I wasn’t an idiot. In the light of day, I could admit that he was right—starting any kind of romantic relationship was a bad idea. No matter how good it might have felt in the moment, I had other things to worry about than jumping into bed with a dashing, shape-shifting, OCD sorcerer. Things like assuming my birthright. Avenging my grandmother. Assuring myself that there was some kind of justice in the world.
Yes, things like that had to take precedence over a schoolgirl crush.
But hadn’t he felt even a little of what I had?
Hadn’t it meant anything to him at all?
I slumped on a rickety white bench, doing my best to ignore the train of minor thoughts that leached from the wood, remnants of previous passengers’ worries about their pending flights. Jonathan stood next to me with his forehead pressed against the white brick, like a pained convict waiting for the final shots from a firing squad. He seemed to be in more pain than me—no surprise, given the amount he drank last night.
There was some justice in the world, I supposed.
“Please accept my apology for my behavior last night.” The words crumpled into each other as he said them, half-hearted and morose.
I looked up. He was well out of reach and spoke low as if to avoid eavesdroppers, though there were no other passengers waiting at the edge of the tarmac. The rest of the employees of the airfield were happily indoors, but as if he knew I’d be more comfortable in the slight drizzle, Jonathan hadn’t even asked before guiding me outside to wait for our plane.
I ground my teeth, trying yet again to push the memory of last night away. It didn’t work. Instead, those kisses burned,tenacious embers that wouldn’t quite turn to ash.
“You don’t need to say that,” I gritted out
Jonathan turned. “I do. And Iamsorry.”
“Yes, you’re always the perfect gentleman, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t at all last night, and for that, I sincerely apologize.”
I turned. “Apologize for what, exactly? For marking up my neck like an annotated textbook? For making me come loud enough that all of Dublin could hear me? Or for liking it just as much as I did and then shutting me downagain?”
