Page 152 of A Winding Wave of Magic
Finally.
The same relief coursed through him.
“Don’t go,” I whispered as his lips trailed over my face. “It’s wrong. You’re not supposed to leave.”
A low groan rumbled deep in his chest. “Cass.” Those eyes found mine, large and pained.
He couldn’tquitesay no, though he knew it was right. Instead of speaking, he took my face between his palms and bent to kiss me again.
“Whatis going on here?”
I felt her in my head right after the words came out of her mouth. She wasn’t gentle about it, and the blundering about my mind was like an enraged parent rifling through her daughter’s closet to find a secret diary.
Jonathan sprang away from me like I was a hot burner, and we both turned to Caitlin, who stood in the doorway with a bundle of linens and an expression somewhere between outrage and sorrow. She opened and closed her mouth multiple times in a very good imitation of a fish.
“Oh, damn,” she said, then cursed softly in Irish before switching back to English. “How did I not See this? Bloodyshiteand damn.”
“Cait,” Jonathan croaked. “I’m so sorry. Believe me, I couldn’t help it?—”
“No, I don’t imagine you could,” Caitlin snapped. She shook her head and swore again. “Christ, Jon, you don’t even believe in this sort of thing.”
“I...didn’t.” His voice was barely audible, though his eyes didn’t stray from mine. “Before.”
“Before what? What’s wrong?” I demanded, feeling completely out of the loop. Both of them had stepped well out of reach, and I didn’t think that was accidental. “Nothing’s happened, Caitlin, not that it’s any of your business if it did.”
“I think you’d better sit down, Cassandra.JustCassandra, mind,” Caitlin said, her voice steely now. “Jonny, Robbie’s waiting to take you to the airfield. You’d better get off, or else you’ll miss your flight. Or do something even worse, from what I can tell.”
To my shock, Jonathan nodded obediently, then turned back to me. “I’ll call with any news,” he said quietly. “And for this…Iamsorry. More than you could possibly know.”
Before I could ask what exactly he was so sorry for, Jonathan practically ran from the house, leaving me with Caitlin, wondering just what we had done wrong.
We wereboth settled on Gran’s old couch with two more cups of tea, this time laced with Irish whiskey, before Caitlin spoke again.
“How long has it been going on, then?”
I peered at her over my cup. “With all due respect, Caitlin, it’s none of your business.” I didn’t appreciate being treated like a rebellious teenager. We were grown adults bonded through unusual circumstances. It wasn’tthatsurprising we were attracted to each other, was it?
“No, it’s not. But the question remains.” Her cold gray expression made me want to shrink into my corner and cover myself with a blanket.
I looked out the window, no match against Caitlin’s steel-edged gaze. “Practically since we met,” I muttered. “There was an attraction, but given the circumstances we—well, Jonathan, mostly—thought it was inappropriate to become involved romantically at that time.”
“Inappropriate.” Caitlin turned the word carefully over her tongue as if she tasted a particularly bitter medicine. “Inappropriate. Yes, I’ll bet the gobshite does think that.” She stared out the window herself for several long moments, then seemed to make a decision. “How old do you think Penny was when she died?”
I blinked at the sudden change of subject. Gran had never told me how old she was specifically, but it seemed like she had been around for most major events in the twentieth century…at least after the Second World War. I knew that for sure.
“I’m not sure,” I allowed. “Maybe seventy-five? Eighty? We didn’t have her birth certificate. My mom isn’t quite forty-seven. I always thought Gran just aged well or had Sibyl young.”
Caitlin snorted. “You could say she aged well. You could say the same of myself. But neither of us had children young. When we were girls, we pledged we’d have a full life first.”
When we were girls.
The casual statement hit me like a sack of bricks. Caitlin couldn’t have been older than her mid-forties, with a light sprinkling of crow’s feet surrounding her eyelids and her mouse-brown hair threaded with just a few fugitive strands of silver. How could she and Penny have been girls together when Penny had been nearly twice her age?
Caitlin turned to the tray on the coffee table in front of us. She poured us each another cup of tea while she spoke, including another generous finger of whiskey.
“Technically, you’re not to know until you turn thirty-three,” she said. “The Council decreed long ago that it must be keptfromthe unmanifested. But Penny didn’t make it to your birthday, and your mam left. So I suppose it’s my decision, early or not. We’ve got enough to do without making you and Jon star-crossed lovers.”
Star-crossed what?I blinked. “Did I miss something? Why are we Romeo and Juliet?” And just how many revelations was I going to have in the space of twenty-four hours?
