Page 31 of Bonds of Magic
Instead, I asked, “What do you think it means?”
“I have no idea.” He shook his head, and I could feel him building his walls back up. I could practically see it in his face as he—
““Oh God, you said yousawme,” I blurted out. “You could see what I was doing, in the dream?”
This was way worse than our run-in at the Balsam Inn. Worse than being seen half-naked, jerking off in public. Worse than coming when Noah asked me if I was next.
Humiliation rose in me like a tidal wave, but behind it, there was a silent question.Did he like what he saw?
“Not the whole thing,” Noah said quickly. “Once I realized what was happening, I looked away.”
“That still means you saw part of it.” My cheeks were on fire.
“Kid, if you think that dream was enough to shock me, you’re even more naive than I thought.”
I bristled with indignation, but he didn’t notice.
“Remember, I was an incubus too. You think I haven’t seen my fair share of sex dreams? Haven’t had my fair share of sex?”
“Yeah, but—” I broke off, not exactly sure what I was objecting to. It felt stupid to complain when Noah made watching me give a blow job sound like watching paint dry.
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he went on. “And like I said, I only saw a few seconds. But I didn’t mean to invade your privacy, and I am sorry about that. It won’t happen again.”
“But don’t you—I mean, don’t you want to knowwhyyou could see the dream?”
He grunted noncommittally, then stood up.
“We’ll see.” He stretched his shoulders. “But in the meantime, we need to get you back to the manor.”
He turned and walked to the cabin’s front door, and there was nothing I could do but follow. It was clear from the look onhis face that the conversation was over. We walked back to the manor in silence, but the whole time, my brain was buzzing.
Even if Noah didn’t want to talk about it,Icouldn’t stop thinking. What did it mean that he could see me? Could he still be an incubus somehow, if he wanted? And if he had stopped being one, was there a way I could stop too, without killing myself?
Questions darted through my mind like sparrows, but Noah clearly wasn’t going to help me. If I wanted answers, I’d have to figure them out myself.
***
The next morning in Spellwork II, Professor Kazansky split the class into two groups, lining us up on either side of the room. Well, not the whole class. Felix, Ash, and a smattering of other paranormal students stayed in their seats. The Hunters stayed seated too.
As Kazansky explained the morning’s exercise, I wished I were sitting too. But that would mean admitting to everyone that I’d never be able to do magic, that I wasn’t actually a witch who was just behind schedule. Something the dean had explicitly told me not to do.
“You’ll receive the light from your partner across the room, hold it while they move to the back of their line, and then pass it to the new person in front,” Kazansky said, as though we were doing an egg toss, except the egg was a flaming ball of…
Honestly, I still wasn’t sure what magicwas. Energy, that much I was clear on. But it had something to do with willpower, and intentionality, and control, and… a substance?... a network? of power that ran through reality, that only witches had accessto. I’d been at Vesperwood for over a month and magic still confused me.
But maybe that was because I couldn’t do it.
After Erika’s death, I hadn’t cared enough to keep trying to teach myself. Who was I kidding? I was an incubus, and that was all I’d ever be. It was dumb to think even for a moment that something could be different.
So with my stomach sitting like a lead weight in my body, I inched forward in line, watching student after student catch the light that was tossed to them, levitate it above their hand for a moment, and then toss it back.
I started to sweat when I was two people away from the front, and by the time I was first in line, my heart was pounding. My palms were damp, and if the light were a physical object I had to catch, it would have slid right through my fingers.
But instead, Rekha Bakshi stood across the room from me and tossed a small, golfball-sized glowing light in my direction. I reached out as if to catch it, the way I’d seen others do, but it winked out of existence before it touched my skin. Not that I’d expected anything different.
Somewhere in the middle of the room, Sean snickered.
“That’s alright,” Kazansky told me as Rekha moved to the back of her line and Meredith stepped into her place. “Manifest a new one.”
