Page 10 of Violet Spark
It made sense that Brayden would come here. It was more private for one thing. This was where we’d first talked about meeting IRL. I bet he was hoping I remembered. I did now. I should’ve come here first.
When I put out my gloved hand, my virtual one did the same, and I pushed inside the Mapmaker’s dark cottage.
The Mapmaker, a spindly old woman, was hunched over a stretched canvas. Her eyeballs—if you could get her to look up—were miniature worlds.
Standing off to the side was…SunSummoner in his long, midnight blue cloak with his skinny longsword belted at his waist. His white horse had to be tied up around the back of the cottage.
“Imogen!” he said. Was that relief in his voice?
“Fancy meeting you here.” I sauntered inside. The door closed behind me.
Brayden laughed nervously.
Okay,obviouslyhe felt bad about the whole thing too. But awkward happens. We could be cool about it. Maybe try another date somewhere no one was watching and kiss again sometime. It had taken me a long time to get spells and sword-swinging right, and real life was even harder.
“I was hoping you’d come here,” he said.
Yup, he still liked me. “I was hoping to find you,” I told him as I sauntered my black leather bustier-ed self toward him. There was no need for him to feel nervous. I’d made mistakes too, but as Swann had said, I knew how to go for it.
“I have to go away for a while,” he said.
“Need another sword for the quest?” I put my hand on my Deathcaster.
“I mean, like a business trip.”
Oh. Maybe he wanted to meet again after he got back. “Okay…?”
“And I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
Actually, he was sounding kinda shifty, and I’d been jerked around enough. I wanted to cut to the chase. “Why were you waiting for me here? Just to tell me you’re leaving?”
“Well, actually… When I came by your work today, I left something there.”
What? Like me? I managed not to snort. “I didn’t see anything.”
“It was when we wereup close.”
Up close. Is that what we were calling it? Leaving something behind was a classic excuse to see someone again, wasn’t it? Probably why he was being so vague. “Do you want to swing by to pick it up?”
“No,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “I mean, I can’t. Because of the trip.”
“Oh.” My mood darkened. “Do you want me to put it in the mail for you?”
If he said yes, I was going to kill him with my Deathcaster and steal his super cool book of spells. I wasn’t going to a post office, not for anybody.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“How about I just throw it away for you.” As if I even cared anymore.
“No! Just…keep it safe.”
Okay, I’d had it with him. I might’ve been awkward and off-balance when he’d shown up at my work with no warning text, acting weird and pushy, butthisversion of me wasn’t going to lose control.
Iadvanced onhim. “So do you want to get together with me again or what?”
And lookit.Damnif he didn’t retreat into the rear of the Mapmaker’s cottage. The back door with its etchings of the cardinal directions made a beautiful frame for his tall, cloaked, broad-shouldered avatar.
“I think you’re a really cool, nice girl,” he said.
