Page 19 of Research with Rivals
His ears pinkened again with his further discomfort.
“What is it?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “I was going to compare the lack of structure to that of shifting. Apologies, I know that’s not…”
I almost wanted to let him continue down this uncomfortable path. He sounded like I had when I’d brought forth the chair. I didn’t know why Vesten were so hesitant to talk about their shifts, but I had never spoken to other Vesten about it. I was desperate for more perspective.
“Please, continue with whatever part you’re comfortable sharing. I’m not even fully Vesten, so you’re not offending my sense of propriety by discussing it.”
This made him look even more scandalized, but something in my face also must have convinced him to continue. “My animal and I are inherently one. He’s always with me, but I feel things so much more intensely in the … form. My actions can be instinctive instead of thoroughly considered. Like when I’m running, sometimes I don’t know where I’m headed until I arrive.”
He picked up his sandwich like he needed something to distract himself. “Anyway. What was I saying? Concerning blood magic, it seems similar—the instinctual aspect.”
While I seemed to instinctively understand blood magic, that was the furthest from my experience with my shift. Perhaps that was what made my shift so disconcerting. I might have liked pushing boundaries or finding unique ways to learn, but I didn’t consider myself reckless. Things had to follow a logical path in my mind. That hadn’t been the case so far with my shift. She was uncontrollable.
I wiggled uncomfortably in my seat just thinking about it. How much longer until I shifted again? With how on edge I was, I’d assumed it would happen last night, but it hadn’t. If only there were a way to choose when it occurred. Ambrose said he and his shift were one? I wasn’t sure my veil cat and I could ever see eye to eye long enough to achieve that.
“Thank you for sharing,” I said as a more comfortable silence than I’d anticipated hung between us.
“Of course. Did your cut stop bleeding?”
I glanced down. “It looks like it.”
He was wiping at something on his own finger. “What is it?” I reached for his hand as he had mine. There was a cut there. It looked like… “Oh my gods, did I bleed on you?”
His eyes were wide when I looked up. Then I realized how close I was to him. I’d entered his space, our faces so near now that we almost shared breaths. I cleared my throat and leaned back.
He took a moment to compose himself. “I … I’m not sure.” He glanced back at his hand. “It looks like my cut from this morning reopened, but I can’t say for sure if any of your blood touched me.”
He picked up another napkin and pressed it against his finger. Had we just bled on each other? A single drop of blood was enough to enact blood magic. An inappropriate giggle bubbled up my throat. His brow furrowed while he tended his wound.
“How incredibly foolish for two blood magic researchers to be so careless with their blood,” I said. The journal evidenced how easily the magic could unfold, even without spoken intent.
He looked stricken. We both froze—and it was almost as if we both waited forsomethingto happen.
“I don’t feel anything,” he said into the silence.
“Of course not.” I wiped the concern away with an authority I wasn’t sure I felt. “As you would usually point out, we should be more cautious in the future.”
His brow furrowed again, deep in thought.
In my panic, I returned to inspecting the flowers. I had asked him to sit. Maybe to ask about anchors, maybe just for a moment of peace. He was right, we had mostly made it through this meal intact. The morning glory and rose looked peaceful together, too. Could Ambrose and I co-exist like they did? Could we grow together when we usually struggled to share space? It might be nice.
One meal discussing concepts of blood magic didn’t make us friends. I sat up straighter, putting more distance betweenmyself and Ambrose. The cut on my finger pulsed as if in objection.
Is this blood magic taking root?
No. It was an inconvenient admission, but I acknowledged I was always a little bit aware of Ambrose. A huff escaped from my lips. I laughed a little at how I’d worked myself up. This wasn’t blood magic. It was a crush. One I couldn’t abide.
There was still only one historian position. That was a fact, no matter how nice the idea of us growing together, like my plant experiment, sounded.
7
Evelyn
My logic might not have made sense to some people, but it made perfect sense to me. I worked outside convention, I tested blood magic with living things, but it was all carefully planned and well within my control. The alternative was too messy.
The alternative was all I felt in my veil cat form.
