Page 15 of Soulmates

“But what about Jake? Can you fix him?” Maddox asked, pleading.

“Possibly. I need Professor Hooper. And we need space.” Forrester finished his second drink.

“Um, Dean? Isn’t it a little early…or late?”

“My student is trying to kill my other student. And it’s neither early nor late. The challenge stops time. Now, let’s go.”

“You’re in a smoking jacket, Dean,” Jake said.

“Can you not accept my services in a smoking jacket, Jacob?”

“Um, it’s fine,” Jake answered, glancing at his and Maddox’s joined hands.

Chapter 13

Forrester called Professor Hooper as they walked out. He swooshed the door closed with a wave of pale orange light, stopping short at the gathering of fireflies on his porch. “That is a lot of fireflies.”

“What about fireflies?” Professor Hooper asked over the speaker.

“Just meet me in the Godsdamned lab, Maggie.” And he hung up.

Professor Hooper was already in the lab when they arrived, looking harried and odd in her pajamas, so different from her usual put-together skirt suits and dresses. She stood with her hands on her hips and simply asked, “What happened this year? They don’t look dead, at least.”

“Not at this time, no.”

“Funny,” Maddox said dryly. “Can you fix it or not?”

“What, exactly, are we fixing?” Professor Hooper asked.

“If I am not mistaken, Jacob here has given Maddox his light soul.”

Jake, Hooper, and Maddox spoke over one another.

“My what?”

“How the fuck?”

“What’s a light soul?”

“Emory, that’s old magic. I’ve not heard of this happening in either of our lifetimes. And yours, if I’m not mistaken, is quite substantial,” Professor Hooper said.

“It is ancient magic and was rare even then, as far as my research has ever shown,” Forrester said. “But not impossible, given the circumstance and what these two have told me tonight.”

He handed Professor Hooper Jake’s phone, and she read through it.

“Jake, you knew what you had of Maddox’s?” Forrester asked sharply.

“I thought I did.”

“And what was that?” Professor Hooper asked in a much calmer, kinder tone than Forrester had managed.

“My…everything,” Jake said.

“You love him,” Professor Hooper said.

“I…yes,” Jake said haltingly.

She turned to Maddox. “And you love him as well.”

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