I sigh, my head pounding, too. I should just go ahead and leave tonight. I really should. But I’m exhausted, and Dru deserves to have a real conversation with me at least. It wouldn’t be fair to sneak out late at night just because I’m afraid to face Ben. I should have a logical, normal conversation with Dru, express why I’m leaving, and get my final check from her. Then I’ll move back in with Nick, lick my wounds, try not to think about how I found a deadly warlock incredibly hot, and get on with my life.
It’ll all be handled in the morning. I shut the door, lock it, and push Maurice aside so I can sleep.
23
BEN
My mood’s as black as my coffee the next morning as I sit, alone, in Aunt Dru’s kitchen.
It grows even darker when Reggie shows up, wearing jeans and a hoodie over her T-shirt, her bag slung over her shoulder. Hot, frustrated anger rushes through me. It’s not like Reggie to be a coward, and yet here she is, thinking she has all the answers now and has to run away from them. “You’re leaving,” I sneer. “I like how the threat of a curse or the existence of magic doesn’t scare you off, but one kiss and you race for the hills.”
Her cheeks redden and she looks away from me, setting her bag down near the door. “I can’t stay.” She moves to the coffeepot and pours herself a cup, shoveling sugar and creamer into it. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it?” I don’t think it is. She liked kissing me until someone texted her about my past and ruined it. I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed. I let myself hope that Reggie would be different. That she’d ask questions. That she’d wonder why. That she’d see the real me past the dark reputation and rumors, but I guess it’s not to be. I should know better by now.
Never hope.
Reggie doesn’t face me. She just stirs her coffee vigorously. “Something’s come up.”
I snort. “You’re a terrible liar, Reggie. We both know the truth. You’re leaving because you kissed a murderous warlock and you hate that you liked it.”
She’s silent.
“Do you deny it?” I needle, getting to my feet. “Because until your phone buzzed, you seemed to be enjoying my kisses. You seemed to like my touch.”
Reggie stops stirring her coffee. “I—” She swallows hard. “No, I don’t deny it.”
I’m surprised that she admits it. “So you’re running because you’re afraid.”
She turns around, clutching her coffee mug to her chest as if it’s going to shield her somehow. “I just . . . I don’t make good decisions when it comes to people, Ben. You and I are from very different worlds. I thought I could make this whole apprenticing thing work, but I think I’m in over my head.” Her gaze flicks briefly to my face and then lowers. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have kissed.”
I can’t let it go at that. “Why?”
She licks her lips, looking flustered and helpless. “I can’t be with someone that’s so . . . so . . .”
“Evil?” I supply.
“Wrong for me.” Reggie looks up at me again, her eyes dark and full of emotion. “I don’t think you’re evil, Ben. Why would you think that?”
“Because everyone else thinks I’m evil? That I’ve done evil things?” I think of Soren Jeffries, the head of Zephyr First Tech. I think of the bleak look in his eyes during our last video call.
I didn’t realize what I was asking for, Soren had said.
He’d been found the next morning, dead by his own hand . . . and it was all because of my actions. All because I’d cast ruthless spells and hadn’t bothered to stop and ask if I should have.
That’s evil, isn’t it? Bleak despair crawls through my veins.
“Well, they’re wrong,” she says, lifting her chin. “You’re not evil, as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps . . . misguided?”
I snort at that. Misguided. There’s a word that’s been thrown into my face for centuries. I take a step toward Reggie and stop when she flinches backward. “Might I remind you that I asked for permission to kiss you, and you said, ‘Please.’ You could have stopped me at any time, misguided or not.” I lean against the counter, because I want to stalk forward and trap her between my body and the door so she’s forced to answer me, but I don’t like her fear. In fact, I fucking hate that she’s afraid of me now. “You didn’t stop me. You kissed me back, and you liked it. Just like you enjoyed watching me in the crystal ball when I stroked myself.”
She swallows hard, hanging her head, and I feel like I won a little ground. It’s something, at least. Reggie doesn’t want to admit that she likes kissing me or that she’s attracted to me, and it’s all because of my past rearing itself up again. She doesn’t understand, but she’s not even willing to, so I don’t know why I bother. “This is hard for me, Ben. I like you, I do. But I can’t do this.” She raises her mug and holds it to her lips, as if she wants to say something else. Instead, she slips past me, crossing over to the kitchen table, which is normally littered with spell components and various tomes. “Where’s Dru this morning?”
“Still upstairs.” I want to keep pushing at her. To keep picking at her reasons. To dare her to ask me why I killed my parents. Why I am who I am. She doesn’t, though, and I think that’s more disappointing than anything.
I should have known that she wouldn’t understand. No one ever does. The thought feels like lead in my gut. I swig my coffee in silence, remaining in the kitchen just in case Reggie wants to speak up again, to say something else. She’s silent, the only sounds that of the crinkle of muffin paper as she helps herself to breakfast. Even though there are freshly baked goods on the counter, I can’t eat a bite. I’m too full of frustration.
Moments tick past. It’s utterly silent. Finally, I hear the sound of Reggie’s chair being shoved back, and I turn to look at her. She has a muffin shoved into her mouth, her cheeks bulging. “This is ridiculous,” she says, her mouth full of crumbs. “I’m going to find Dru and get this over with.”
She rushes out of the kitchen, as if she’s afraid I’ll stop her, and now that I’m alone again, I just feel hollow. Cold. If I’d have known four hundred years ago that this would haunt me . . . No, I’d still have done it. I didn’t trust anyone else to do it. They deserved for it to be me. I can’t change the past, but it’s no wonder that I can’t keep a familiar.
No one wants to serve a monster.
Certainly no one wants to kiss one. I press my hand to the hidden pocket inside the front of my jacket. Tucked in there is Reggie’s Sun-Phoenix card. She forgot all about it last night after we kissed, and I’m not ready to give it back. I might never give it back. I think about familiars and Reggie and my parents, and my mood is dark and bleak. I could approach the Society of Familiars. Put my name on the list again. It’s just, they wouldn’t be Reggie. I don’t want a familiar. I’ve managed without one for decades, draining my own strength and being judicious with my casting.
I want a companion. A lover.
I’ve fallen hard for someone that loathes the sight of me. My jaw clenches at the thought.
“BEN!” Reggie’s scream cuts through the silence in the large house.
My blood turns to ice. I’ve heard that kind of panic in Reggie’s voice only once before.
I race across the house and up the stairs. I can hear Reggie weeping, her voice frantic as she calls my aunt’s name over and over again. I skid down the hall, barreling through the door to my aunt’s suite of rooms. Everything looks in order, the rooms neat and tidy enough, despite Dru’s usual clutter atop every surface. In the center of the bed, though, my aunt lies on her back, her eyes closed. Reggie’s seated on the edge of the bed. She shakes Dru hard, weeping, and then turns to me. “I can’t wake her up, Ben. Something’s wrong.”
I can scarcely breathe. I know Aunt Dru is old—beyond old—but she’s been such a fixture for the last five hundred years that I’ve always assumed she’d be around. That she’d somehow outlive me, just endlessly smiling and saying inane things and being Dru until the end of time. It’s never occurred to me that she could be weak . . . or that she’d die. My tongue feels as if it’s glued to the roof of my mouth as I move to Reggie’s side and kneel next to my aunt’s bed.