“Good, get it all out,” Wolfe is saying, gently holding up my head.
I keep coughing until I’m sure my lungs will end up on the rocky shore. But eventually the coughing stops, and a powerful fatigue moves through me. I don’t think I will ever stand again. Wolfe gently lets go of my head, and I lie back on the sand, staring up at the stars. He crouches next to me, stiff, as if he can’t decide if he should stay or go. Then, slowly, he lowers himself to the ground next to me.
His body is close to mine. If I moved my arm a single inch, it would rest against his. If I stretched my hand out, my pinkie would find his. I’ve only ever been this close to a man when dancing with Landon, but this feels different. I’m aware of myself in a way that’s entirely new, not out of self-consciousness or modesty, but something heady. More intense.
Everything about this night is new.
I suppose it’s normal to feel a pull toward him. He did save my life, after all.
The moon is starting to wane, and the stars are shining brightly overhead, thousands of sharp pinpricks in the curtain of night.
“Mortana,” Wolfe says beside me, keeping his eyes on the sky, “do you know what you just did?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “The spell got away from me; I don’t know what I was saying.”
“No,” Wolfe says, suddenly sitting up. He helps me into a seated position, and I watch him. “You pulled in the tide. On your own. Your very first time using high magic.”
Something like dread settles in my stomach.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says.
“I’ve always loved to swim,” I whisper. “It’s like I’m bonded to the sea. I’ve always felt that way.”
“You’re incredible,” he says, so low I barely hear it.
“I’m incredible?”
He swallows hard and looks away. “I mean, what you did. What you did is incredible.”
You’re incredible.
I banish the words from my mind. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to stand,” I say, clearing his words from the air.
“That’s good,” Wolfe says. “That means you got enough magic out. You’re going to be fine.”
I can feel that it’s true. My body is even weaker than it is after a rush.
I’m going to be fine.
I’m going to live.
“Thank you for what you did.”
Wolfe searches my eyes for several seconds, then turns away. “You’re welcome.”
We sit in silence for a long time. The sky turns a deep velvet blue, and I know I have to get home before my parents wake.
“How do you do it?” I ask. I should leave, but for the first time in my life, I want to extend the night.
“Do what?”
“Stay hidden. What kind of a life is that?”
“It’s a full one,” he says. “It isn’t perfect, but it’s ours.”
“But how is it that we don’t know about your coven? How is that possible?”
He shifts next to me, as if he’s trying to decide how much he wants to share. “The home we live in is protected by magic,” he says. I wait for him to elaborate, to explain how magic can shield them like that, but he doesn’t. “We’re pretty self-sufficient. We grow a lot of our own food, and the island provides for us in many ways. When we need to go into town, we use a spell that allows us to be perceived as tourists. Nobody gives us a second glance.”
“Have you seen me before?” I ask, the words whisper-soft.
He turns away from me and looks at the ocean. I don’t think he’ll answer the question, but then he lets out one tense word: “Yes.”
“Have we spoken before?”
“No.”
I nod, dozens of questions entering my mind, but I can’t find the words to ask any of them. The night is quickly slipping away. It’s time to go home, and Wolfe helps me to my feet, his ring reflecting the moonlight. He catches me when I sway a little. I steady myself. “I’ll be fine.”
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and my fingers brush the moonflower Wolfe gave me, somehow still in place after everything. I take it off and hand it to him, knowing I can’t go home with it no matter how much I might want to.
Wolfe walks me up the shore until we reach the road. “You saved my life,” I say.
“It seemed like a good use of a Monday night.”
“Don’t lessen it.” I wait until his eyes find mine. “Thank you, Wolfe Hawthorne.”
“You’re welcome, Mortana Fairchild.”
We look at each other for a long time, and for reasons I can’t explain, taking even the first step toward home feels impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
“You better go,” he says. The words come out strained.
“Will I see you again?”
He pauses before answering. “Do you want to?”
“Yes.” The word slips through my lips before I have a chance to think about it, before I can come up with the right answer, which is, of course, no.
“Do you want to see me again?” I whisper.
He’s quiet for so long that I think he didn’t hear me, which is probably for the best. His jaw tenses and relaxes several times, like he’s grinding his teeth. He looks at me as if it pains him to do so.
“Yes,” he finally says, but the word is angry. Frustrated. As if it’s the wrong answer for him as well.
And it is. It’s the wrong answer for both of us.
And yet the word slides down deeper and deeper inside me, where it settles in my core, heavy and meaningful.
Do you want to see me again?
Yes.
twelve
I wake with a horrible headache. My entire body is sore, and I feel as if I could sleep for the rest of the year, as if I combined all the rushes of the past twelve months into one single night. But I’m going to live, and I’m all too aware that it’s Wolfe and his dark magic that saved my life.
Just like he wanted.
The scent of Awaken blend tea drifts into my room, and I roll over and prop myself on my elbows.
“Good morning,” Ivy says from the sky-blue upholstered chair in the corner of my room.
I rub my eyes and groan. “Let me guess—my mother felt I could use a little help getting ready for my date today.” I collapse back on the mattress and stare up at the ceiling.
“She did. And it was either her or me, so I took it upon myself to make the choice for you.”
I reach for the tea, but Ivy holds it back and quirks her head to the side. “There’s sand in your hair.”
“There’s always sand in my hair.”
“There’s a lot of sand in your hair.” She walks over to the bed and pulls down the quilt. “It’s everywhere, Tana. What did you do last night?”
I want to tell her. I want to recount every single detail, explain the way it felt to be cradled by the wind and connected to the sea. I want to tell her about Wolfe and how he lay in the sand next to me, how the sharp edges of his face didn’t seem so sharp when he looked at me in the moonlight.
I want to tell her how scared I was, how I thought one night of dark magic would make me feel tainted in a way I’d never be rid of, a way that would stain me forever.
I want to tell her I was wrong.
Ivy always asks me how I feel about things, how I’m doing, how I’m meeting my own needs when my entire existence is meant to meet the needs of others. And I never know how to answer.
But I know exactly how I feel about last night, and what worries me more than anything is that I don’t feel traitorous or evil for using the dark magic we’ve been taught to fear. I feel thankful to be alive.
“I went swimming,” I say.
“Clearly. Did you also burrow into the ocean floor? Wrap yourself in kelp when you were done?”
“I met someone,” I say, the words so quiet Ivy leans toward me.
“What now?”
I grab the tea from her and take a long sip. I can’t tell her who he is or what he showed me, but Ivy is my best friend, and I have to tell her something. “A boy. He was on the beach. He swam with me.”
Saying it out loud, telling Ivy about him, makes him real. It’s comforting to know that as I move on from the events of last night, he won’t exist solely in my memory. He will be a living, breathing secret between Ivy and me.
“You met a boy. On the beach. In the middle of the night. And he swam with you.” She repeats everything back to me in short, staccato sentences.
“Yes.”