Ryder shook his head. “Neither.”
She fidgeted. Her black painted nails clicked together, hands decorated in an assortment of jewelry and ink. “You still injecting once a week?”
Ryder held up two fingers. “Twice a week. I moved up eight months ago.”
“And you’re okay doing it by yourself?”
He shrugged. “It’s been a while. I’m used to it now.”
She gestured to his chest with a flick of her wrist. “Dad told me you healed up really well.”
“That was two and half years ago, Jordie,” Ryder scoffed.
Jordan’s lips twitched into a smile when he used her nickname. “Yeah, I know, and I was dealing with my own bullshit back then. We haven’t actually talked about everything, not since we were in high school.”
Three years ago, Thalia had left. Six months after that, Ryder had top surgery. Another six months and he’d joined his own circle. Everything in between those specific markers was blurred and distorted, a mess of circumstances Ryder didn’t want to pick apart. “Do we need to start now?”
Jordan shook her head and sighed, swiftly changing the subject. “You don’t have to tell them about the Wolfe stuff until you’ve figured out what you want to do. But that—” Jordan gestured to Ryder’s eyes. “—won’t go away. Your magic will keep going nuts if you don’t do something about it.”
“What can I do?” Ryder pawed at one of his eyes with the back of his hand. Black fanned away from his pupils, covering the whites of his eyes. It took a minute, but slowly the inky black crawled back to the center.
“Practicing would help. You don’t have to take life, but you need to at least work with blood on some level.”
“Tyler would never approve of blood magic.”
“Whether you choose to die or not, you’re still the child of a necromancer. You’ll always crave it.”
Ryder nodded. He couldn’t disagree with her; she was right. His thoughts circled the last few months, how quickly his necromancy had manifested within him. He couldn’t tell her about the dreams he’d had, the ones that involved his teeth in Liam’s skin and Liam’s blood coating his tongue. He couldn’t tell her how often he’d caught himself wondering what it might be like to feel Liam’s heart beat in the palm of his hand.
“Can you translate something for me?”
“What is it?” Jordan tilted her head back against the bed.
“Latin for a spell Tyler and Donovan are working on.”
“Donovan still can’t cast?”
“Not well. He has a hard time focusing. He can’t find his element.”
Jordan barked a laugh. “He’s Earth! It’s right underneath him!”
Ryder’s lips quirked into a smile. “I know, but he’s just starting out. They want to give an offering to the woods and see what the trees have to say.”
“Careful,” Jordan purred. “Those trees will rat you out.”
Ryder arched a brow questioningly.
“They call us bone benders,” Jordan said. “Sometimes, darklings.”
Ryder’s magic settled. He could finally breathe without feeling like he was on fire, or going to start a fire. He noticed one of the basket plants hanging from the ceiling curl its tendril and sway back and forth. Their violet and teal leaves glowed prettily in the dark.
Jordan translated the part of the spell Tyler needed and made two cups of lemongrass tea. Since alchemists were the only clans who still used Latin for spells, they were typically the only ones who needed it. Jordan taught Ryder a few phrases and laughed at him when he couldn’t pronounce ignis. The night quieted, and they sat in companionable silence for an hour, then another. It was half past eight before either of them mentioned leaving. Jordan worked in her grimoire. Ryder scrolled through his phone, avoiding Liam’s social media at all costs.
Sometime during Ryder’s second cup of tea, he realized how much he’d missed her. Just as Ryder’s resolve crumbled, and Liam’s Instagram loaded, Jordan grabbed her coat and keys off the dresser.
“Where are you off to?” He swiped the app away and slid his phone into his pocket.
“Thalia’s meeting me for pizza,” Jordan said. She smiled gently and arched a brow. “You can’t avoid going home forever, Ry.”
He nodded, a dark blush tinting his cheeks. “I’m not ashamed of it. The magic. Our magic. You know that, right?”
Jordan narrowed her eyes and held the door open with her foot. Ryder walked down the stairs while she trailed behind him. A nun dipped her fingers into a bowl of holy water by the last set of pews. She clutched her rosary and scurried toward the front of the church at the sight of them.
“I know that,” Jordan assured. “But you’re scared of it.”
Ryder didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Jordan brushed past him. Her expensive perfume left a trail of vanilla and musky cinnamon. “As you should be,” she quipped, rosy lips spread into a grin.
PORT LEWIS WAS a rainy little town on the coast of Washington. Ryder liked the way the streetlamps that lined the sidewalk illuminated the fog, and how mist dampened his face. He walked through downtown past the movie theaters and shopfronts. Water beaded up on the glass, and when he caught glimpses of himself, it was Jordan staring back at him.
He stopped in front of a deli. The glass window was dark, but the glow of the “closed” sign made it easy to trace the line of his nose, dainty like Jordan’s, and his mouth, full like Jordan’s. But there was no mistaking their striking differences: His buzzed head and stretched earlobes. His brow, as fair as hers, but stronger, the angled line of his jaw, more defined—harder.
You look wonderful, Ryder. Jordan’s voice crept into his thoughts.
His peacoat wrapped around him and was buttoned tight up his chest, highlighting the cut of his shoulders. He shifted until his combat boots scraped the sidewalk, and ducked under an overhang as the rain started to fall faster. A taxi careened down the road toward the movie theater, and a few people hurried across the street to the 24-hour diner. He glanced at his reflection once more and kept walking.
Ryder trudged down Main toward his apartment building. Two left turns and a block past Crescent Coffee brought him to his neighborhood. He smiled at his neighbor Lucy who walked three yappy Chihuahuas, and fumbled with his keychain as he bounced up the stairs to his door.
A soft meow pulled his attention from his keychain to the entryway to his apartment.
Liam sat against his front door, his sweater replaced by a loose T-shirt, showcasing the bold oceanic tattoo on his left arm. Ryder’s familiar, a yellow-eyed black cat named Percy, watched him from his place in Liam’s lap.
“I’ve told you how cliché it is that you got a cat as a familiar, right?” Liam asked. His large hands stroked Percy’s back, and the cat purred loudly.
Liam had teased Ryder about that weekly for two years.