Magic to the Bone

Chapter Ten

Someone was staring at me. I could feel it even before I opened my eyes. I breathed in, trying to orient myself by the smells around me. I got a noseful of flower, soap, and dog.

Nola’s place. The house was quiet, and no light came through my eyelids. It was night. Everyone else sounded asleep too.

So who was staring at me?

I opened my eyes just enough to see. Darkness and nothing else.

No, someone was watching me. I glanced at the doorway, and in the uncertain light from a night-light by the hallway floorboards, I could see the dark shape of Zayvion sitting on the couch.

Staring at me. He looked like he’d been awake for a while. Alert. Wary. I wondered if I’d missed something.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a hushed voice.

A fleeting memory of a nightmare, bones and pain and blood, slipped from my thoughts. The sides of my cheeks were wet. I’d been crying.

“I’m fine,” I said. Except I was alone. Except I wanted someone to hold me, wanted someone to comfort me, even if for only one night. The memory of the kiss in the car made me ache for the taste of him. It would just be one night. One night before I had to pick up my real life and deal with it again. I wondered if he’d say yes.

I sat. “Zayvion?” I whispered.

Light licked amber across the muscles of his arms, bare chest, stomach, and thighs as he stood and silently made his way across the living room. He paused at the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Shadows moved across his face, hiding his lips, but I could see his eyes, burning bright.

“Yes?”

“Would you hold me?” I asked.

“Just hold you?”

I answered him by pulling off my T-shirt. He grunted like I’d just hit him in the stomach. I sat there, half-naked, cold. I wanted his warmth, wanted the safety of his arms around me.

“More than that,” I said.

He still stood in the doorway, dark, motionless, and silent, except for the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed more quickly.

After a long pause, I realized I had made a mistake. He was going to say no. Maybe the kiss in the car and the kiss outside the deli had all been one-sided—had all been me assuming there was an attraction between us that was not there.

“I’m sorry,” I said reaching for the T-shirt next to me. “I thought you wanted—”

“No,” he said, cutting me off. “I do want.”

Those words seemed to decide something for him. He finally moved. He let go of the doorjamb he’d been holding onto and snapped his fingers. Jupe lifted his big head and thumped his tail on the hardwood floor.

“Out,” Zay said. He snapped again and pointed to the living room. Jupe yawned and dutifully walked out of the room, like he and Zay had been buddies for years instead of hours.

Nola had left Jupe here to guard me, to keep me from sleeping with Zay. Probably because she thought getting serious with a man I barely knew wasn’t a good idea. But Nola hadn’t had everything in her life go to hell. She hadn’t been chased, hurt, accused. She hadn’t gotten sick from watching a little boy almost die, hadn’t had her father lie through shared blood, hadn’t overdosed on magic to try to fix a stranger’s stab wound.

She hadn’t told her father for the last and final time that she hated him, then had him die on her before she could say she was sorry.

Zay quietly shut the door and padded across the room. He paused and stood in front of me.

Electricity trembled through me. I reached up and placed my palm against his chest, my hand a ghost of ivory against the darkness and heat of his skin. I drew my palm slowly down the tight muscles of his stomach and paused at his waistband.

“I want you,” I whispered.

He leaned toward me and I leaned back, lifting the covers so he could come with me to this soft and sacred place. He waited as I tugged off my sweatpants and panties. I waited as he pulled off his boxers. In all the time since he had come into the room, and it felt like hours, days, he had not yet touched me, had not yet kissed me.

And I so desperately wanted him to.

Zayvion lay beneath the covers beside me and finally, finally, drew his hand up my hip, my ribs, and over the curve of my breast. I shuddered in pleasure. He brushed his thumb over my nipple, paused to circle it gently. I moaned and met his lips with my own.

Desire echoed through me and I trembled with need. I tangled my legs with his and leaned back, bringing Zay on top of me, the weight of his strong, wide body pressing me into the soft embrace of the bed. He lowered his head and gently bit the hollow of my neck. Electricity flickered through me, wicked and warm, pooling between my thighs.

I was hot, needful, hungry.

I dragged my nails up his wide, lean back. I pushed my fingers into the thick curls of his hair, savoring the texture of him, and coaxed his lips down to mine. He breathed gently against my cheek, then finally, finally, his lips cradled mine, soft, hot. His tongue slipped sweetly into my mouth, seeking, stoking my passion. With every stroke of his strong, masculine heat, need rose in me. High. Higher.

The scent of pine, of musk, the salty-sweet taste of him, wrapped me, filled me.

I wanted more. More of him. All of him. I wanted this to never end.

Heat and pleasure stretched me, filled me so full, too full.

More.

I arched up, pressed against him, wrapped around him. The sliding heat of fire licked through me, growing, spreading, pulsing, until all I could feel, all I could want was the aching hardness of him within me.

Yes.

Zay shuddered. Hot waves of pleasure broke and poured through me, tumbling me over the edge of desire and gently down, down to the soft, welcome warmth of his body against mine.

It has never felt like that before, I thought as he lay against me, sweating and heavy, my legs still tangled with his. It has never felt so right.

I might have drifted off to sleep, or maybe I just lost track of time. But I eventually noticed again the ticking of the clock in the living room, the smallness of the room around me, and Zayvion.

He rolled away, leaving a final kiss on the top of my breast before taking up half the bed by lying on his back. I shifted to my side and put my head on his shoulder and my arm across his chest, not ready to lose contact with him yet.

We didn’t say anything. Even though his breathing was soft and even, I knew he was awake because I could hear the flick of his eyelashes as he blinked.

And while I did not know why he was still awake, I knew what was keeping me up.

I couldn’t believe I’d just slept with him. Not that it wasn’t wonderful. Okay—fantastic. But now I didn’t know what to do. Nola was right. I had a long history of falling into bed with men before I knew them. And I did not really know Zayvion.

It would be crazy to fall for someone who was hired to stalk me—who maybe still was stalking me. After all, he had a remarkable knack of tracking me down when things went terribly wrong. He was a wild card in my suddenly too-wild life.

Other than stalking and maybe spying, I wasn’t sure he even had a job.

He might be following me and doing all these nice things because I was rich. Richer now that my dad was dead. If he got in good with me, he would never have to work again in his life.

Maybe he had this all planned and wanted to get me out here where I couldn’t defend myself with magic.

Okay, that was crazy. He’d told me he didn’t kill my dad, and I believed him.

Pull yourself together, I thought.

I wished I’d made the dog stay.

I wished I’d gone back to sleep.

“Zay,” I said.

“Mmm?”

“I need to ask you something.”

He shifted so he was on his side, facing me. “So do I. Let me start, okay?”

“No. Me first,” I said. “Are you here because you want the money I’m going to inherit?”

He paused on an exhalation and stiffened. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I want to know if you want my money, or if you’re angling for a hand in the business—Beckstrom Enterprises.”

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, all the warmth and laughter was gone. “Is that what you think? That I did this to manipulate you?” He was angry and probably had every reason to be.

“Yes,” I said. “No. Maybe.” I groaned and flopped over on my back. I couldn’t think straight. I pressed my fingers over my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said through my palms. “It’s just happening so fast. I don’t know if I can handle this. Us. Whatever we are.” Hells, could I sound any more pitiful? “You don’t want the money, do you?”

He didn’t say anything. I waited, but all I heard was his breathing, slightly elevated, like he was still angry. I finally pulled one hand away from my face and peeked over at him.

Predawn light fingered through the slats covering the window. It was pretty, I suppose. It lent enough light for me to watch Zayvion’s expression close down until none of the warmth and passion of a lover showed in his eyes. Until he was calm, controlled, closed. Zen.

“I don’t want the money,” he said with such quiet and control it actually spooked me. “I don’t want control of the company. If this is going too fast, then I’ll give you some time to think about what I do want.”

He reached over and brushed my bangs out of my eyes. His thumb glided across the mark of magic that curled at my temple, and I found myself longing for the coolness of his touch. Something deep in my bones responded to him, drew toward him whenever we touched.

“What are you?” I whispered.

There was a knock at the door, then Nola’s voice. “If you two want to put some clothes on, I think you need to come out to the kitchen and see this.”

I didn’t know she was awake, hadn’t heard the springs on her bed creak, hadn’t heard her walk down the noisy wood stairs. Hells. Someone could have walked in and killed me, for all the attention I was paying. Or maybe I’d been paying very close attention to the only person in the house I wanted to see.

Still, it was predawn. Nola had a hideous habit of getting up before the sun, so she’d probably heard all the moaning and groaning going on in here. This old farmhouse had very thin walls. How fabo was that?

I blushed, and was glad the light was low.

“We’ll be out in a minute.” I pulled the top blanket around me and slid off the bed to gather the sweats and T-shirt.

Zayvion got out of bed, picked up his boxers, and put them on.

I managed to get my sweats on while contorting to hide my decency behind the blanket. Oh, screw it. It’s not like we hadn’t just been a whole lot of naked with each other a few minutes ago.

I dropped the blanket, turned the inside-out T-shirt inside-in again and tugged it on over my head.

Zay was watching me.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you want your father’s money?”

I rubbed at my hair and knew it must be sticking out like a Christmas cactus. I was glad there weren’t any mirrors in the room, because I was sure I was a vision of lovely.

“Listen,” I said while I rummaged for a robe in the closet. “I know I’ve had advantages in my life because of my father’s money, nice things and good education—especially the education. But when I failed at getting my degree in business magic and dropped out of college, he disowned me. I knew there would be no going back on that.”

“Why didn’t he hire private tutors?”

“What do you mean? To teach me magic?” I snagged a plain white robe off the hook, and shut the closet door. “No one teaches magic outside the universities. It’s too dangerous. If a student does something really stupid, you need a whole crew of people to set Siphons, bear Proxy, and do other kinds of mop-up.”

I thought Zay was just testing to see if I had really gone to college. But he was watching me, his nostrils flared like he was trying to scent the truth of my words.

“You never met other users?” he asked. “Teachers?”

And I knew there was something riding on my answer, something important.

“What if I had?” Okay, that was a bluff, but I was suddenly really interested in what had gotten Mr. Zen all worked up.

He shrugged one shoulder, but otherwise was still, waiting.

I was so not in the mood for a game of truth or dare. “I’ve never met with teachers outside of the universities. Well, maybe in a social setting, but not in a student-teacher sort of way. Okay? Why is that such a big deal?”

“Allie, your father was very powerful in the world of magic.”

“And you’re trying to see where I fit in all that?”

He nodded.

“I’ve told you—I didn’t fit. Wasn’t a part of it—whatever ‘it’ was. Disowned, remember?”

Zay nodded and looked over at the window, avoiding my gaze. “That’s good to know.”

What had gotten into him? I hadn’t tried to be public with my dropping out and estrangement from my father, but there had been a couple slow news days, so it wasn’t like it was a secret.

“What did you think?” I muttered. “That my dad and I were out to take control of all the magic in the world?”

Zay turned to look at me so fast I thought his neck was going to snap.

“Sweet hells, Zay. I was joking,” I said. “Joking. What is going on in that head of yours?”

Nola’s voice called out. “Allie, Zayvion. Breakfast.”

Zay looked down at the floor and rubbed at the back of his neck. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him embarrassed before. “Sorry. That was funny,” he said unconvincingly. “Let’s go get some coffee.” He pulled into his jeans and shirt, then escaped the room without looking at me.

Weird. Weird. Weird.

I tied the robe closed and tucked my hair behind my ears. Maybe I’d been onto something just then. Maybe my father had been out to control all the magic in the world. He already owned patents to most of the systems that made magic available. So what else was there to control? Who else was there to control?

I thought about Cody. I thought about him pulling magic through me, like I was a flesh-and-blood conduit for it. No one should be able to do that. I shouldn’t have been able to do that.

And I certainly shouldn’t have been able to heal him.

Were there other people who could do things with magic that they shouldn’t?

A shiver ran down my arms and the nauseating pangs of panic rolled in my belly. I’d been in so many bad situations lately, even the hint of something going wrong put me full into fight-or-flight mode, and it was exhausting. I shook my hands to loosen my shoulders and neck, and took a few good breaths to clear my head.

Coffee first. Then, if I still felt like it, I could panic.

I walked out of the room and made my way to the kitchen and the low sounds of unfamiliar voices.

Nola, Zayvion, and Cody were all in the kitchen. Zay stood at the stove, drinking from a coffee mug, and looking calm and unperturbed as always.

The unfamiliar voices were coming from a small TV set on the counter. Right now it was some woman talking about foot fungus.

“I’ll get you some food,” Nola said. “Why don’t you sit next to Cody.”

I looked over at the kid. His blond hair was damp and brushed down tight against his head. He’d obviously just taken a shower. It looked like Nola had found a spare pair of sweats and a flannel shirt for him. He was about Nola’s build, but I did a quick reassessment of his age. Slight of frame and delicate features, yes, but not because he was a kid. I’d put him in his mid-twenties, maybe even early thirties. His head was bent over the kitten in his hands. He completely ignored the bowl of cold cereal on the table in front of him, and, as far as I could tell, everything else.

“So your name’s Cody.” I sat in the chair across from him where I could keep my eye on Zayvion. “Remember me?”

Cody looked up from the kitten and smiled a bright, lopsided smile. “Pretty colors,” he said. He held up his hand and waved it in the air like he was pushing finger paints around. He frowned when nothing happened.

“There’s no magic here, Cody,” Nola said, and it sounded like she’d been saying that for a while.

Cody stopped waving and put his hands back around the kitten.

“Cody?” I said. “Do you remember me helping you? Do you remember talking to me down by the water?”

Cody started rocking in the seat of his chair.

Oh. I looked over at Nola. “I didn’t know,” I said.

She nodded. “Well, it should make it easier to narrow down where he came from. I can’t imagine someone isn’t looking for him.”

“I still think we should check to make sure he didn’t escape from a penitentiary,” Zay said.

He pulled a couple pieces of toast out of the toaster, dropped them on a plate, and layered a thick wedge of cheese between them. He walked over to the table and sat down next to Cody, across from me. Good. Now we could both keep an eye on each other.

“Penitentiary?” Nola asked.

“Zayvion thinks he might have gotten in trouble with the law.”

Nola placed a plate of homemade bread, butter, cheese, and apples in front of me. “I’ll get you some oatmeal,” she said.

“Don’t bother. This is perfect, thanks.”

She moved over to the stove, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to me.

“What kind of trouble do you think he was involved with?” she asked Zayvion.

Zay chewed, and slurped coffee. “Forgery. There was a high-profile case a few years back. A young man who committed a string of forged magical signatures. Covered up some pretty big Offloads, Proxy abuses, blackmail, and embezzlement. Landed him in prison.”

“Was he mentally challenged?” Nola asked.

Zay shook his head. “If he was, it was never mentioned in the news articles. Still, there were rumors that once he was out of the public’s eye, the people whom he had indicted before he was sentenced dealt out their own kind of justice.”

“They mentally damaged him?” she asked. “How is that possible?”

“Tried to kill him, but were not successful. It’s hard to kill someone with magic. Takes an incredible amount of power, and intense focus and control.”

“And the price is too high,” I said.

“What’s the price?” Nola asked.

Questions like that made me realize she really did live in a world without magic. “Death. If you take a life, you have to give a life.”

“Oh.” Nola looked over at Cody, who was still rocking.

“And,” Zay added, “despite all those risks, they apparently didn’t want to get their hands dirty by killing the old-fashioned way.”

“Do you really think he might be the same person?” Nola asked.

We all looked at Cody, who rocked faster and hummed.

“They say he was a genius,” Zay said. “An artist who could manipulate magic and make it become anything he wanted it to be.”

“Nobody can make magic into anything they want,” I said, hoping it was true. “There’s a limit to what magic can do, a limit to any user’s ability.”

Zay shrugged. “Some say magic isn’t as cut and dry as people think. It’s only been in use for what? Thirty years?”

“Isn’t there a name for people who are naturally talented at magic?” Nola sat at the table. “I heard it’s rare. Aren’t they called Servants or something?”

“Savants,” Zay and I said at the same time.

Cody stopped rocking. He looked up at each of us, his blue eyes wide, frightened. Then he dropped the kitten next to his cereal. “Kitten likes milk. See?”

Kitten did indeed like milk and went to town, greedily lapping it up from around the floating cereal.

“Hmm,” Nola said. “It might be easy to find out where he came from, but I’m not so sure it will be as easy for you to get him back there.”

“Who said we were taking him anywhere?” Zayvion asked.

“I do,” I said. “I think he needs to go back to wherever his home is.” Wherever he’s safe, I thought.

“And if I disagree?” Zay said. “How are you taking him without a car?”

“I’ll drag him in with me to the police, and let them take care of him.”

Nola held up her hand. “Wait. The news is back on. This is what I wanted you to see.”

I glared at Zay and he looked at me, unperturbed. But when I heard my name on the news, I turned to watch.

It is strange to hear your own name on the news. I suppose people might think it’s an exciting thing, but really, the news mostly covers tragedies, scandals, and misfortune. Any time your name is associated with one of those things, you were in a world of hurt and probably didn’t want the whole world to know about it.

Hearing my name spoken by a reporter, a stranger who did not know me, was weird even though my name had been occasionally mentioned alongside my father’s in the media. This time felt very different. This time made me feel vulnerable, exposed, violated.

A picture of my dad next to an intelligent-looking dark-haired woman who I assumed was one of the wives I’d missed out on flashed on the screen. Then the screen filled with a picture of me, from a dedication ceremony I’d attended with my father during my precollege days. In the photo I was smiling and had absolutely no idea what a huge mess my life was about to become.

The news ended with the reporter reciting a phone number, and summing up that I was a person of suspicion in the case of my father’s death and any information on my whereabouts should be immediately reported to the police.

The reporter gave the camera over to the weather-man, and I sat back in my chair, acutely aware that Nola and Zay were staring at me.

“Shit,” I said. I supposed the only good thing was they didn’t say I was armed and dangerous and should be shot on sight.

I expected Zayvion to say he told me so—Bonnie had ratted me out to the cops and they were looking for me, just like he said. But he sat there quietly, which was pretty decent of him.

“Well,” Nola said. “I think we need to think this out and make a plan of what to do next. Allie, do you have any ideas?”

“I still think I should go to the police. Turn myself in.”

Zay sat back in his chair and watched me from over the edge of his coffee cup.

“I’m innocent,” I said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Can you prove that?” Zay asked quietly.

“Of course I can.”

“You have an alibi for where you were after you and I left the deli?”

I opened my mouth to tell him of course I did, and he could shove it. But my recollection of what had happened from when I left my dad’s office to when I woke up at Mama’s was spotty at best. Even the deli seemed a little foggy to me.

“I went home,” I said.

“Did anyone see you there?” Zayvion asked. “Did you make any calls? Talk to anyone in the halls?”

“No.”

“No witnesses. No calls to trace. Not good,” he said. “Then what?”

“I left.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t stand the smell of the building.”

“Doubt that will hold up in court, but fine. Where did you go, and who saw you go there?”

This is where the really big black holes and gaps of time filled my head. The hit I Hounded on Boy had kicked in pretty hard by then. I was hurting and maybe even a little delirious. I was lucky I hadn’t wandered around town bleeding out of my ears and singing show tunes. For all I knew I might have done just that.

Or maybe I’d gotten angry and confused. Maybe I’d found my way back to my father’s office, managed to ride the elevator without having a panic attack, gotten past his perky, nosy secretary, and somehow summoned the strength to draw enough power, through the protection wards—and cast a killing spell—to kill him.

It just seemed so incredibly unlikely. But it also seemed incredibly unlikely that I couldn’t remember nearly a full twenty-four hours—the twenty-four-hour span when my father was killed.

“I can’t remember, exactly.”

Zay said nothing. He didn’t have to.

Nola rubbed her hand between my shoulder blades and gave me a gentle pat. “I suppose this is a bad time to remind you what I think about using magic.”

“Yeah, Nola.” I managed a small smile. “I know what you think about using it. And right now, I see your point.” I looked back over at Zayvion. “So maybe I don’t have an alibi. But do they have any evidence that I went back to my father’s place? Do they have any evidence that it was me who killed him? A security camera? Some eyewitness in the lobby or something?”

“They have Bonnie’s testimony that she Hounded the hit and it was your signature on it.”

“Bonnie hates me and would do anything to make me hurt.”

“Can you prove that?” Zayvion asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe. Probably. We haven’t hidden our hatred or anything. People know about it. The bank job she and I handled—all the people involved in that know how she feels about me.”

“That would help,” Zay conceded, “but it won’t change the fact that the police brought in three Hounds to sniff the hit, and that Violet hired a separate Hound independent of them to check too.”

“Violet’s my dad’s current wife?” I asked.

It didn’t take him long to figure out I was not joking. He nodded.

“Okay. What did her Hound say?”

“They all said it was your signature, Allie.”

Five Hounds sniffing the same hit would find subtle differences if there were any. If five different Hounds said I did it, even I would think I did it.

But I had zero recollection of killing my father. I’d think a person would remember such a thing. I think I would remember it, memory loss or no memory loss. I would have felt it. I would have tasted it. It would still be in my hands, in my lungs.

“How do you know all this, Zayvion? Are you a cop? A reporter? How do you have all this inside information that I don’t have?”

“Allie, I’ve told you all that. Don’t you remember?”

That hit me like a punch to the gut. I did not remember. If he had come clean about who he was and what he did and why he was always following me around, it had fallen down the same twenty-four-hour black hole growing in my head.

I opened my mouth to tell him “How about we just pretend I don’t remember and you can tell me again,” but Cody let out a piercing, childlike scream of glee that reminded me why I never wanted to have a child.

He stood and pointed at the window, and once he ran out of air he filled up again and kept on screaming.

Nola moved around the table and put one hand on his outstretched arm. “You need to be quiet now, Cody. Use your inside voice. Use your words. Tell me what’s wrong.”

But Cody was not listening. He pushed away from Nola and hurried over to the window, still screaming.

Zay was on his feet and moving toward him now. Even though Cody acted like a kid, he was still a man, and none of us knew enough about him to know what he might do.

Cody pressed his palms flat against the window, then switched so only his fingers were touching the glass. He wiggled his fingers as the pale yellow light of the rising sun filtered through the branches of the willows beyond the road and spilled like ghostly honey across his hands.

He stopped screaming, transfixed by the sight of sunlight on his hands. Then he looked up and through the window. “Sunshine,” he said softly. He looked over his shoulder at Nola. “Sunshine.”

Wow. The guy really liked sunshine.

Back on the table, the kitten stuck her paw in the milk, slipped, and dunked her face in it. She mewled and Cody reluctantly turned away from the sunshine to retrieve her. “Sunshine, Kitten,” he said. “Sunshine.” He picked her up, but became confused as to what to do with the milk-soaked cat.

Nola handed him a towel and he dried her feet and face.

“Zayvion,” Nola said. “Stay here with Cody, please. Allie, let me get your clean clothes for you. Do you want to shower?”

“All right,” I said.

Zayvion cleaned the table, taking dishes to the sink, and I followed Nola to the laundry room.

“What?” I asked her when we got there. Her not-so-subtle attempt to get me away on my own meant she wanted to talk to me without Zay around.

“I’ve been thinking about everything you told me last night, and I have a couple questions.” She opened the clothes dryer, letting out the floral fragrance of fabric softener. She pulled out my jeans, T-shirt, socks, and underwear, and dropped them all in my arms.

“Okay.”

“Are you sure Cody had been stabbed?”

I leaned my hip against the washer. “Yes. It wasn’t an Illusion, or a scratch that looked worse than it was. I know a bad puncture when I see one. And this one was sealed with magic.”

Nola leaned against the dryer and crossed her arms over her chest. “Did healing him have anything to do with the marks up your arm?”

I nodded.

“You don’t think you can do it again?”

“Nola, no one’s ever done that. You can’t just pluck magic out of the ground and make it do anything you want it to do. You have to study, learn the shapes it will accept, memorize the glyphs, mantras. It’s work—hard work—and it hurts if you do it wrong. It hurts even if you do it right. To just suck up a handful of magic and wave it at someone until they stop dying is impossible.”

“Impossible?”

“Improbable. To the extreme,” I added.

“So who can manipulate magic that way?”

I knew what she was getting at. “Nola, I am so not a Savant.”

“I don’t know about that, Allie. You did really good in school.”

“I flunked every course. The only reason they didn’t kick me out was because my dad owned half the building and staff, and I left before they got up the nerve to tell him I sucked.”

“I think you may not remember all the details of college.”

I scowled. “It’s been recently pointed out to me that my memory isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“And you often lose bits of your memory when you use magic, correct?”

“Yes.”

“But not every time?”

“No. And before you ask, I don’t know why. I don’t know why magic sometimes takes my memory and sometimes doesn’t.”

“Still, you remember healing Cody, even though you were manipulating far more magic than you usually do.”

“Nola, just say whatever you’re getting at.”

“Allie, you are a Savant whether you want to admit it or not. I know it, Zayvion knows it, I think your father knew it, which is why he wanted you to get so much schooling, and also why he wanted you involved in his business. You have the ability to use magic in amazing and powerful ways.”

“Like to kill my father?” I asked quietly.

Nola just looked at me. “Do you really think you could do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said in a small voice. “I’ve been really angry at him for a long time.”

“And you never killed him. Why would you do so now?”

I rubbed at my uncombed hair. “He put a hit on a little boy, Nola. A good kid who didn’t deserve to take the brunt of my dad’s business maneuverings. It was like the last, worst thing I could handle letting him get away with.”

“Do you really think you could have killed him?”

I thought about it. I’d been angry—furious. Magic never works when you are in a highly emotional state. I knew that was true of everyone, no matter their level of proficiency—no matter if they were dumb to it or a Savant. I’d gone to my dad to make him pay for his actions. But even then I knew Boy had gotten to a doctor and I was sure Mama would make a pretty penny suing my dad for all she could get. I wanted him to pay. I wanted him to stop using money and power as an excuse to do horrific things to people who did not deserve it. But I did not, deep down, want him to die.

“I haven’t told anyone this,” I said. “Cody said he knew who killed my dad. He said he was there when it happened.”

“Did he say you were there too?”

“I don’t think so. He was babbling, but he seemed pretty . . . adult about it. Which is strange, considering what we’re seeing in the kitchen.”

“You haven’t told Zayvion that Cody might have information?”

“No. I’m not sure how much I should trust him.” I could feel the hot prickle of a blush rise up my face. “I know. Last night I was stupid. But now . . .” I lowered my voice and leaned toward her. “What if Zay just wants to get in good with me because I’m about to inherit a lot of money, and one of the biggest power broker companies in the business of magic? He might even work for one of the corporations that have been after Dad’s patents for the Storm Rods for years.”

“Or,” Nola said, “maybe it’s as simple as what he told me. That he worked for your father, and realized he liked you too much to spy on you anymore.”

“He told you that?”

“When you first came, and he and I were getting Cody to bed.”

“And you think it’s the truth?”

Nola tipped her head to the side. “I’m not sure. He seemed sincere. I think we can safely assume he finds you attractive.” She paused while I blushed again. “But there’s something about him that gives me pause. I think you pegged it when you said he was insular.”

“And doesn’t that make you suspicious? He must have something to hide.”

Nola smiled. “My best friend is pretty insular, and I still think she’s a wonderful human being. Even if she does move too fast into relationships, and then panics when things get too serious.”

“Oh, that is so not what I’m doing right now.”

Nola chuckled. “Why do you think I wanted Jupe to stay in the room with you? I knew you’d do this. You are so predictable.”

And there it was, the down side to having a really good friend.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Anytime.” She patted my arm gently, and then stopped as if my arm were injured. “Are you sure you don’t need something for that?”

“No, it doesn’t hurt.” Which in itself was odd, but I didn’t want to think about it. “Nola, if it were you, would you trust Zayvion enough to tell him about what Cody said and go back into the city with him?”

“No,” she said. “But if I were you I would.”

“Because I’m crazy?”

“Because you always push away men at the first sign they might see that you’re vulnerable and use it against you. And you have rarely been right about that.”

“So you like him.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know him yet. But he drove you all the way out here. He knows how to do dishes. He’s certainly not hard on the eyes. What I think is, you like him. And you are too afraid to face that.”

I rubbed at my eyes with one hand. “No, I just don’t want to die because I fall for a pretty smile and a pair of strong shoulders.”

Nola gave me a doubtful look. “Is that all he is to you?”

“No,” I said quietly. “Listen, Nola. It’s different out here on the farm, far away from magic and what it does to people. Magic drives people to do things you can’t even imagine. The Proxy laws only came into effect a few years ago—before that anyone could inflict the pain and price of using magic on any random person they chose. People were dying so that a select few could have green yards, or get rid of wrinkles, or eat as much as they wanted and never gain weight. Regulations help, but even the best people can do horrible things when magic is involved.”

“Which means good people can do great things, too,” she said. “Good people like you, like me, and maybe even Zayvion.”

I shook my head. “You are such an optimist.”

“Yes, I am. And it isn’t a dirty word in my book. Go take a shower. Think about it. I’m going to talk to Zayvion about Cody.”

“What about Cody?”

“I think he should stay with me. I’ll pull a few strings and see if I can find out where he came from and who he really is. Don’t look at me like that—just because I don’t use magic doesn’t mean I don’t have connections. And besides, if he’s here, and if he really does know something about your father’s death, I don’t think it would be safe for him to stay with you until you make contact with the police and get that straightened out.”

“I could call your local police station and turn myself in here.”

She shook her head. “I’d rather not be on record as being involved in this yet. Cody was stabbed and left for dead. I don’t know who would have done that, but I don’t want them on my doorstep until I find out what his story is. Besides, the sheriff out here kisses up for any publicity he can get. I think he’s angling for a higher office—maybe mayor—and I don’t want you, or Cody to become his political platform.”

“I had no idea you had such a calculated, conniving side,” I said.

“I prefer to call it ‘practical.”’ She sashayed out of the room.

I took her advice and headed off to the shower.

Nola had a good head on her shoulders and could usually see between the lines of my personal drama and history, and give good advice. But she was wrong about one thing: Zayvion. Maybe he was a good enough guy, and maybe he found me attractive. But every instinct in my body told me that there was more to him than met the eye. And I refused to completely trust someone who appeared out of nowhere so conveniently every time something horrible happened.

He must want something out of this, something out of me.

As the shower sluiced away the musk and pine scent of him from my skin, I found my thoughts returning to his touch, to his lips, to the silent strength of him. And I realized I wanted something from him too. Not just sex. Not just companionship. Something deeper that I could not yet name.