Magic to the Bone

Chapter Seventeen

I found Zayvion at the deli we’d had lunch in, and smiled at remembering that we’d had lunch there. He was sitting toward the back of the room, maybe at the same table we’d sat at, staring out the window at the gray, rainy street, his bowl of soup untouched, his coffee cup full. He did not look up as I walked in.

The sight of him, the smell of pine, did good things for my memory, shook loose a few flashes—his smile, the taste of garlic on his lips, his eyes, burning bright. I was pretty sure I’d had it bad for this man. Might even still have it bad for him.

I walked over to his table, and got halfway there before he glanced up.

His face blanched and his eyes went wide. “Allie?” he whispered, like I was a ghost he didn’t want anyone to know he could see.

“Zayvion, right?” I asked.

“Yes.” He got back a little of his Zen and stood. “Please. Please, sit down.” He held out his hand toward me, but didn’t touch me as he held his other hand toward the seat. I felt like visiting royalty.

“Thanks.” I eased down, careful of the scars over my ribs that still hurt, especially in the rain, especially in the city where magic pooled and flowed.

He sat across from me, and I watched as he worked really hard to clear his face of all expression. While he was doing that, I was trying to fit him to the stories Nola had told me. That he had saved my life more than once. That he had tried to save me in the end. That we had been lovers and I had almost killed myself to save him, even though I thought he had betrayed me.

That last part just didn’t sound like me. I wasn’t the type of person to give myself up to grand, noble sacrifices.

And this Zayvion looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple days, and like maybe he had been wearing the same T-shirt for too many weeks in a row. This Zayvion looked like maybe he’d been spending too much time drinking and not enough time sleeping.

“How are you?” I asked.

His eyebrows shot up and he let out a nervous laugh. “I’ve been okay. How are you?”

“Tired,” I said, “but that’s getting better every day. Nola told me everything she could.”

“Memory loss?” he asked. “I’m sorry.”

I shrugged and pushed my anger about it away. “Things happen. You use magic, it uses you, and I’ve been magic’s bitch for a long time.” I gave him a weak smile, and he nodded encouragingly.

“Do you remember anything?” he asked.

“Flashes. A few images. A lot of strong emotions without a lot of clear ideas as to why I feel that way.”

“But Nola told you about your father?”

I nodded. “And about Cody, James, Bonnie, and Mama. She told me about the, uh . . . Violet’s research,” I said a little more quietly, aware that the disks were still largely unknown, and as far as I knew, not entirely recovered. “And that James is up on murder charges. He’s just the tip of this tech-stealing thing, isn’t he?”

Zayvion blinked and sat back. He did a good job of covering his surprise, and even did a good job lying. “No. I don’t know what would give you that idea.”

What gave me that idea was Mama refusing to look me straight in the eye. What gave me that idea was the ominous war-is-coming bastard who opened the cab door for me. What gave me that idea was Zayvion being so quick to deny it, even though I could smell the lie on him.

Fair enough. I could play along until I figured things out. I had lost my memory, not my brains. I dropped the subject and moved on.

“Nola told me Cody cleared my name,” I said. “She’s trying to get a judge to allow him to come live with her on the farm. She has his cat.”

“I didn’t know she was doing that,” he said. “I think that’s a good idea. Really good.”

I did too—it would keep him safely out of the reach of magic, safely out of the reach of people who would try to use him like James had. Maybe safely out of whatever may or may not be about to happen in this city.

“She told me my father’s funeral was a few weeks ago, while I was still in the coma.”

“It was closed casket,” Zayvion said. “All his ex-wives attended except for your mother. There were yellow roses and red peonies everywhere. Violet cried.”

“So you remember the details of weddings and funerals, eh? Any hot girls there?” Oh. I remembered him telling me about a wedding. About daffodils and lilacs. Whose was it? I chased the memory, dug around in the dark goo of my mind. Nothing. Just the knowledge that he’d said something once.

“You remember me telling you that?”

“Not when you did, but that you did.” I rubbed at my forehead with my fingers. I was wearing the mint green gloves I had knitted, and the yarn made a pleasant scritch across my skin.

“I’m impressed,” he said. And I knew that he was.

“No hot chicks?” I asked again.

He glanced out the window, glanced back at me. “I couldn’t—wasn’t looking.”

Oh.

I pulled the letter with my name in his handwriting out of my purse and slid it across the table. The envelope was still sealed.

“Whatever it says in there,” I said, “I want to hear it from you.”

Zayvion put his fingers on the envelope, turned it over, and looked at the unbroken seal. I watched him. It was comfortable here in the heat of the deli, the smell of rich, roasted coffee, the spice of cinnamon and the salt of vegetable soup filling me up. I knew I could use magic if I wanted to figure out what Zayvion was really feeling. I had tried accessing magic once—when I Influenced my apartment manager—and it had been easy. But it stung like salt in a cut, and that actually made me happy.

Sometimes it is good to know your limits. Good to know you still have limits. It makes you human. And I wanted to stay that way.

Zayvion swallowed, and when he looked back at me, his eyes were a little red. “Allie, don’t. Don’t make me do this.”

I waited.

He rubbed his face. “You are so damn stubborn. Fine. The note says I’m sorry about how it all turned out. That I’m sorry you and I got involved and that I can’t risk you . . . can’t risk a relationship in the . . . in the kind of work I do. There are people out there, Allie. Bad people. Still.”

“Like the guy who smells like vitamins?”

“Who?” he asked.

“Plain-looking killer. Knew my name?”

Zay was quiet a moment. “That could be a lot of people.”

Oh, and just how terrific was that?

Why it was fan-damn-tastic. Who didn’t want lots of plain-looking killers who knew their name hanging around town? We could have a big ole plain-looking killer party.

“Great,” I said. “If he happens to stroll by and I point him out, would you tell me who he is?”

“Probably.”

And somehow I knew that was the closest, straightest answer I was going to get out of him.

“You were saying?” I said. “About the letter?”

He glanced at the street, then back at me. “It says I hope you’ll understand why we can’t see each other again, and that you’ll forgive me someday.”

“So you wrote me a Dear John note?”

“Allie, you were in a coma.”

“So you write the woman who is your lover, who is in a coma, may I remind you, a Dear John note? I get hurt and you dump me? What the hell?”

“You dumped me first,” he said. “You punched me in the nose.”

“Yeah? Well, I healed you, right? With some kind of big, amazing light show, Nola said. I so took you back again. And how do you repay me for saving your life? You dump me.”

“I didn’t want to—you were dying—I didn’t, couldn’t.” Zayvion threw his hands up in the air and growled in frustration. “You are impossible. I’m trying to make the right move here, Allie. I’m trying to do the smart thing. You almost died. Instead of staying to protect you, I went up to Mama’s to try to get Cody. To get him away from . . . from James. I put my . . . my job before you. Before the woman I . . . the woman I didn’t want to die.”

“You were there when I needed you,” I said. “Every time. You’re the only person in my life who ever has been.”

“Did Nola tell you that?”

“No. I figured that out all on my own.”

We sat there, looking at each other and not saying a lot of things.

Finally, I spoke. “I am giving you a chance to change your mind about us, about what you wrote in the letter. A chance for us to try this again. And if you don’t want to stick it out with me, fine, I don’t blame you. I haven’t had the easiest sort of life lately. I’ll leave you alone. No hard feelings.”

I’d never seen him look so conflicted. Or at least I didn’t think I ever had. “Allie,” he pleaded. “Things aren’t as safe, as stable as they look. I want you safe. I want what’s right for you.”

So do I, I thought. But I had no idea what that was. My head told me trusting him would be an incredibly stupid thing. He was steeped in secrets, half-spoken truths, and behind-closed-doors dealings. It could take years before I saw the real man behind that masquerade. I didn’t even know what he did for a living.

But my heart told me he was right, he was safe, he was home.

It was confusing being me.

“Okay. Until I figure out what I think is right for me, I want you to do me two favors.”

“If I can.”

There he was again. Zen-Zay, the man of a million secrets. The man I knew I’d be a fool to trust.

“I want you to stick around, at least until I get a chance to point that jerk out to you.”

“Which jerk?”

“The one who opened the cab and talked about a war that’s coming.”

Zay suddenly became very, very still. I could feel the magic shift beneath him, could feel him drawing upon it.

“What war?”

“That’s what I want to know.” And I guess I looked convincing, because he blinked and sat back in his chair. He looked out the window again, and I could see the muscles in his jaw clench, could see the rope of muscle down the side of his neck strain. He was angry. Or worried.

“I’d love to have you show me who said that to you.” He said it in a low, soft, and dangerous voice. But when he looked back at me, he seemed calm, as if we were discussing tomorrow’s rain. “What is the other favor?”

“I could really use a cup of coffee.”

That got a smile out of him, and I liked the look of it. Even scruffy and underslept, he was a damn handsome man, with those tiger-bright eyes, arched cheekbones, and kiss-me-baby lips. I wanted to reach across that table, grab him by his shirt, and find out what his mouth tasted like.

A wisp of memory, of mint, came to me.

“All you want from me is a cup of coffee, Ms. Beckstrom?” he said.

“No,” I said, “I want more. Maybe a lot more.” I looked down at my hands, because I needed to look away from him to catch my breath. When I was composed, I glanced back up and said, “How about we start with coffee, lunch, and dessert?”

He leaned forward and gently caught my gloved hands in his. “How about we do.”

And I realized this, this was what I’d been looking for. It might not be the only place for me, or the best place for me. I had a feeling it wasn’t the safest place for me. But for now, for today, it was right where I wanted to be.