“I know,” Bas replied, his tone gentle. “It is the truth, though. I’m not spinning some crap story to try and get in your pants, either. The details of your mind palace library, the fact you can create a pocket dimension in the astral, the way you can shift into a hawk there… I’ve only known one other magician that could do that.”
“And who’s that?” she asked.
Bas shrugged. “Me.”
Bridget chewed her lip, thinking back to all the questions she had from her day of researching. “What else can you do?”
“Give me one of those chips, and I will tell you,” Bas replied. It was the grin that made her give in and pass him one. Damn, he was gorgeous. The crazy ones were always hot.
Bas made a point of eating the chip before answering her question. “My magic is multi-disciplinary mind magic. Astral projection, telekinesis, telepathy, dream walking…”
“Woah, telepathy?” Bridget asked.
Telepathy was one of the first abilities I had,he replied straight into her head.
Bridget jolted and pulled up a mental brick wall. Bas leaned back in his chair and laughed.
“Oh, yeah, you’re definitely a magician. You barely had to think about putting that mental shield up. Which begs the question of why you have no wards set up about your little library dimension in the astral,” he said, still smiling.
Bridget looked at her fish and chips. “I don’t know how. I didn’t even know what I was doing with my mental library was anything unique. Or that it was in the astral at all.”
“I can teach you some things if you want to learn. As I said, you’re the only person I’ve met who can manipulate the astral like me.”
Bridget looked up. “Really? Aren’t you like the fae royal family or some shit? The fae would have heaps of magical people.”
“I’ve met a few who can dream walk like my Auntie Quinn and others who have telepathy. None of them have been able to walk in the astral like you. It’s why I wanted to find you so much.” Red tinged his cheeks, and Bridget felt her hard insides soften. Just a little.
“How did you find yourself in the astral anyway?” he asked.
“I had…a bad childhood. I learned how to dissociate early on. And let’s leave it at that,” she said. She couldn’t deal with possible magic and talking about her past all in one date. Not that it was a date. She didn’t think. Was it?
“I’m sorry to hear that about your childhood,” Bas replied. He sounded genuine and didn’t do anything like try to take her hand. She really hated it when people did that. “I understand, though. Trauma made me reach the astral the first time too.”
Bridget studied his face, searching for a lie that wasn’t there. “Really?”
“Yeah. And I don’t want to talk about it either.”
She nodded. “Fair.”
Bas got up and went to talk to one of the barristers and came back with a borrowed pen. “I’m going to sketch you a sigil that you can draw under your bed. It will act as a ward until you learn how to create your own.”
Bridget watched as he began to scribble on a napkin. She leaned over the table, fascinated. He had good hands, she couldn’t help but notice.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked.
“That shadow creature we saw in the library is dangerous. I chased it off, but I know it will be back. I don’t know what it is, but I know it wanted to feed off your consciousness,” Bas said, his hands not stopping his sketching. “You are exposed to it, and worse, and I’ll sleep better at night knowing you have some protection.”
Bridget pulled at the sleeve cuff of her shirt. “Why do you care? You don’t know me.”
“But I want to, and I can only do that if you’re alive,” Bas replied. “You are unique. I like that. Most people aren’t.”
“Do you…” Bridget struggled, not knowing how to say what she wanted to without it coming out horrible. “Do you find normal people hard? Being around them and stuff?”
“Yeah, I do. I play the game, wear the mask, but I know they won’t ever really get me. I don’t understand them either, if I am being honest.” Bas looked up from the design on the napkin. “It helps if they have magic and understand how weird it can be. I was raised with magicians, so I am lucky that way, but it’s hard to explain to anyone what we are—whowe are—when we spend so much of our lives in our heads, looking at worlds no one else will ever be able to see.”
Bridget nodded, her heart hurting. That was exactly the feeling she always had too. She was nervous, but she forced it down. “I need to process all of this. I think you can understand that?”
“I do. That’s why I’m not going to explain what this sigil does, just give it to you,” Bas replied and put it on the table between them. Giving her the choice of whether or not to take it.
