Onny slowly turned to Byron. “What’s this? Byron Frost got a pop quiz wrong? Will wonders never cease?”
Byron coolly flipped open his lab notebook, avoiding her gaze. “Who bothers with knowing useless information like that anyway?”
“People with interesting lives,” said Onny serenely. “Looks like my ‘intelligence is a detriment to my personality.’”
Onny and Byron spent the next twenty minutes locked in a comfortable, spiteful silence. They passed the microscope back and forth, making notations as they saw fit. Luckily, their findings and answers were identical; otherwise they’d be forced to talk.
Onny had already happily started daydreaming about going home and checking on the love potion.… She wondered if hermom had any old perfume bottles so she could use them as vials for Ash and True’s share of the potion. She probably could deliver it in a traveling Styrofoam cup, but that was such a depressing aesthetic.
A loud snap interrupted Onny’s daydream.
She looked to her right and saw Byron holding up a snapped pencil.
He looked horrified.
Onny raised an eyebrow. “Did you two know each other very well?”
“I hate to ask this, mostly because I’m terrified about what necromancy lurks in your bag… but can I borrow a pencil?” he asked.
“What’s the magic word?” trilled Onny.
“Please,” said Byron flatly.
Onny reached into her bag for her pencil case, then rummaged through it until she found the perfect one for Byron. It was a bright-red mechanical pencil with a sparkly tomato eraser.
Byron stared at it. “A tomato?”
“You got a problem with tomatoes?”
“No, I was just fully expecting something more irritatingly magical, like a unicorn,” he said, eyeing the pencil Onny was using that was indeed twisted up like a unicorn horn.
“Tomatoes are very magical vegetables.”
“Actually,” said Byron, “tomatoes are fruit.”
“Whatever,” said Onny. “Did you know that the Latin name for tomato islycopersicum,fromlycoandpersicum,which means ‘wolf peach.’ People in Ye Olde Medieval Europe Town used to believe that eating it would turn you into a werewolf. Theythought it was poisonous, too, but that was probably because it was related to the deadly nightshade plant.”
Byron looked reluctantly impressed. “Your point? Other than tomatoes turned out to be disappointing but nutritious.”
“My point is that maybe there’s a reason for things seeming magical.… Maybe they have an element of truth.”
“Further testing is almost always required,” said Byron. “Otherwise you end up with people poaching rhinos and turning their horns into powder all because of claims that it might increase male virility.”
Onny could sense that their conversation was on a slippery slope towardstrangeterritory. It had happened a couple times before. One rainy day last April, Byron had caught Onny covered head to toe in mud after rescuing a frog from a drain. He rolled his eyes and asked whether she was planning to kiss it and turn it into a prince, too. Onny retorted that if that magic worked, she’d kiss him on the spot just to turn him back into a slimy reptile. But the moment she mentionedkissing,his expression had changed. She’d once compared his gray eyes to dull pencil lead, but in the rain, they looked silver. Byron stared at her a second too long before his smirk twisted to a tight, angry line. And then he’d turned around and left her in the rain.
The whole thing was just… weird.
She wanted to forget all about it, but sometimes the memory snuck up on her.
She should’ve known better than to egg him on, but it was Friday, and she was punch-drunk on the promise of a love potion and thoughts about the midnight gala, so instead she blurtedout, “Oh dear, already researching male virility? I always thought that’d be the case.”
“Always?” repeated Byron. “Spend a lot of time thinking about my virility, Diamante? Because if you’re that curious, we could conduct a thorough investigation.” His smile turned wolfish. “You know, for science.”
They were teasing words, but they sent a not-completely-uncomfortable shiver through her belly. There was something in the way he said it. The low register of his voice that danced above a growl and the force of his gray eyes.
Fortunately, she was saved from making any comment when the door to the classroom burst open and clouds of dry ice spilled over the threshold. A huge cheer rolled through the room.
“It’s the spirit!” yelled someone.
