Lucas stared at me, eyes wide, and when he looked at the clothes piled on the cave floor in front of him, he had the decency to spin around to face the wall. Even though the cave light was pink, I could see the blush on his neck.
“MJ. What are you doing here?” he asked, his back still to me.
I swam to the edge of the pool and pulled myself out, even though I yearned to go back underwater, ignore him, and let him wonder. “I was just…I needed to clear my head and took a walk. What are you doing here?”
“I was, uh…doing the same.” He was the type of person to find solace in taking a swim. I didn’t blame him, especially with everything that was going on lately.
I pulled my clothes back on and wrung my hair out.
This was an almost exact replay of our encounter months ago, though our roles had been reversed. I’d found him bathing in the waterfall near the gardens and accused him of being behind the murders at the palace. I remembered how frustrated I’d been with him, how I was so suspicious of his actions. But he proved his innocence, and after then, we’d teamed up. I’d thought about our conversation at the waterfall a lot since then—just how wrong we’d both been about each other. I’d changed so much since I met him, and he’d changed, too. I thought we could really be something together.
“You’re good,” I said to him. He chanced a look over his shoulder and turned back around, though the color never left his cheeks.
Here we stood, like strangers, separated by all the things we couldn’t say to each other.
“I’ll go,” we both said at the same time, and I knew I was blushing as hard as he was, purely based on the fact that my face felt like the surface of the sun.
It was worth noting that neither of us moved, as if we were waiting for the other to do something first.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you. I didn’t know anyone would be here,” he said finally. “I didn’t mean to…”
“I get it. I didn’t think anyone would find me…How’d you know about this place?”
“Stumbled upon it on the first day. A little secret spot. It’s the one place I can get some privacy.”
“What is this?” I gestured to the glowing stones and the shimmering water. “It’s magical, right?”
“I think it’s some sort of wishing well.”
“Like, if I throw a coin in it, a wish will come true?”
“No, more like the things you want reveal themselves to you when you’re here. It brings out your heart’s desire. But it’s only a theory. I just know when I’m here, I feel more at ease, and that’s hard to come by these days.”
So that explained why he had been missing at breakfast. I knew what he meant. Maybe there really was something magical in the air, because it felt like I had too many sips of wine, and I was already imagining myself curled up against a pile of rocks and taking a nap. I had to shake my head a little to clear it.
You want him…The voice in my head was my own, but it came from someplace deep inside, unknown to even myself. If Ididn’t know any better, I would have thought it had come from the cave.
Lucas was watching me with a kind of softness that made my insides turn to melted chocolate. That was normal whenever Lucas was around, but there was something about the way I felt that didn’t seem quite natural. It was like my body was a pot of simmering water, and an invisible hand had turned up the heat, sending it into a full boil.
To break the tension, I said, “Edgardo warned us about magical traps around the house. Do you think this could be one?”
“I don’t think it’s dangerous. It feeds into the hot springs and all the rivers.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.”
“My power is sensing when there’s danger. I don’t feel it here.”
“So this is where you’ve been disappearing to since we got here?” I didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but it came out that way.
“Sometimes. Being in that house makes me feel like I’m suffocating.”
I had seen him and Amador outside that evening, the way he held her hand, andhefelt like he was suffocating? I almost laughed. “Not having a nice trip with Amador?”
Lucas’s eyes softened. He took in a breath like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. The small voice in my head encouraged me to act on my deepest desire to reach out and touch his face. I fought against that impulse and clenched my fists. Lucas, too, clenched his.
“At least you and Qian seem to be becoming friends,” I said.
“Is that what you think?”
