Fuck, that was unexpected.
My dick hardened too, just from a flash of memory of our last night in London.
Rowan was as vital to me as breathing. For two years I’d fought to get that guy sober, and then to start the treatment he needed. I’d seen him go through every shitty thing it was possible to go through.
I couldn’t save Keegan. Helping Rowan made that desperate ache in my bones recede until I practically couldn’t feel it at all. He felt as though I saved him, but it was the other way around – it was Rowan who savedme.
And now with thisthingbetween the three of us…I didn’t know where it was going to lead. I’d never considered that I might be anything other than heterosexual. I’d never even imagined another guy’s dick in my mouth. But when I looked at Rowan, I didn’t see another guy. I saw my best friend, someone who knew me better than I knew myself. He was a part of me, inked in my flesh like a tattoo. We’d already been through everything else together. The only thing that was a surprise to me now was that it had taken us this long.
Because we needed Maeve.
She was the catalyst. She was the thread that bound us all together. From the moment she walked through the doors of Briarwood, she was remaking us all, breaking apart our walls and fitting us together again. We were all healing, together.
Almost all of us.
My eyes fixed on another face in the seat across the aisle, another guy I’d tried to save.Arthur.He wore a long-sleeved metal shirt, hiding his forearms. Was he cutting again? He seemed fine, joking around with Flynn and Blake. I hadn’t noticed any erratic outbursts. He hadn’t set anything on fire.
Maybe that was the problem. Arthur always said the cutting wasn’t about wishing he was dead. It was about taking back control. I had no idea what he meant by that, but he seemed to be in control now. Or he gave off the illusion of control.
Watch him. Don’t let him spiral down that path again. We need Arthur the warrior now more than ever.
Maeve leaned against my shoulder, jolting me out of my dark thoughts. “It’s good to be going home.”
Home.Home to Briarwood. Apart from the time I’d gone to Arizona, this had been the longest I’d been away from Briarwood in years. It had been more fun than I’d expected – especially given the circumstances – and I felt proud of what I’d managed to achieve from outside my library. Maeve was right, you could learn a lot from scientific exploration, and experiments could teach us things we couldn’t gain from books.
I hoped like hell the experiment she had planned for when we got home would work. We wouldn’t get another chance.
Speaking of libraries and books…I opened my backpack and ran my fingers over the book Dad had given me. It was a slim volume of poetry by the Romantics – Byron and Keats and Shelley and all of their ilk – the kind of volume a well-to-do Victorian lady would carry on her person for long train journeys or to read aloud at a dinner party. “I found this in a junk shop the other day, and I thought you’d like it,” he had said softly as he handed it to me. “You always did have your head in the clouds.”
Dad.I couldn’t believe he was back in my life, and how easily we’d fallen into the same patterns, the same roles. We spent most of our dinner in Oxford arguing over mediaeval scholarship and I couldn’t stop smiling. My heart ached to think of how many years or arguments we’d lost.
Everything was changing. Things were getting better, but was it just the apology at the end of the world, the deathbed confession? Had we built ourselves up only to lose at the final moment?
Not if Maeve has anything to say about it.
We got off at the Crookshollow station. The place was deserted. Even the ticket officer had gone on break or something. The sun shone bright, but my legs ached from being crammed into a narrow seat and we had Kelly’s monolithic rucksack to contend with. I asked Flynn to call us an Uber, but he said the app had a glitch. “I can see cars available, but it’s like none of them can see us. Even if Arthur was out in the middle of the street in a black lace teddy, we’d still be invisible.”
I sighed.Of course, it falls on me to sort this out.“Fine. I’ll call a taxi.”
I dialled the number of the local cabbie. He picked up on the third ring. “Hey, this is Corbin Harris. I’d like a taxi from the Crookshollow railway station out to Briarwood House. We’re going to need to make two trips and?—”
“I don’t give rides to sorcerers,” the driver snapped. The phone clicked off. I hit redial, but the line went straight to voicemail. I stared at the phone screen, listening to the company voicemail message. What the hell just happened?
I glanced up at the street. Pedestrians coming toward us veered off to cross the road. An elderly woman on the other side of the street stared at us from over top of her shopping bags. A guy took a wide berth around us on the path, crossing his chest and muttering something under his breath.
An uncomfortable sensation crawled over my skin.
“Corbin?” Maeve gripped my arm. “Why do I feel like they’re about to get out the tar and feathers?”
“I have no idea.” I picked up my pack and slung it over my shoulders. “But I have a feeling we’d better get out of here soon, before they discover the garden store has a two-for-one deal on pitchforks.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MAEVE
Corbin called Clara, who closedAstarteand came in a tiny Mini to pick us up. She took Arthur, Kelly, and Kelly’s ridiculous backpack up to the castle so Arthur could pick up his car and come back and get the rest of us. We sat down outside the railway station, eating Hobnobs and Cadburys from the concession stand and watching the pedestrians on the street shun us.
“Witches!” a boy yelled as he zoomed past on his bike.
