“It’s perfect,” I say, followed by a sneeze. “Or it will be, after a good dusting.” I point to a smaller chandelier. “That one, too. It just needs a coat of spray paint. I can pretty much decorate the entire bookstore this way, can’t I?”
Hunter chuckles and leads me to another freestanding shelf crammed with books. “Are you sure your knack isn’t luck?”
“If it was, would you chop off my foot and make a keychain out of it?”
“Too big for my pocket.”
“Well, if it should come to that, please take the left. I’m a righty.”
“That would be quite the—”
He stops himself and looks away. I know this look now. He’s caught himself flirting with me when he’s actually angry with me for some reason that has nothing to do with me.
And I’m sick of it.
“What is this?” I ask. “You’re running hot and cold. Did I do something wrong?”
He squats and fiddles with the casters on a rolling bookshelf, avoiding my eyes. “No.”
“Then why do I feel like we’re dancing around something?Sometimes you flirt with me, and then you go quiet. Your jaw gets all tight. I’m worried you’re going to break a filling.”
At that, he looks up, his jaw tighter than ever. “I’m allowed to be quiet.”
“Sure you are. But you’re not allowed to be secretly angry at me. We just met. You seem really nice. I knowI’mnice. We even made tentative plans to go out. But then you found out I’m a Kirkwood—which is not my choice!—and now you’re mad. What’s the real problem?”
He doesn’t answer; he’s back at it with that caster. I squat down next to him and flick the switch that gets it moving. “There. Now you can’t pretend you don’t know how casters work. Stop avoiding me. Tell me what’s going on. Either we like each other, and something is standing between us, or maybe we just have to figure out how to get along while you fix my building. But I prefer honesty to shuffling around a big ol’ invisible elephant in the room.”
Hunter stands and takes a few steps away. He’s taut as a hunting dog, and I can tell he’d love nothing more than to hightail it out of here and away from me and my questions. But I’m also guessing he’s not a coward, and he knows that only cowards run.
“Is it because I’m a Kirkwood?” I ask again.
“Yes!” he practically shouts before reining himself back in. He paces back and forth, runs his hands through his hair. “I didn’t know the full story about what happened between our families, so I asked my grandmother. She and my grandfather raised me—because my mother is dead.” He looks up, his eyes piercing my heart with their anguish. “My mother died trying to fix your grandmother’s spell. She died because she tried to return the magic.”
The air goes still and cold. I glance up toward the apartmentas if Maggie is still there and I can go ask her if this is true. But she’s gone, and even if she weren’t, she hasn’t exactly been forthcoming on topics related to her past crimes.
I’m beginning to see why.
“Your mom died because of my grandmother?”
He nods slowly. “That’s the story. Apparently, after the potluck and the destroyed grimoires, people were still trying to remember the spells they knew best. If they worked, they wrote them down in new grimoires, but those spells were few and far between. There was a lot of distrust, and nobody shared those spells, sometimes even within families. All that experimentation caused some damage. We were in our first drought in ages, and the littlest part of a spell going wrong could start a fire or an explosion. That’s what happened to my mom. She was good at coming up with spells, which is a very rare talent, and she was trying to restore her grimoire. Something went wrong, and she died. Burned down the barn, too. I was maybe two, and my sister, Edie, was still a baby. I—” His voice breaks. “I remember the flames, but I don’t even remember my mom. And she would still be here if not for Maggie.”
The unfairness of it rises in my throat, but I swallow it down. Defensiveness isn’t going to get me anywhere right now. This man has lost his mother. That’s a tragedy I understand all too well.
I move toward him slowly, put a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry, Hunter.” When he doesn’t pull away, I edge closer, like I’m approaching a wild dog. I slide my arms around his sides and pull him close into a hug. “I’m so sorry. No one deserves that.”
At first, he holds himself stiffly, but then I feel him soften, almost melt into me. His head falls, his cheek against my hair.
“You’re very small,” he says, his voice soft and husky.
“ ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce,’ ” I whisper back.
“Do you have a book quote or pun for everything?”
“Pretty much. It makes me good at party games.”
We go quiet, and I rub his back like I used to do for Cait and Jemma when they were young and crying. In between sisters and parrots I have gotten very good at calming down upset creatures.
“It’s not your fault.” Hunter’s voice is soft. “I know it’s not your fault. You didn’t even know Maggie. I’ve been so mad for so long, but my grandma didn’t tell me the full story about my mom’s death until recently. I knew Maggie was the enemy and that I was supposed to stay away from you, but I didn’t know the full extent of it. I guess with Maggie gone, my anger transferred to you.” He pulls away a little and looks down at me. His arms are around me now. “But you didn’t do anything wrong. And you’re impossible to hate. You’ve got this…unsinkable optimism.” He shakes his head and dashes at his eyes with one hand. “I was not expecting to have emotions today.”
