“Happy birthday, Alice.”
Surprise sparked in her gaze at hearing that—before she buried it. “Thank you.”
She turned to leave.
“Stay with me.” The words scraped out of me before I could stop them.
She stopped but turned. Wariness flared in those blue eyes. It stung more than it should have.
I patted the seat next to me. “Sit next to me.”
She scanned the cavern and shook her head. “No kissing.”
I should have been disappointed. Instead, something loosened in my chest. She wasn't leaving. That was enough—for now.
“Then what would you want?” I kept my voice light, but my mind was already racing. If she sat down, if she stayed, I wasn't sure I could keep my hands to myself. Birthday or not.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. All I could think about was what Tinker Bell said.”
Tinker Bell. The witch who'd raised her, trained her, kept secrets from her. I didn't trust anyone who hoarded information—especially about magic as powerful as Alice's.
“What did she tell you?”
She glanced around the cavern nervously and wrung her hands. "I'm not sure I should tell you."
Now I really wanted to know. Secrets had a way of getting people killed in this realm.
“Why?”
A tear slid down her cheek. “Because you’ll turn me out like the coven wanted to.”
Turn her out.She was sitting here, trembling, waiting for me to throw her away like everyone else had.
“Please.” I kept my voice steady. “Tell me what Tinker Bell said.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, shrinking inward. “That my power could come into its full fruition. That if I can’t control it, I could go nuclear. Destroy everything.” Her voicecracked. “That’s why the coven wanted me gone. I’m a bomb waiting to go off.”
I studied her—this small, terrified witch who’d saved my life three times over.
“Alice. When did you first stop time?”
She blinked. “What?”
“When did it happen? The first time.”
“I...” She frowned. “Here. In the Elder Dimension. I’d never done it before.”
“And you did it on purpose. You controlled it.” I let that sit between us. “You’ve been here a few days and you’re already doing what twenty-one years in your world couldn’t teach you.” I held her gaze. “You’re not a bomb, Alice. You’re not out of control. You’re finallyfindingit.”
Her eyes seemed to go distant. “Find me,” she mumbled as she slowly sat down next to me. She was so close—close enough to kiss, to touch.
“Maybe it wasn’t me you heard in the mirror. Maybe it was about finding your magic.”
She looked up at me, her lips parting. Like the idea had never occurred to her. “You really think that could be it?”
The eagerness in her voice and the excitement in her eyes made her even more desirable. I leaned forward. “Yeah, I do. It’s not easy to do magic in the Elder Dimension. You have stopped time twice.”
She looked down at her palms as if she’d never seen them before. “But I didn’t know what I was doing.”
