“Are you going to be all right here when there’s so much magic around?” I ask softly. “Tomorrow too?”
When we’ll be face-to-face with more sorcerers.
He takes a considered look around, tilting his head from side to side like he’s seeing it all for the first time.“Strangely enough, I am.”Shifting in his seat until his arm is resting over the back of where I’msitting, he gently plays with a tendril of my hair, straightening it and then letting it go loose again.“It’s oddly freeing, knowing that there’s nothing more they can get from me, even if they wanted to.”
Now that he mentions it, I know exactly what he means. Normally, I’d be doing everything I could to avoid being anywhere near sorcerers of any kind. Now though, it turns out I’ve spent the past week in close proximity to one and I’ll be facing up against his snobby family tomorrow.
I guess that now that my nightmare has already come true, these particular sorcerers can do whatever they like. It’s not as though they can take Noush even further away from me.
And better than that, we’ll be the ones using them for information.
“Plus, I’m not going to be facing them alone,”Aster adds. “It makes a big difference.”
My eyes flick over his face again as I take a deep breath and feel inside me for the dual heartbeats that aren’t my own. Both feel as though they’re tucked away inside my chest for safekeeping.
And I’ll do whatever I have to until we’re all reunited again.
Chapter 21
Aster
I’m trapped in a nightmare. Three ice-cold pairs of eyes glare at us from across the breakfast table and I find my appetite has deserted me. Three pairs ofsorcerers’eyes.
We’re in the restaurant of a different hotel from the one we stayed in last night. This one’s equally luxurious but is apparently closer to Jack’s family home. When Reva asked him why we weren’t meeting there, he laughed.
“Trust me. This is going to be awkward enough without us venturing into that crypt.”
Now we’re sitting across from them, I can see exactly what he means. There’s so little movement in Jack’s mother’s face, it’d be easy enough to mistake her for a statue if it wasn’t for the raw blue flames shooting out of her eyeballs whenever she looks at her son. She has a blood-red drink in front of her, one that’s somehow the same colour as her hair and her lips, which she’s sipping from instead of eating anything. Beside her, Jack’s father sits looking more corpse than man. And on his mother’s other side is Jack’s brother, who is like a slightly shorter version of their father.
Jack’s wearing the same horrendous purple suit as yesterday, except this time he has both wrists laced with bangles that jingle every time he moves.
The sound is made only more obvious by the distinct lack of conversation around our table. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Jack wasmaking his bangles jangle on purpose since his father visibly winces every time he moves, which in turn makes Jack smirk.
“Why is no one talking?” Reva mutters to me. “Please stop me if I start making inappropriate jokes.”
All around us are other diners, talking in low voices and clinking cutlery, but no one from our table has said a word for at least five minutes.
Five endless minutes.
We’re all dressed in suits that Jack appeared with this morning and I can’t remember ever having worn a suit in my life before. I have to keep shrugging my shoulders to dislodge the tightness of the shirt at my windpipe. I’m not the only one either, Torin’s looks at least two sizes too small and looks about ready to burst his way out of it.
At least I’m not the only one who’s uncomfortable.
“If his mother doesn’t stop looking at Torin like that, I’m going to scratch her eyes out,” Reva continues under her breath.
She’s the only one of us who looks remotely comfortable in what she’s wearing. She’s wearing a bottle-green dress that makes her hazel eyes look almost otherworldly. It also leaves a lot of her shoulders bare, and I can’t stop my eyes from darting to them every time I look at her.
It also seems to have caught Jack’s brother’s attention, judging by the way he can’t take his eyes off her.
Clenching my fingers around my fork, I fight the urge to do some eye gouging of my own and dart a look down the table. Jack and Torin have both piled their plates high and are both eating with their heads down, entirely engrossed in eating.
Jack’s father says something, and Reva squeezes my thigh under the table, causing me to jolt in surprise. She snorts softly, quickly spelling out the words onto my thigh so that I can keep track of the conversation.
“Son, such a pleasure to see you again,” Jack’s father says, fooling absolutely no one that he’s speaking the truth. “Do you know how long you’ll be in the city for?”
Jack swallows a mouthful of food, wiping his hand over his mouth so that his bracelet tinkles obnoxiously. His face flips between emotions so quickly, it’s almost an art. One second, there’s a flash of feigned confusion, and then he’s smiling blandly at his father.
“Oh, not long.”
