Bastian picks up a pickle and chomps on it. “Cadence said it might be.”
“What might be?” I ask.
“The Quatrefoil,” Alma says.
“Oh.” I cough but still sound like I have a chunk of bread lodged in my throat when I say, “Who knows?”
Alma twirls a pale-auburn lock around her finger. “How awesome would it be if itwerereal?”
Her eyes twinkle at the prospect or from the amount of alcohol she’s consumed. Or maybe it’s Bastian’s proximity. I can tell Alma thinks he’s cute because she’s patted his cheek, touched his bicep, squeezed his shoulder more than once. I don’t think he minds my friend’s tactile attention seeing as how his entire torso is angled toward her.
Slate clears his throat. “According to the town’s history, magic can only be brought back by assembling four golden leaves.”
“What if they’ve been assembled?” Alma whispers conspiratorially.
I stiffen. Slate’s thumb brushes my spine, bumping into my bra strap before dipping back down. Stone-cold sober Cadence, who didn’t spend her afternoon digging up a grave, would have pulled away, but slightly tipsy Cadence, who helped slay a monster, melts into his touch.
His smell knocks into me anew, and I drag in a deep lungful. Even though it’s probably the wine, I feel like all my veins are dilating. I glance at him, find him already looking at me. The room blurs around the two of us—the soft rock song growled by Johnny Halliday becomes a faraway rumble and the faces of Alma and Bastian bleed together.
“Gold leaves,” I hear someone say in the haze of my mind.
It’s not Slate, because his lips are immobile. Only his jaw and Adam’s apple are moving, and his thumb. God, that thumb.
“If they’re real gold, I bet Slate could find them. I swear, my brother’s like a human metal detector. What do you say we all hunt them down?”
Slate’s finger freezes midswipe, and the world comes crashing back around us.
“No.” He turns his attention on Bastian. “Magic isn’t real. Your buddy Harry Porter isn’t real.”
“Potter,” Bastian corrects. “You know damn well it’s Potter.”
“Yeah, sure. Him.” Slate shifts in his seat, his arm falling away from the back of my chair.
“You’re a serious buzzkill sometimes.”
Slate rolls his shoulders back, which in his black cotton turtleneck, look especially wide. “Just keeping it real, little bro.”
“I know.” Bastian shoots him a smile that smacks of affection.
“How long have you two known each other?” I ask.
“Since I was eleven, and Slate was thirteen going on forty.”
Only two years apart . . . I would’ve guessed more.
Alma wraps a slice of Emmental around acornichonand bites into it. “And you managed to stay together in the system? Is that easy to do?”
“No. But if someone can make things happen—anythinghappen—it’s this guy.” Bastian hooks a thumb toward Slate.
Apparently, receiving compliments makes Slate uncomfortable, because he folds his arms.
“Do you know what he did when I got into college?” Bastian continues.
“Do tell.” Alma tops off everyone’s water and wine.
Slate is uncharacteristically quiet, and even though his eyes are fixed on Bastian, he seems elsewhere, lost in the past.
“He relocated to Marseille to live beside me. Bought an apartment where I have my own room whenever I want to get out of the dorms.”
