She picked up a pan that was still miraculously clean and looked at herself in its bottom, and saw that she had somehow managed to put a giant handprint across her face. It made her look like she had been mugged by a monstrous child.
And that wasn’t even the weirdest thing. No, the weirdest thing was definitely the fact that all her clothes were somehow inside out. Even though she’d not so much as touched a button on her high-waisted jeans or a sleeve of her sloppy sweater. It had just happened, all on its own, in the middle of all this chaos.
So it was no wonder that Seth only managed a few words when he could finally speak.
“Cassie,” he gasped. “You… you’re so… you’re just…” Then before she could rush in and stop whatever was coming after those ellipses, he reached out a hand. He let it drift through the air, to about an inch away from her cheek.
And she saw what he was talking about.
Her glow moved with his fingers. It trailed after them in sparkly tendrils. And he followed those tendrils, with eyes like dinner plates and his lips all parted and his chest heaving. As if what he saw was so shocking that it put him through an aerobic workout inside.
It took him forever to gather himself. “I guess that book really helped, huh?” he said finally, and oh the urge to replyit did, but so did youwas extremely strong. She had to bite it back. To thinkof her purpose here: to show him that he didn’t have to give her anything. That he could go if he wanted to, and that would be okay, and he wouldn’t lose anything.
“It did. In fact, it helped me make this for you,” she said, and held it out for him.
But he just looked puzzled.
“Some magic Vaseline?”
“It’s not magic Vaseline. Or maybe it kind of is, because I guess it helps werewolf injuries. You just smear it on, and it’ll activate superfast and very strongly. And you only need a tiny little bit too, so that one jar should last you forever.”
“And by forever, you mean—”
“Six months, maybe.”
He took the jar, turned it over in his hands. “Wow. That is a long time,” he said, in a voice that sounded just a little something. Relieved, maybe? She couldn’t be sure. But it was close enough that she could go with her plan.
“Yeah. So, you know. You don’t have to help me, if you don’t want.”
Only now he was looking at her weirdly.
Half frowning, half amused.
“Why on earth would I not want to?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we have a fight and we hate each other.”
The frown deepened. “So you think that’s going to happen. You can feel that it might.”
“What? No. God, no. I just wanted to show you that you don’t have to worry if we do. That you have something now that will keep you okay, always. That I would want to keep you okay, even if things went bad,” she said, then couldn’t help hesitating. Because there was more to say, but she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to say it. Until she looked up at him, and saw that his expression was just so suddenly full of earnest emotion. So touched and surprised. Really, he deserved to hear. “In fact, you know, I kind of wanted to say that before. When we made the deal. But I don’t know, I felt embarrassed. And like it was too big a thing to promise someone who might… hurt me again. Or at least to promise it out loud.”
“But you promised it in your heart.”
“Yeah, I guess. Yes. That’s what I did.”
“Do you want to know what I felt in mine?”
“I think I know. I think that’s why you gave me the book,” she said, with just a hint too much pain. Then she braced for whatever his reaction was going to be. Agreement, maybe. A few words that suggested he did actually want rid of her. And just as she was starting to never want to be rid of him, too.
But all she actually got was this startled look. A softening of his gaze.
And then a sigh, and he started speaking. Oh god, he started saying a lot of things.
“Cassie, I almost didn’t give it to you,” he began, which was enough on its own to tell her where this was going. Yet still, he had more for her. He had so much. “But not because I was worried you’d never make me another potion. You have to know that I knew you would anyway. That I know you well enough to already guess everything you just told me. No, no, it was the idea of losing you that made me want to never hand it over. It was the idea of not having a chance to get my friend back. And the only way I managed to ignore that terror was because you being the person you should be means more to me than my own misery. I’d give up anything, anything at all, even something I want that much, if it returns to you what I took.”
She went to speak, once he was done.
But she couldn’t get anything to come out.
