“Someone… ?”
Celyn cringed as he tried to finish as delicately as possible. “Someone of limited means, I meant.”
Briar choked on his outrage. He’d worked hard, shared his lofty aspirations with Celyn, and all the while Celyn thought he’d been blowing smoke? Watching Celyn glance toward the pubgoers, another realization dawned. The secrecy of their relationship was traditional—no need to raisethe expectations of friends and family that he and Celyn might marry by making their dalliance public—but it had also served to conveniently separate Briar from Celyn’s network of wealthier, more influential personalities. The reality settled over Briar like a lead shroud.
“You’re ashamed of me.” He could see the truth of it in Celyn’s face.
“Hey, now. It’s not like that.”
“It is!” Briar’s voice rose in pitch. “I thought you’d been avoiding me because we weren’t serious, but actually you were just, what? Embarrassed to have wasted so much time with apeasantlike me?”
At the increase in volume, Celyn’s head snapped around to the bar again. He raised a quelling hand. Briar sidestepped it, moving out of the alcove into full view of the patrons. His blood boiled. The marks on his skin itched. He remembered Celyn tracing his scars with a finger, telling Briar they were a mark of bravery, to practice a taboo magic that many found disgraceful. The warm memory turned fallow with the seed of doubt that any of it had been honest.
Briar’s hurt curdled into anger. If Celyn feared their conversation would draw attention, he had insulted the wrong man. Briar lived for attention, and he was immune to embarrassment.
Louder than before, he said, “So all of this? All the nights we shared? They meant nothing to you?”
“Wait, no, that’s not it.”
Celyn made to grab his arm. Briar danced away, backing out of the alcove and into the full light of the pub. Conversations hushed to listen. The witches watching rugby on the television turned to look. Their audience captivated, Briar let loose.
“You said I was your honeybee!” He flung the saccharine pet names like missiles. “Your pretty little secret! Your sweet candy peach! And all along you just wanted me for mybody?”
He heard someone snort into their cocktail.
“Briar, stop it! You wanted to talk? Let’s talk. Come here?”
Ignoring his pleas, Briar puffed up to his not-insubstantial height and threw up his hands as theatrically as he could. “Well, I am not some trifle!”
“Briar, please—”
“Some toy to be played with and discarded when you’ve grown bored!”
“Please, I will pay you to shut up!”
“And now you treat me like some strumpet who can be bought with your big, fat—”
“Briar!”
“—bank balance!” Turning on his heel with a swirl of his cloak, Briar delivered the final verse of his punishment over his shoulder. “Goodbye, Celyn. Icurseyou. May all your socks lose their matching pair.”
This parting shot gave him infinite satisfaction. Amongst witches, flinging curses at enemies ranged from harmless pranks to generations of grave misfortune. Briar’s curse was somewhere in between, neither friendly nor grave enough to befit a rival or nemesis. It was an inconvenience. A condemnation of Celyn as too unimportant for something grander.
That Briar hadn’t used actual magic was irrelevant. Celyn might still have matching socks tomorrow, but he’d have a harder time locating his dignity.
CHAPTER 2
Briar woke to Vatii squawking in time with his phone. It snarled across his bedside cabinet, vibrating to his alarm. It took several flailing attempts to untangle from the blankets and grope the phone off his bed-side. He caught it before it plummeted to the floor.
With magic at their disposal, human technology might not have been strictly necessary, but some inventions performed better than ravens and soothsaying in ponds. His old flip phone had a penchant for amassing messages, notifying him of them all at once. But he couldn’t afford a new one, and snapping it shut appealed to his sense of drama. Plus, it was purple and had lots of dangly star charms.
He flipped it open to dismiss the alarm. Several texts from Celyn awaited him.
>>what the hell Briar?
>>everyone’s asking what happened with us now
>>the whole night is ruined
