My attention’s drawn back to Edward as he pats my hand. “You look like you want to be loud and upset,” he says, pity lacing his voice. “That’s not who you are, is it, Addie?”
“But you said that you loved me,” I murmur, still trying to wrap my head around the situation.
He chuckles and pulls his hand off mine. “Did I?”
My face is burning hot. Rage boils in my veins, and my back is on fire. “You said that youlove me,” I repeat through gritted teeth.
He looks nervous now, glancing from table to table as he palms his hair. “You aren’t the sort to make a scene, right? You can either accept this news gracefully, or you can go the other way. Now, which will it be?”
My stomach coils tightly.
So, my magic never came in. On every witch and wizard’s thirteenth birthday, there’s themagicking.That’s a huge ceremony where all your friends and family come to watch you receive your magic. Every kid from a magical family goes through it.
I did, but when it came time for my magic to show itself, nothing happened.
Not one thing.
My family’s prominence in society made my inability to work magic humiliating. My six sisters who came behind me received theirs, but I was left hollow, a barren witch.
Worse, my incapacity to conjure magic has stuck with me—from my everyday life to the dating scene. Wizards only want to date witches, and humans are afraid of witches—they don’t say it, but I know it’s true.
So when I met Edward, I thought that he was perfect. I toldhim right off about my condition, but he didn’t care. Told me that it made me even more special.
So that was what I thought—until now.
I rise from the chair, the tag on my back irritating me so much that sweat’s trickling down my spine and face. Edward’s eyes are big as plates as he takes me in.
“Now, now,” he replies, tugging on his collar, “you don’t overreact. Think of your family,” he adds, looking smug at bringing up my prominent kin. “What would they say?”
I flatten my knuckles on the table. “You said that you love me,” I say loudly this time, forcefully, as if repeating the words will somehow make them true.
“I do-ish. But you have to understand my predicament.”
“That you’re a selfish pig?” People are glancing my way now. To hell with decorum. “You said that you loved me!”
“Addie”—he chuckles nervously—“can’t we discuss this quietly?”
“That’s why you brought me here—so that I wouldn’t make a scene. So that I wouldn’t throw water in your face.”
The anger inside of me is tightening something in my stomach. I once read in an old magic book that sometimes great stress can cause a person’s power to appear. Maybe this is my moment. Maybe for the first time in my life, it’ll work.
I focus on the coiling in my gut and close my eyes as Edward pleads.
“Darling, please sit down.”
“Don’t. Call. Me. Darling.”
I will all the butterflies that are dive-bombing around in my stomach, out. I push them away, focusing on the lights in the room, like I was told to do long ago at themagicking.
“Focus on one thing,”my mother said.“Put all your attention on it and watch what your magic will do.”
It didn’t do anything then, but it will now. I see all the bulbs in my mind’s eyes, I snap my eyelids open and?—
Nothing.
Edward smirks. “Did you—were you just trying to work magic?”
I grab my glass of ice water and toss the drink in his face. He jerks back.
