He waves as he walks off. “Next time, send someone who knows what they’re talking about. Someone who can actuallydotheir job.”
Then he dismisses me like I’m a big nobody idiot.
Well, I’m not a big nobody idiot.
I collect the mess of papers and chase him down, feeling like a stupid Stone Maddox fangirl who doesn’t know when to go home.
I jump in front of him. “Down there.”
“What?”
I point down the hill. “There’s a dark patch of earth.”
“And what’s that got to do with me?”
“See? The earth isdyingbecause the lines are affected by your materials.”
He stares in the distance with a baffled expression. “What are you talking about?”
I point again. “Over there.”
“First of all,” he counters, “I know for a fact the ley lines originate near Wadley Farms.”
“There’s more than one set,” I argue.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because . . . everyone knows that.”
“No, they don’t. Even if youthinkwhat you’re seeing is a dark patch of earth because the ley lines are getting scrambled or whatever, you’re not. That’s normal earth. Anormalpatch. If everyone blamed brown grass on ley lines, we’d all be crazy.”
“Maybe I’m crazy.”
He comes nose to nose with me. “Maybe you are.”
But I’m not.
An ache blooms in my temple. I rub it to ease the throb. “I bet that if I snooped around, I would discover the magic is beginning to deaden in town. Magic needs nature to thrive. It needs natural things. All ofthis”—I gesture to the concrete, the synthetic materials—“is killing it. I’m sure we can come up with some alternatives, something that will work.”
He walks backward, nearly stepping on the lambicorn, who bounds away just in time. “Do you have any idea how much money we’ve already spent? How much more material we’ve ordered? You’re asking me to destroy hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of building and start over. Have you lost your mind?”
I flinch. His words slap. I’ve dealt with nasty people before, but his insult stings.
I open my mouth. Close it again.
Then I reply coldly, “I don’t appreciate you talking to me that way.”
“And I don’t appreciate being told by a pencil-pushing bureaucrat I’m supposed to bow down to sometheory. This! This isallmy brother and I have to prove we can succe—Dammit!Why do I say too much around you?”
His words strike me hard and there’s a beat where our gazes lock, our breathing syncs, and the pulsing ley lines hum through me.
It feels like a purr rippling through my veins, and for once, my fingers aren’t sparking. Just stillness. Just him and me.
God help me.
And as quickly as the sensation flares, it vanishes.
Stone’s jaw tightens, instantly reminding me that we are two people on opposite sides of this argument.
