Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)(27)

“Fine,” I relented. “I was thinking about you. And how Baby Emmy would never have believed she’d be dancing with the hottest girl at Thistle Grove High. Especially not under her ancestor’s gimlet eye, in her family’s gorgeous, if somewhat creepy, ballroom.”

“It’s called the Mandrake Salon.”

“Of course it is. How exceedingly Avramov.”

She chuckled at that, tossing her head to clear a stray tendril creeping into her eyes.

“Next time, I’ll have to show you the Wormwood Suite. It is, I assure you, peak Avramov.”

“Who says there’ll be a next time?”

“Your cheeks do, Harlow.” She slid her fingers down the shorter side of my bob before tucking it behind my ear. “And so do I.”

The way she held my gaze made my heart speed up, until I could feel it beating at the base of my throat like a pair of tiny wings. So it was real, then, the magnetic pull I’d been afraid I was imagining. The spark that seemed to shiver in the air between us like something electrified.

“And for the record, back in high school, you were the one who never even looked at me,” she added.

“That’s because I was scared of you. I knew this girl who dated you for maybe three weeks our sophomore year, then built an entire Talia shrine after you broke up with her. We’re talking disturbingly elaborate. I think you probably ruined her for life.”

She burst out laughing, giving me another bitten-lip smile. “Fair enough. Baby Talia might have been a bad decision, once upon a time . . .”

An abrupt sadness blew across her face like a wayward breeze; her eyes went a little distant, as if she was unspooling some painful memory.

When she focused on me again, I caught a hint of vulnerability I would never have expected to see, not in someone like Talia Avramov.

“But maybe . . . maybe I’ve learned a thing or two since then,” she said, eyes shifting between mine. “Maybe I’m not such a bad decision anymore.”

Before I could think of what to say to that, Linden came tripping over to us, lips aquiver, tears glistening in her eyes.

“Gareth, he wanted to talk . . . and I just . . . I . . .” was as far as she got before dissolving into a muffled sob, hiding her face in her hands.

I stepped out of Talia’s arms, giving her a regretful look as I reached for Lin.

“You need doughnuts and coffee from Emilio’s,” I finished, tugging her close, just like I’d done any of the countless times I’d comforted her after a bad breakup. She nodded miserably against my shoulder, letting me take her weight, and for a moment it was like I’d never left, like everything between us had been perfectly preserved.

Just waiting for me to slip back into the Emmy-shaped space I’d left behind.

“I got you,” I told Linden, looping an arm around her waist, trying to stifle my unease at how natural all this felt. “Talia, do you want to come, too?”

She shook her head hastily, wrinkling her nose a little.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. This . . . type of thing isn’t really my scene.” She chewed on the inside of her lip, then patted Linden’s shoulder so gingerly I nearly laughed, as if emotional distress might have turned Lin into spun glass. “But be sure to ply her with lots of sugar for me. I’ve heard that helps.”

“On it,” I promised. “So, I’ll see you soon?”

She nodded, tipping me a glimmering wink over her shoulder as she turned away, fluttering one hand in a coy little wave.

Trust Talia Avramov to make even “goodbye” feel taboo, more a tantalizing promise than a farewell.





10





Upon My Mark!


The midday sun wavered on the surface of the lake like a sunken coin, caught in the reflected ring of trees that circled the water’s edge. Bright sprays of purple clustered all along the banks, the Scottish thistle that grew wild and abundant up here lending the town below its name.

I’d forgotten how tiny the town looked from here, as if you stood much higher than the 512 feet listed in the tourist guidebooks as the official height of Hallows Hill. It was another of those quirks of Thistle Grove—a lake vaster than it had any right to be, atop a hill that measured much smaller than it felt. It almost made sense, given that Lady’s Lake was Thistle Grove’s enchanted heart, the central font from which magic gushed like a geyser before flowing throughout the town. Theories abounded as to what made it so special; maybe a sorceress of untold power drowned here millennia ago, or some minor goddess claimed it for her own. Or the veil between this world and the next had torn somewhere far beneath the water’s surface, letting the magic come coursing in.

The lake was too deep to properly plumb—and even if it hadn’t been, there was probably nothing there to see. So the story remained that some lady, at some unknown time, rendered it magical through some unknown means. And just for kicks, threw in a whole mess of fancy fish you didn’t normally find in Illinois.

I stood on the south end of the lake, with Thistle Grove directly to my back. The combatants were arrayed at the other three cardinal points, an audience of family members clustered behind them at the tree line to cheer them on. They stood too far away for me to make out their faces—which was too bad, given how badly I was itching for a glimpse of Talia, whom I hadn’t seen since the night of the opening three days ago. Poor Linden’s mini breakdown had only devolved after we left The Bitters, and I’d ended up sleeping over at her place to make sure she was okay. She’d been too drunk and distraught to make much coherent sense, so I just sat with her instead, washing down Emilio’s famous day-old dozen with boxed white wine and letting her cry against me. I’d woken up back-to-back with her, with crumbs and frosting sticky in my hair, feeling more at peace than I had in years. There was something uniquely magical about sleeping cozied up with a best friend, a primal sense of safety and contentment that couldn’t really be explained.