Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(63)
“I want to know something weird about you,” he’d said, smiling up at me. By then, we’d both washed our faces, but stubborn specks of glitter were still adhering to his eyebrows, shimmering at his temples as they caught the cold moonlight streaming through my bedroom window. “I mean, even weirder than the fact that you’d admit to having enjoyed Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda not under pain of torture.”
“To be clear, I didn’t just say I enjoyed it. I said it was my favorite.”
So he’d discovered that I had very large pupils, and that they were significantly different sizes—something that always shook ophthalmologists with the certainty that I was stroking out, instead of having just been made that way—and that I couldn’t eat sushi with chopsticks to save my life. I’d learned that he was a strong swimmer but had a phobia of drowning, and a fear of geese from having nearly lost a finger to one when he was a kid. He’d also told me more about how Marisol was one of his favorite people in the world; she’d been the one to paint his face in the picture I’d seen in his dating profile. Before Sol was born, he’d been convinced he didn’t want children of his own, but seeing her grow up was slowly turning him on to the idea, though he still wasn’t sure he was cut out for it.
“How does that work, anyway?” he’d asked me. “When your bloodlines mix, and you have, say, Blackmoore-Harlow kids? What kind of magic does the kid inherit?”
“It’s unpredictable,” I’d replied. “No one knows exactly how those genetics work. The new witch’s magic will incline one way or the other of its own volition—and then they’ll take that last name, even if they’re part of both lines. Cleaner that way, though it still leads to kind of a messy family tree for all of us.”
At some point, we’d gotten out of bed for long-past-midnight snacks, which we’d eaten standing at my counter, torn hunks of baguette dipped in olive oil and shaved Parmesan. I’d even played him some of our favorite songs from various musicals and the Battlestar score on my baby grand, because we were both apparently fine with being that insufferable couple.
My bed had still smelled like him this morning; a mix of that distinctive cologne, the sweeter, almost floral product he used on his hair, and the natural marzipan scent of his skin. It was a minor miracle I’d even managed to unravel myself from those tantalizingly Morty-smelling sheets at all to go to work. If he hadn’t had plans with his father today, we might very well have spent the rest of the day tangled up together, perfectly content to see how deep we could dive into the bond, explore the contours of it.
The vibe had been so inviting that even Nadja of Antipaxos had emerged from her antisocial underbed lair to curl up by our feet—another minor miracle, as far as I was concerned.
Now, Gareth and I were in the Tintagel library, in a thus-far completely useless effort to dig up any information on the goddess statue in the lake and what she might possibly want with me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, closing my own tome with a sigh. It was a comprehensive dictionary of Celtic deities compiled by some long-ago Blackmoore with an unusually scholarly bent. Our family wasn’t famous for our contributions to magical literature; we tended to be more interested in just doing the damn thing with a lot of pizzazz and flair, instead of fussily writing about it after the fact. When it came to a penchant for books and academics, I was definitely an outlier. “You’re right. I’m just tired, is all. And a little distracted, maybe.”
“So I take it you were with him last night,” Gareth said dryly, in tones of profound resignation and mild disgust, presumably at the notion of his sister with anyone. “Your inexplicably witchbound bartender.”
This time, I only had to glare to bring him up short.
“Okay, okay, Mortyyyyy,” he corrected himself, wincing at my expression. At least he was capable of learning. “Though for real, I have no idea what his last name is.”
“It’s Gutierrez. As you should know, considering we tried to buy his family’s bar out from under them in the none-too-distant past. Part of Lyonesse’s Camelot expansion project.”
“Oh, shit!” His eyebrows soared. “I definitely should have put that together—it was my idea, actually. I’ve been to that bar enough to know how much foot traffic that area gets; pretty sure I suggested it to our lady mother, back when she was still in the planning stages. I like the spot, don’t get me wrong. But I kinda figured we could do something cooler with it.”
“Ughhh.” I dropped my head in my hands, massaging my temples. “Well, that’s extra terrible. Yet another reason for you and Morty to hate each other’s guts.”
“And this matters to you now?” Gareth said, with one of his rare but piercing flashes of insight. “That he and I get along?”
I lifted my head, rested my chin wearily in the cup of my palm.
“It does, actually,” I admitted. “You’re my brother. And he’s, well. Witch bond aside, I’m really starting to like him, quite a lot. And before you rip into me with the mockery, I understand we’re not the most obvious of pairings, at least surface-level. But he’s . . . let’s just say he’s more than he seems. In a way I really enjoy, turns out.”
“Come on, Nina, I’m not that much of a dick. I wasn’t going to say anything like that,” he said quietly, uncharacteristically restrained. “I understand what it’s like, you know.”