Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(74)
“Fine,” Morty ground out, stalking over to the chair where he’d slung his scarf and heavy duster. “Do you, milady. Whatever that even means to you.”
“Are you . . . are you going to tell Emmy?” I asked, my heart beating so hard it felt like it was quaking against my rib cage. “If I don’t?”
He shot me a bleak, revolted look over his shoulder. “Am I going to narc on you, you mean?” he bit off, every word edged with acid. “No, I won’t be ratting you out, never fear. Wouldn’t you just hit me with a nice dose of oblivion, anyway, if I even tried?”
“I would never do that to you,” I whispered, drowning in shame.
“Oh, is that right?” he shot back. “I think your record speaks for itself there. Besides, this is your mess, your problem—and your decision. I’m not going to be the one to take that away from you, the way your precious family is so happy to.”
“Thank you,” I breathed, closing my eyes at the notion of this temporary reprieve.
“But I also won’t be part of this,” he added, thrusting an arm into his coat. “Involved in any way. I want you to shield the bond; I don’t want to feel any more of you, not until you’ve sorted your shit out. Decided who it is you actually want to be. And I don’t know how to muffle it myself.”
I pressed my lips together, appalled at how gutted, how desolate and lonely, the idea of closing the bond down made me feel.
“Please don’t ask me to do that,” I whispered, feeling like he was threatening to cut a lifeline, the only tether I had to hold on to.
I need you, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
Don’t leave me like this.
Please stay.
“Like I said.” He looped the scarf around his neck, fixedly not looking at me. “This is your decision. Not mine. And not one I have any desire to live through vicariously, tell you what. So if you do the right thing, you know where to find me.”
“And if I don’t?” I managed. “Do the right thing, according to you?”
“Then we’re going to have to figure out how to break this bond.” He met my eyes then, unwavering, a painful, lancing spike of blue. “Because you won’t be the kind of person I want to be tied to in any way.”
23
To Duel or Not to Duel
As it was, I didn’t have long to marinate in my misery.
Emmy Harlow came to me, just three days later.
I was sitting at my desk at the Camelot office when one of the “squire” attendants announced her, my head spinning from lack of sleep. I’d gotten barely any rest the past few nights, tossing and turning in an anxious haze; caught up in the torment of my decision, what Morty had said to me. What was I going to do? Who did I want to be? Was I Nineve Cliodhna Blackmoore, daughter of the Blackmoore elder and sister to the scion, a faithful avatar of the family? Or was I Nina, Jessamyn Singer’s best friend and confidante, the Bo to her Kenzi? The real and complicated and ostensibly appealing person Morty had begun to care for, before I’d screwed things up with him so royally?
Somehow I still didn’t have the first fucking clue, and attempting to line-edit contracts while the letters swam in front of me hadn’t helped a bit.
“Good morning, Victor Harlow,” I said carefully as the squire ushered Emmy in, motioning her toward the leather chairs in front of my glass slab of a desk. Keeping my face carefully smooth, as though my heart wasn’t pounding in my ears, my hands trembling in my lap. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“?‘Emmy’ will be fine,” she said, shooting a brief smile at me as she sat, shrugging off her textured black faux fur coat and folding it across her lap.
When she’d returned from Chicago, her hair had been cut in a sleek, asymmetrical bob, but she’d grown it out some since returning to Thistle Grove for good. Now it was longer, lighter, and wavier, closer to Delilah’s shade; a pretty, striated mix of browns that complemented her dark green eyes well. More like what I remembered from when we’d gone to school together, though not quite as leonine. Both looks had suited her, but this softer middle ground felt somehow more authentic, truer to her.
There was nothing soft, though, about her outfit. She was wearing an angular cowl-necked sweater and slick, snakeskin-patterned leggings, as well as thigh-high boots with a heel that clicked sharply against my rose-veined marble floor as she recrossed her legs. All black, I noted to myself. Even her lip gloss was a deep plum, darker than normal. As if she’d come dressed (stylishly) for war, or someone’s funeral.
The energy was strongly of the “Cersei comes to burn the Sept” persuasion, at any rate.
“Of course. Emmy.” I tilted my head, the picture of outward composure, my stomach roiling beneath it. “And please, call me Nina, too. How can I help?”
“I’m here about Tomes & Omens,” she said, her pretty face falling into grim, almost dangerous lines. “We had a magical assault there three days ago. Delilah—my cousin—was struck with an oblivion glamour. One that seems to have somehow undone most of the wards that protected our books, as well.”
“I see,” I said, trying to keep my breathing even. “And how do you think we might assist you with that?”