Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(25)

“No. Just smart enough to know that people are always in it just for themselves and you can’t really trust other witches.” There are at least twenty people in the room. Any one of them could be a Council spy, a double agent like me. Tilda, though, is completely oblivious to the prospect. Her family may think they’re protecting her, but they won’t always be around to watch out for her—so when that curtain comes down, it’s going to be even harder for her to stay out of the Council’s clutches. “Not all of us are spoiled Sherwoods who get to take the easy way out by believing that the world is full of rainbows made out of sunshine.”

She snorts in disbelief. “What a sad little world you live in.”

It isn’t sad, it’s reality. Depending on other people is what ends up getting you tossed into The Beyond. The fact that Tilda doesn’t realize that just goes to show how sheltered she is and why she needs me.





Chapter Twelve


    Tilda . . .



I did it.

Again.

What is it about Gil that has me making a complete fool of myself in public every time I’m near him?

As soon as the dome lifted at the magical misfits meeting, I hurried out of there without even staying for the eye of newt muffins Eli had brought and hustled my way home as if goblins were nipping at my heels. I’d blown kisses to my family gathered around the cauldron in the kitchen—what, it isn’t like I could help with any of the magic going on there—and sprinted up the stairs, followed the markings that lead to my section of the house, and grabbed the emergency chocolate.

Fine.

I’m a big chicken. Bwak. Bwak. No wonder Barkley won’t leave me alone. Even now the rooster is scratching at my closed and locked bedroom door.

“Go away, Barkley,” I grumble. “I’m wallowing in misery.”

Flopping back on my bed, I let out a huge sigh. I cannot keep running into the guy my sister’s destined to marry. Maybe. If I read the cards right. Plus there’s the fact that I do something stupid almost every time I see him. Oh yeah, and the fact that he talks shit about me when I’m not around. Who needs that? Not me. I hate him. Can’t stand him.

And yet, you still want to kiss him anytime he’s within reach.

What in the hell is going on, Matilda Grace?

It’s getting beyond awkward. Fine, scratch that, it has been awkward since the beginning because I’m me and that’s pretty much my M.O.

Still, all I have to do is close my eyes and my whole body is buzzing again with that sense of something so good, so right, so fucking perfect when he looks at me that it’s like . . . well . . . magic—or at least what I imagine it’s like to have a spell rushing through you. And I’d almost kissed him. Again. In public.

Fates preserve me, there is no way this is going to end well. I have got to make sure to avoid him no matter what. That shouldn’t be that hard.

“Yeah, completely,” I mumble to myself because, yes, I’ve been driven to talking to myself. “It’s not like you see him every time you turn around.” Just at the bookshop and tea emporium, the coffee shop, the grocery store, the magical misfits meeting, and everywhere else I seem to be, including Griselda’s front porch that one time when I nearly slammed into him in my rush, which the doorknob cat loves to remind me about every other visit to my godmother. “So everywhere.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Great. Now I’m answering myself.

The air shimmers on the other side of my open window as the wind sweeps in the smell of salt and old books. My stomach drops as my pulse kicks into high gear, anticipation whooshing through me like an unexpected gust of wind. There is only one person I know whose magic has that scent.

“Really?” I ask the ceiling as if the wood beams are going to fess up an explanation for this latest level of hell.

Excitement and dread doing a two-step through my body, leaving me unsure if I want to jump up or throw up, I rise up to a sitting position on my bed and focus my attention on the tiny balcony outside my window. It’s only big enough to hold a couple of containers full of hollyhocks, foxgloves, and moonflowers, with a single, slightly straggly lavender bush thrown in for good measure. Standing on the delicate wrought iron balcony is out of the question, but there Gil is, right between the purple foxgloves and the white moonflowers just starting to open. I take a closer look. His edges are just the slightest bit wonky, like an image of a person that’s been photoshopped but the background didn’t get the same level of attention to detail.

So it’s not Gil on my balcony—which is good for him, because my balcony is not builder rated to hold a six-four guy who, according to my recon efforts this evening (fine, my inability not to touch him), has a whole lot of muscle underneath the sexy professor aesthetic he’s got going. It’s Gil’s astral projection, a shadowy almost-real version of him right down to the perma-smirk that annoys me in part because I’m starting to like it.

Ugh.

What is wrong with me?

The only answer to that one being so, so much.

“You ran away,” Gil says.

“I did not.”

Yeah, you only skipped home at a very fast speed with your metaphorical tail tucked between your legs.

“Really?” His smirk gets smirkier. “I happen to know the eye of newt muffin is your favorite, and Eli made three whole dozen of them.”