Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(79)
“Nice sarcasm.”
“I learned from Em.” I brushed at imaginary lint on my shoulder and fake-polished my nails on my sleeve.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He flashed me a grin before tracing the moon’s silhouette with his finger. “What letter is the moon making right now? C or D?”
That was a weird question, but I gamely played along. “It looks like a C.”
“C, like crescendo. That means the moon is waning. Decrescendo-ing. Because the moon just lied to you.”
“Huh.”
“So now you know.”
He started walking again and I hurried to come up alongside him. Damn his longer legs. “How did you learn that trick?”
Dev gave me a sheepish smile. “Every time I visited my grandparents on their plantation in India, my grandfather would wake me up and drag me out to the fields in the middle of the night to teach me about the stars. He used to be an astronomer.” He lifted an open palm to the sky. “The sky there was kind of like this, with no artificial lights to fade it out.” This Dev was quiet and serious, almost reverent, while he spoke.
I could just picture little Dev in his pajamas staring at the sky. “It sounds beautiful.”
“It is. I love going there—it’s kind of magical. It has the biggest, clearest sky on the planet. The poinsettia bushes lining the drive to their house are as tall as you. Butterflies are everywhere. And when the bougainvillea is in bloom, it’s like snow is swirling around you as you walk up to the house.”
“You should write that down. I’d definitely love to read about that.”
“Nah, I’m not good at writing. I’m good at making words and music come to life.”
“The acting thing. That’s why you and Lexie get along so well.”
He faltered a step and tried to cover it up with a cool expression. “And me and Em and all the other theatre geeks.”
“Yeah, but aren’t you and Lexie closer than you and Em?” I asked, forcing my tone to stay light. I picked up a rock and tossed it into the lake so it made a satisfying plunk. Like my heart in a minute.
“Lexie’s cool, but she can get kind of needy. I don’t really know why she invited herself over to our lunch table like she did.” Our lunch table. I froze midway through throwing another rock. Dev’s expression smoothed into something that was frustratingly impossible to read again. “Why are we talking about Lexie?”
This time, I shrugged. Remember, no matter what, you still didn’t interest him enough to ask you out, a little voice warned me. But the tiniest bubble of hope rose up in me. “I’m not sure. C’mon, we have kids to scare.” I kept my eyes on the lake so he couldn’t really see my face or the tiny smile that threatened to break through. Maybe he really is just shy.
Golden series book 2: Glittering Chapter 30, PG. 372
Maeve’s breath came in short bursts, freezing in little clouds that were barely visible in the twilight. It was impossible for the Dullahan to miss her, considering she was standing in the middle of the road, but a primal part of her wanted to hold her breath and hide any sign she was there. With shaking hands, she pulled off her golden torque and closed her eyes as she rubbed its braided surface one last time before slipping it into her bag. The Dullahan may have found a way to make himself immune to gold, but she wasn’t going to risk turning him away.
The rush of demonic horse’s hooves carried on the wind towards her and she widened her stance, pushing back the urge to throw up as she drew her sword. “Your chances of dying are about ninety-five percent,” Sibeal’s words came back to her, and she tightened her grip on the sword so much that the hilt’s leather wrapping cut into her palm, “but, the good news is, if he beheads you, the energy released by the evil of his blade touching the good of your blood will make everything go boom.”
Either her powers would destroy him or her blood would. One way or another, she was going to stop him. She was the Harper. Her powers were the stuff of legend, and she’d be damned if her courage didn’t live up to those same legends. Maeve pulled back her shoulders and shook off the last of her fear as a dark shadow came into her line of sight.
She was ready.
He was never going to hurt anyone in her or Aedan’s worlds ever again20.
47
The energy from the night before still danced across my skin. Dev and I had finished putting out the footprints and he walked me back around the lake. We had fallen into this weirdly comfortable silence that he would sometimes break to point out a constellation. He had even grabbed my hand to steady me when the moonlight wasn’t enough to see all the ruts in the path, and hadn’t let go until we were close to the girls’ cabins. And all of that happened despite the fact that I’d completely forgotten to be Maeve or Marissa or anyone out of my notebook. I hadn’t been able to sleep after practically floating back to bed and spent the night flipping through it and taking more notes. There had been something about the easy way that we were able to talk that almost made me feel like it was okay that I forgot for one night, but I wouldn’t forget again.
I absently curled and uncurled my fingers, the ghost of his touch still there a few hours later. After working so hard to push him out of my head, now this whole camping thing brought me right back to December. I was in so much trouble.