My cloudy head tried to look for an alternative solution, but I came up with nothing. If the Syndicate was brought into this, my dad would bind her for a month. I could probably only muster a binding spell that would dissipate after a few days—if I could cast it at all.
Would she hate me for being the one to do this, or was it a favor to her? What if I was about to make even bigger fools of both of us?
“Time’s up, Jemmie,” Crowe said, and pulled out his cell phone.
“I said I’ll do it!” I shouted.
Alex whipped her head my way, a scowl deepening the dark line of her brow. I turned to her, giving the room my back. “I’m sorry,” I mouthed, but Alex’s frown didn’t lessen. If anything, it became more pronounced. I had no idea what she was thinking.
I wrapped my hands around her wrists. Although alcohol dulled my senses, my magic still came rushing forward, answering the call, wreathing my body with sapphire ribbons that slithered like cobras and were just as dangerous, to me, at least.
I’d been born with this magic. Using it should come as naturally as eating or sleeping. But without practice, it was a blunt instrument instead of a scalpel. And now the scent of it was on me, sharp and overpowering. I held my breath. My palms were slippery with sweat as I tightened my grip. Strands of blue magic waved and coiled in the air, growing from my skin like weeds. My stomach rolled. Sweat started to bead at my temples and the small of my back. The attention of the room made my skin crawl and burn—and so did my own magic.
I wanted to curse Crowe to an eternity of hell for doing this to us.
My head had begun to buzz with lack of oxygen. If I didn’t cast quickly, I was going to pass out. With the blue twists of my locant power wrapping around my best friend, I mentally clamped the lock closed on Alex’s magic and felt the flicker of it die out. It wasn’t gone for good—there was only one way to take another’s magic forever, and it was completely forbidden—but it was blocked from her use until the spell ran its course.
It wasn’t until Alex yanked her arms from my grasp that I realized my hands had gone numb. She turned and walked away while I leaned on the table with my elbows, the only way to keep myself from hitting the floor. People were still staring. I wanted to cry and scream and kick and rage, but instead I said, “Alex, wait.”
She didn’t.
“It’s not like she didn’t deserve it,” someone said behind me.
I whirled around, recognizing the voice. “You bitch,” I said as I caught sight of Katrina. She smirked at me while she sipped a beer. My breath sawed from my throat. As soon as I got the feeling back in my hands, I was going to strangle her. “You should leave.”
Katrina snorted. “And if I don’t?”
“Jemmie,” Crowe said when I started for her, my footsteps heavy and clumsy.
Amber ropes, invisible to everyone but me, wound around me. Every part of my body froze, my hand raised in midair. I growled at Crowe as he stepped between me and my target.
“Let me go,” I said, fighting against his magic, silently berating myself for letting my guard down, for leaving a door open so he could step right through it. The sweet-smoky smell was making my stomach turn. Or maybe that was the rye.
He got in closer so when he spoke, it was loud enough that only I could hear. “Not until you stop acting like a brat.”
“This is all her fault,” I said. I gave Katrina a death glare as she inched closer to Crowe.
He frowned. “Is it?”
It suddenly felt like we were talking about something else entirely, and we both knew what that was.
“Yes,” I said. “And yours, too.”
His magic pulled back, freeing me. I sucked in a deep breath and shoved him away. He barely staggered an inch. It was like trying to displace a mountain.
With a curl of my lip, I swiped a shot of something clear off a nearby table and downed it in one burning gulp. Then I stormed out of the barroom.
THREE
AS I HURRIED DOWN THE SCHOOLHOUSE’S FRONT STEPS, the double doors burst open behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.
“Jemmie, wait.”
“Screw you.”
Crowe quickly caught up to me. “There are rules. Without rules, we’d descend into chaos.”
I stopped abruptly and Crowe had to backpedal. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
He cocked his head to the side. “The difference between Alex and me is that I know how and when to break the rules. She disregards them entirely.”
He had no idea what he’d just done to me. No idea why I was so upset.
I started walking again. The Schoolhouse music faded behind us. There wasn’t a lot of civilization in this part of town save for a few workshops that had long since closed. It was one of the reasons the bar got away with its rowdy crowd and thumping music long into the night.
“You shouldn’t have made me do that,” I said, my voice wavering.
“If anyone else could have, I wouldn’t have asked you to.”
We reached the street. I’d headed this way simply to escape, but now that I was out here, I realized I didn’t have a ride home. If I wanted to go anywhere, I’d have to walk.
“Did Alex drive?” Crowe asked, reading my frustration easily.
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms over myself and rubbed my hands over my bare skin. The night had cooled off since I’d been inside the bar, and goose bumps rippled down my forearms. Still, the fresh air was nice. And necessary. Finally, my head was starting to clear from the muddle of magic and alcohol.
“Let me take you home.”
“I’m not riding on the back of your bike.” Too soon for that, in so many ways.
“I have my car.”
Spend time in an enclosed space with him? Ha. “Not riding in your car, either.”
He ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. Crowe didn’t have a lot of tells, except for this one. It was what he did right before he put someone in their place.
I braced for it. It’d been a long day, and I wasn’t sure I had enough left in me to fight him.
Hoping to cut the tension, I added, “I like walking.”
“It’s three miles.”
“I’m in great shape.” I peered down at my sandals. I was going to have blisters for days.
He sighed. “Just wait here. Please?”
“Fine.”
He jogged back toward the Schoolhouse, disappearing in the shadows on the north side, swallowed whole like a specter.
Less than a minute later, he pulled his black 1967 Nova into the street. He crossed the centerline, driving up alongside me at the curb, then leaned over and opened the passenger-side door.
Inside, the chill in my bones seeped away immediately, despite the fact that the car’s heater hadn’t had enough time to warm up. A heavy scent of cinnamon hung in the air, along with tiny pink shimmers. He’d used a cut to kindle a warming charm. Probably from his mom.
I glanced at Crowe as he shifted the car into gear and pulled back onto the road. “What?” he said, without looking at me.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
We rode in silence for a while, and I tried to calm down. Crowe had no idea why I didn’t use magic, or what it did to me—and that was because I kept my problem to myself. He’d wanted to make an example of Alex and me tonight, and he had succeeded. He couldn’t have known how scared I had been, how awful it felt to cast. Those thoughts cooled my rage and humiliation, making room for other realizations. I had managed to do a binding charm, and I hadn’t ended up on the floor or in the hospital. That… was actually a good thing. And if Alex would let me know that she wasn’t pissed or hurt, then I’d feel even better. Needing to turn my anxious thoughts away from my temporarily powerless best friend, I asked, “What was Old Lady Jane doing at the Schoolhouse?”
Crowe’s thumb tapped against the leather steering wheel while we waited out a red light. “Club business.”
“About the festival?” With a half-dozen other clubs in town, there was a lot of business to do.
The intersection was empty of traffic. Crowe tapped out a quicker rhythm, as if sitting still in the car, the brake engaged, was making him restless. “Jane’s been consulting for me on a few things.”
“Such as?”
“The future.”