Page 49 of Big Little Spells

Georgie throws me a look I can’t read. Sage looks like he might fall over, possibly from embarrassment or possibly because he’s too reedy to handle a breeze. Before I can say anything else, Georgie takes his hand and they head out to the dance floor.

I tell myself that the guy is just her type. He has that tweedy, academic look, right? Perfect for a Historian. And yet as I think that, something in me pulses, too fractured to read. I think, no.

But I don’t have time to dig into what I’m picking up because the air changes. Foreboding prickles down my neck, then serpentines down the length of my spine, where I tattooed the phases of the moon to guide and keep me even when I couldn’t draw the moon down the way I used to. I use my peripheral vision to get a sense of who’s watching me, expecting Felicia to be hovering nearby, shooting magical daggers at me, but it’s definitely not Felicia.

I turn, knowing I should be stealthier. Knowing I should at least pretend, but something magnetic draws my eyes, draws me.

The way it always has.

He stands on the edges of the crowd. The forbidding distaste in his expression is palpable. Many of the prom attendees look at him, whisper about him, even long for him the way I used to, but none have the courage to actually approach the notorious Nicholas Frost.

But I do.

He’s here. In this same sad gym while “Lady in Red” bleeds into “Time After Time.” I haven’t seen him in two weeks and that shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t even notice. But my heart is beating like I’ve been waiting for him to return to me. Pining, even.

I tell myself it’s the fruit punch.

I start toward him, though I keep my walk slow. It might even be a saunter. I’m affecting a very sophisticated look of boredom.

At least I’m trying.

I finally reach him and I stand next to him like I belong there. Weirdly, it almost feels like I do. Nicholas says nothing. No greeting, no acknowledgment. But when I stare at him, he stares right back.

“I’m not supposed to meet you until midnight,” I say.

He inclines his head. “Correct.”

“You didn’t need to come...chase me down.”

“I assure you that I did not.”

“Then why are you here? When you could be literally anywhere else?”

Nicholas only gazes at me, and something inside me...flips over.

And I know. He’s here for me. The same way he was ten years ago. I understand in a flash of insight—maybe it’s magic, maybe it’s intuition—that if I asked, I would find that he hasn’t attended these proms otherwise. Ever.

But I don’t ask.

Instead, I just...take him in. He’s wearing a stylish, well-appointed suit, not some relic from the 1800s. It’s also not white. I can’t really imagine Nicholas succumbing to something as regular as following a dress code, even when appearing in places where he must know his presence will cause a commotion. And not only in me.

His gaze slides down my embarrassing getup, a heat and a sizzle that centers itself where it very much should not.

“You look remarkably pure this evening, Rebekah,” he drawls.

I eye his dark suit. I do not think about purity in this man’s presence. “I thought the color of the day was white.”

“Only for the uninitiated.”

That can’t be true, because this is my second initiation, but something about the way he says that word has my mind going places where it shouldn’t...just like all that pulsing heat inside of me.

“I have something for you,” he says, sounding as if he can barely manage to get past the tedium of his own words. “You’ll want to bring it with you later.”

“I was thinking about skipping our date.” I smirk, as much because I used the word date with an immortal who I’m quite certain thinks tinder is still literally kindling as anything else. I lean in. “There are far more exciting Beltane rituals to attend at midnight. But you know that, don’t you? You’ve been Beltaning for centuries.”

He ignores my attempt to poke at him and instead holds out a small crystal. It’s orange, in the shape of a perfect ball, and distracts me from imagining him haunting the bonfires back in the day, naked and wild beneath long-lost stars. The crystal hovers above his palm and I find myself...drawn to it.

Enough to hold out my hand.