Page 53 of White Little Lies
“I felt a surge of magic,” he said. “And something else.” His eyes flicked toward Gabriel. “Please just tell me what you were doing so I can make sense of it.”
My face was already burning just at the thought of explaining it to him. “I’d really rather not.”
Gabriel stepped away from the bookshelf toward Crispin. “You feel the connection too, don’t you.” He didn’t say it like it was a question. “You weren’t just checking the apartment to see if Eva was home. You knew she would be here.”
Oh boy, this was not good. Or was it? I couldn’t tell. I was entirely out of my depth. “Crispin, whatexactlydid you feel?”
He pushed his blond hair out of his face, and I found myself watching the muscles of his forearm, bare beneath the rolled up sleeve of his shirt. He gripped his hair for a moment as he shook his head, then lowered his hand. “I felt a surge of completely wild magic, and when I opened my eyes, there were tiny stars floating around me.”
My shoulders slumped with relief. “Oh thank the gods, for a moment I was wondering if you had felt—” I bit my lip, glancing at Gabriel.
Realization widened Crispin's blue eyes. “Oh, good goddess, you two were—”
I shifted my feet and cleared my throat, glancing at Gabriel again. “Three, actually.”
His brows lifted. “Sebastian?”
“No!” we said in unison.
“No,” I said again more calmly. “Mistral.”
He pursed his lips, thinking. “Well that explains the surge of wild magic, I suppose. His connection to the Bogs would naturally bring that out, though I’m not sure how it was sent down the connection between you and I.”
“Okay about this connection,” I looked back and forth between the two of them. “Where did it even come from?”
“Oh, I don’t fully understand what it is,” Crispin laughed, making Gabriel frown. “It’s fascinating though, isn’t it?”
“Something like that,” I grumbled. My next thought made me wince. “So if you felt… everything, does that mean Sebastian felt it too?”
“I’d say it’s likely.” He glanced around the room like the devil in question might be hiding in the closet or behind my curtains. “Where is he, anyway? It’s rare for him to not be by your side nowadays.”
“I actually don’t know.” I pulled Sebastian’s card out of my back pocket, then stepped toward Crispin. “I expected to see him already. He was supposed to let us know what he found out about the other devil.”
I rubbed my thumb across the surface of the card, focusing my thoughts on Sebastian. I wasn’t exactlyeager to see him, especially not knowing that he had probably sensed what I’d done with Mistral and Gabriel, but I did want to find out what he’d learned.
Crispin leaned toward me, observing the card. “Is something supposed to be happening?”
“Yeah,” I flipped the card over, perplexed. “That’s usually all I need to do to summon him.”
Gabriel had moved closer, his attention also on the card.
I rubbed it again, and nothing happened.
“Well,” Crispin muttered. “This certainly does not bode well.”
Given all that had occurred, it was a vast understatement.
Dawn leftwith a promise from Elena to set up her tea date with Rian.
As soon as she was gone, Braxton had come back out of his room. He sat on the sofa, a slice of leftover cold pizza in his hand. He had changed into a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, comfortable on his night off from any mercenary work “Are you sure youwantto find him? You could just, you know, let him be gone.”
I swiped a palm across my face, shaking my head as I leaned back against the sofa cushions. “He was finding information on the devil who delivered my mother’s message. Or maybe it wasn’t my mother’s message.Either way, it was the devil who called in a favor from Lucas.”
“And we learned all this from gargoyles…” Braxton trailed off, clearly skeptical.
“I think Dawn’s information is good. It lines up with everything.”
Crispin perched on the arm of the sofa beyond Braxton. “But we do not know for sure that this is the same devil involved with Fiorus.”