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Depending on who you asked, I was either a menace or a waste of space.
“Please,” I said, interest piqued. “Grimm likes straightforward wording to his spells. Nothing too long or overly complicated. Not that he’s incapable of adapting, of course,” Cassius hastened to add. “It’s just that he prefers short and simple.” I smiled at Cassius, slow and sweet. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” After that, I spent every spare moment leading up to the next Duality class writing the most unnecessarily long and elaborate charms I had ever composed.
My exhaustion broke like a cresting wave, catching me up and carrying me along. I did not swoon (I refused to swoon twice in the span of one evening), but I did slump over sideways. And I did allow my head to be cushioned by the cool grass. And I did close my eyes.
“Any advice before we go in?” I asked Jayne. “Words of wisdom?” I wasn’t frightened exactly, but I had a sudden visceral awareness that we were about to step beyond the bounds of what was considered ours. “Follow me,” Jayne said. “Watch where you step. Don’t touch anything without asking me first. And stay quiet.” Grimm looked at me. “We’re doomed.”
Grimm opened his eyes to look at me, and I grinned fiercely back. Amazingly, the corners of his own lips lifted in a small half smile. This was unheard of. I had earned more scowls than I could count, but never a smile. The expression transformed Grimm’s face into something I hardly recognized. With my words on his tongue, and the hum of the spellsong hanging thick in the air between us, I nearly found him beautiful.
Perhaps it was my fever, causing me to imagine Grimm with a sense of humor.
“Are you trying to fix the curse, or me?” Sybilla tilted her head a little, looking me over. Her eyes were bright and somehow faraway, like stars in the night sky. “Why can’t it be both? I’m a good multitasker.”
“Maybe I’ll follow in Sybilla’s footsteps after the Fount, build myself a tower somewhere remote. I’ll only visit the nearest town on the day before the full moon, or something dramatic like that, and everyone will think me very mysterious.”
“You could never be mysterious,” Grimm said. “Why not?” I said, offended by his decisiveness. “I’m rich, already considered strange by many, blindingly handsome, and I’m a sorcerer. All those things are perfectly mysterious.” “Mysterious people don’t list off the traits that make them mysterious.”
Grimm’s eyes were dark, and his face was set in familiar lines of determination. He also looked like he was bracing for some snide or teasing remark. But that wasn’t at all the response his words had prompted in me. I was suddenly wondering what it would be like to kiss Grimm.
“You don’t have to join us,” I said sharply. “We wouldn’t have any fun with you there anyway. No one ever does.
NOW WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT
I wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep for a year.
Mood
“This isn’t a matter of bearing the pain while the spell is being cast. It hurt because my counterspell couldn’t distinguish between what was the curse and what was you. It was destroying both.”
There was no music, or drink, or company to wash the panic away. There was only me and the memories flashing across the backs of my eyelids.
The pain gave me something to latch on to, like a drowning man might cling to a rope.
“Would you like to talk about it?” “Why on earth would I want that?” I asked, astonished. “Because a moment ago, all I said was your name and you spat back a whole monologue.
The urge to explain myself was simmering under my skin.
