Witches in Flight (32 page)

He was trying to unload her idea.
 
And she’d said no.
 
Holy fracking hell.
 
“If you
wanted out, you just had to ask.
 
I’m not going to make you build my stupid maps.”

Astonishment careened across his face—and then something
that looked almost like panic.
 
“No, dammit.
 
I wanted you
to have other offers to consider.
 
We’d love to work with you, but our pockets aren’t as deep as a lot of
the bigger players.
 
You got seven
offers, Lizard.
 
In three
days.
 
It’s a genius idea.”

Offers she’d never asked for.
 
It made no sense, even as it yanked on her heart—and
the only defense she had was fire.
 
“What, you wanted to know if I’d choose you over four million
dollars?
 
Is your ego that freaking
big?”

“No.”
 
His face
closed, any hints of the vulnerable Josh gone.
 
“I just wanted you to know you have choices.
 
Good ones.
 
That’s all.
 
Sorry if I goofed.”
 
He
stood up, stiff, like an old man.
 
“If you want to push Jenkins for a bigger offer, just let me know.”

Lizard stared, trying to re-assemble the catastrophe in her
brain.
 
All she could find was a
single word.
 
“Why?”

He slumped onto a bench by the door, eyes carefully looking at
the wall.
 
“Because you have the
right to know what’s out there.
 
What you’re worth.”
 
His
voice held echoes of the Josh she’d seen by the tree.

And it rammed Freddie’s arrows further into her heart.

She was still selling herself short.
 
And Josh was getting hit by the shrapnel.
 

He’d gone looking for offers.
 
And if all the jerkwad crap she’d thrown at him wasn’t true,
then he’d done it… for her.

She looked across at the face of the guy who kept asking her to
believe.
 
And kept coming back when
she failed.
 
And knew that it was
time to offer him what she could.

It took everything she had—every bit of hope and self-confidence
and bravery she’d stored up in the time of miracles that was WitchLight.
 
But she made it.
 
Up out of her chair, around the desk,
and onto the bench beside him.
 
In
wordless apology, she reached out, twining her fingers in his—and felt
his hurt, his doubt, ratchet up even more.

She needed to find the words.
 
“The rules are changing in my life.
 
It’s hard to keep up with them, hard to
remember I’m this week’s Lizard instead of last week’s.
 
I don’t know how to deal with guys in
pinstripes offering me four million dollars.”
 
Or guys that arranged it, but she couldn’t quite get the last
part out.

His smile was tentative—but it was there.
 
“You kicked butt in that room.
 
I’d send you in to negotiate a big deal
for me any day.”
 
His fingers
wrapped around hers.
 
“Sorry.
 
I guess there are a lot of people
messing around in your life lately.”

“Yeah.”
 
She sat
another moment, soaking in the warmth of his fingers.
 
“I’m working on the whole knowing-what-I’m-worth thing.”

The kiss on the top of her head was feather light.
 
“Good.”

And then he was gone.

~ ~ ~

Some days just didn’t go right.
 
Elsie glared up at the trapeze, mad that she’d missed her
catch for the third time in a row.
 
“What am I doing wrong?”

Abe stood at her side, patient as always.
 
“It’s not you.
 
Elliot’s off his rhythm today.
 
Colleen’s parents are in town, and I
think it’s a little rocky.”

Colleen’s parents didn’t think trapeze flying was a respectable
form of employment.
 
But it wasn’t
the entire problem here.
 
“So how
come he and Colleen are still making the catches?”
 
They’d demonstrated the new trick several times.

Abe looked at her sideways.
 
“You want the easy answer or the hard one?”

Uh, oh.
 
“The
slightly squishy one in the middle?”
 
Elsie fidgeted with the straps on her leotard, pretty sure there wasn’t
such a thing.

He started pulling on the guide wire that would swing the
trapeze back into her hands.
 
“The
easy answer is that you’re a beginner still, and Elliot’s not doing a good
enough job of being predictable for you.
 
Colleen has a lot more experience.”

The hard answer stuck out its tongue at her.
 
“But I could be doing better, couldn’t
I?”

“Maybe.”
 
Abe’s
fingers competently untangled ropes and clipped her back in.
 
“You’ve reached a level where being a
good partner isn’t just about hanging around with your hands out.”

“But that’s exactly what you’ve taught me to do.”
 
And sometimes a nice strong pair of
arms was all she wanted.
  
Elsie frowned—clearly her cantankerous streak was alive and well
this morning.
 

“Yup.”
 
Abe stopped
what he was doing and met her gaze squarely.
 
“We teach beginners to be pretty passive because it makes
everyone’s lives a lot easier.
 
Elliot can’t catch someone who’s flailing in seven different
directions.
 
But you know enough
now to be more active.
 
If Elliot
can’t get to you, meet him partway.
 
He could use your help this morning.”

It sucked to realize that part of you just wanted to be
passive.
 
To fly and be caught and
not have to work very hard at it.
 
Elsie stared at the bar an inch away from her hands.

And felt her decision forming.
 
She could be passive on her couch.
 

One look at Elliot to warn him to get moving, and she was in the
air.
 
Flying, reaching, testing her
timing against her partner’s and adjusting for the wonky hitch in his
swing.
 

They were close.
 
She could feel it, see the focus flowing back into his eyes.
 
Another swing now, the bar tight under
her knees, back arching at the end of the swing.
 
Another inch.
 
Two.
 
And the signal.
 
Go.

This time, she swung back, visualizing the tuck in her
head.
 
And when gravity tried to
pull her off the bar, cannonballed into the sky instead.
 
One flip around, and then reaching for
hands that had missed her all morning.

Not this time.

Her first blind catch.

A cocky kind of joy exploded in Elsie’s head, along with wild
applause from people all over the gym.

And the cherry on her sundae?
 
One guy, swinging above her, who just maybe had a tiny
little piece of himself back where it belonged.
 
Elsie grinned up at Elliot’s face, two feet from hers—and
punched out, feet aimed for the net below.

To hell with passive.

~ ~ ~

--------------------------------------

To:
[email protected]

From:
Jennie Adams <
[email protected]
>

Subject:
Lift-off winds are stirring.

--------------------------------------

Dear
Vero,

When you spend a lifetime with a camera in your hands, there is
a moment you come to recognize.
 
Or
rather, a feeling—a trickle of precognition that tells you to lift and
focus.
 
To be ready.

I’m feeling that in my bones today.

Lizard stopped by, looking for truth.
 
I hope she’s ready to see what I just hung on my drying
line.
 
I’m not at all sure I’m
ready to see what Charlie hung there yesterday.
 

And then Lizard threw Lauren out of their office and had a conversation
with Josh that left her mind a wet dishrag.
 
Lauren’s not sure whether to cheer or go buy Ben &
Jerry’s.

So we wait.

Elsie got to hear that she does good work today—and Nat’s
pretty sure it actually sank in.
 
There is no greater gift than someone holding up a mirror to your talent
when you’re finally ready to look.
 
I trust that our very wise Nat had that mirror glinting to perfection.

Which would be cause for uncomplicated celebration if our
pendants weren’t buzzing again.

Some birds take flight on lofty summer breezes.
 
Others head straight for the storm
front.

And since we’re currently fairly clueless, I am off to the store
to stock up on all the basic witch necessities when facing unpredictable
weather—flour, milk, eggs, glitter, and ice cream.
 
Feel free to send cookies.

All
my love,

Jennie

--------------------------------------

To:
[email protected]

From:
Vero Liantro <
[email protected]
>

Subject:
Re: Lift-off winds are stirring.

--------------------------------------

Lovely
Jennie,

Melvin has tried to have a discussion with the pendants,
triggered at least in part by Jamie’s threat to melt Nat’s if it continues to
cause her grief.
 
Given his
unhappiness today, I don’t think he got any answers.

It saddens me to see him question the magic of his heart and
hands.
 
To see us all question it.

I wish no evil on our Elsie.
 
But I have to believe it’s coming.
 
The true power of WitchLight has always prismed through my
husband’s enormous heart.
 
And
today, while his heart splashes in the shallows of doubt, mine has found its
trust.

Put Witch Central on notice.
 
It is a storm that comes.

Hold
to the light,

Vero

~ ~ ~

Lizard set down her backpack, glad to unload the weight from her
shoulders.
 
Some parts of being in
school hadn’t changed—she still felt like five-foot-nothing of Sherpa
lugging around all her books.

The note on the kitchen counter was written in screaming purple,
and the message meandered in not-entirely-straight lines.
 
Elsie had seriously changed.
 
Since the gist of the note promised
leftover lasagna in the fridge, as far as Lizard was concerned the changes were
all good.
 
Late-night lasagna
totally beat the stale potato chips riding somewhere at the bottom of her
backpack.

She dug into the fridge—and started to laugh.
 
There, beside a neatly wrapped plate of
lasagna, sat Elsie’s cell phone.
 
Another change.
 
Stick-butt
Elsie never did anything absentminded.

Lizard rescued the phone—refrigeration probably wasn’t all
that good for high-tech gadgets—and then caught the
words at the top
of the screen.
 
Missed text
message.
 
From Anton.

Great, just what she needed late at night—gooey texts from
stupid Frenchmen.
 
She reached to
set the phone on the counter—and saw the small image attached to the
message alert.