Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1 (Spellspinners of Melas County) (16 page)

When Lily strummed the strings again, this time a familiar tune filled the air. He recognized that song, maybe from the Brew. It was popular, and Lily got it right. First try out the gate. The barista leaned back in the sand, a mixed expression of impressed approval and pride washing over his face.

Of course he thought it was his majestic teaching abilities that got Lily playing this well, this fast. Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that Lily herself was a force of nature, who could figure out anything on her own.

When she opened her lips and started singing along with the song…that’s the moment that he was not only frozen in place, but desperate to run away. It felt wrong to interrupt this one purely content moment he was witnessing for his own selfish purposes.

He wanted to leave her in this happiness for as long as he could.

Lily

“I love this. I love playing the guitar. I’m never doing anything else again ever with my life. This is what I was born to do. Yep. This is my destiny.”

Daisy giggled next to me. Jonah looked goofily proud. I was actually playing an instrument. Like a human. No spell was rolling my fingers onto the correct chords. No magic was finger-picking for me.

“Is that what I’m doing? Finger-picking?” I asked Jonah, who was kneeling next to me in the sand.

“You sure are. Man, I’ve never seen anyone catch on this quick, Lil. You’re a natural.”

“Thanks!” I said cheerfully. I played the first few notes of Daisy’s favorite song again. “I was going to learn this for your birthday.”

“Aww,” Daisy said, leaning over and kissing my cheek. “Aren’t you just the most bestest sister in the universe?”

“I try.”

“You succeed!”

Grinning, I bent back over the instrument. It was curved and smooth. Felt so nice on my lap. Like the way my old black cat rested on my lap, stretched out and open to me stroking her white belly with my fingertips. That’s how the guitar was opening up to me. It was like it was created for me to play.

“Ohmygosh a shooting star!” Daisy leapt up and pointed into the milky darkness.

Jonah jumped up to join her, matching her energy level perfectly. Daisy grinned up at him. She liked him the instant she saw his pink van. And now Daisy was eating up the attention. Jonah could be like the perfect big brother she never had. Quirky instead of edgy, sweet instead of overbearing. And when Daisy liked people, she let them know it.

She turned to me. “Lil, can we keep him forever and ever and for always?”

I met Jonah’s eye sheepishly. “Um. I’m sure Jonah has a family of his own who wants him.”

“Well, you can be our foster brother then, k?”

He tousled her hair. “There is no other flower-named girl that I’d rather have as a foster sister than you.”

“My sister has a flower name. Don’t you want her?”

He blushed. “Well, who wouldn’t?”

Before I could process the look he was giving me, the energy suddenly shifted. Goosebumps rose on my arms.

Something. Or someone.

I stopped playing; absently set the guitar on the sand and edged to the outside of the circle. I hopped up on a tree stump and peered over the dune.

Sure enough, a hooded silhouette walked alone toward the shore.

Without a second thought I yelled over my shoulder, “Be right back!”

“Hey.” I put my hand on his shoulder and he turned around, an unfamiliar expression masking his features.

“Hey.”

“What’s wrong?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nothing.”

He looked so…dejected. So different from when I saw him last and we planned to meet again.

“So…did you have a good rest of your evening?”

He looked down at the sand. “I got myself into some trouble at home.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t…”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Something like that. ”

He pushed his hood off and ran his fingers through his hair. I moved closer to him. Not so close that I could touch him, but close enough that I could see his face clearly.

“Are you okay?” I asked softly.

“You shouldn’t worry about me.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not…because I don’t matter.”

“Logan.” I heard my voice form his name. It was full of everything I felt for him. It was so clear, so obvious. I said his name like I played that song. Like I knew all the notes instinctively. Like I knew his melody by heart.

He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “I’m not good for you. I’m not good for anybody.”

I cupped his face in my hands. “I don’t believe that. And neither do you. After all that’s happened between us, you know this is real.”

He looked at my face. Then he looked out at the sea. “You should because it’s true. I hurt people, Lily.”

“You’ve helped me.”

He kept watching the waves crash on the dark beach. So I kept talking. “I think you might be something huge, Logan, something important. A key to helping a lot more people than just me.”

He glanced back at the fire. “I saw you back there. You looked so happy with that barista guy. I haven’t known you that long, but I’ve never seen you that happy.”

I shook my head. “We were having fun, that’s all,” I said. That was true. “Sure, I have human friends, and they include me, and I love hanging out and joking around and being part of things. But the truth is, my real life is something they don’t know about.”

“The fact that you’re a witch.”

I nodded. “Yes. Like my mother. Like my Mistress. It’s all I’ve ever known and all I’ve ever wanted. And now that we’re in danger of losing it all…”

“Losing it all?”

“Logan, there’s a curse. We’re cursed. Our magic is failing us.”

“Wait, slow down. Who is cursed?”

“The Spellspinners. The lot of us.”

“How do you know about this?”

“I found a book in this, well, secret library. Then when I showed it to my mom, it turned out that she and the elders had been keeping it a secret from us younger witches for years. Have you heard of the term Roghnaithe?”

Logan shook his head.

“Well, it means broken magic man. He’s like, the Chosen One. And we have a reason, well many reasons, to believe it might be you.”

“Broken magic man? That sounds like a fairytale. Besides”—he looked offended—“I’m not broken.”

I touched his arm. “No, no…it’s a code, it means you may possess both light and dark magic.”

He frowned, and I squeezed his forearm.

“I know it sounds pretty wild, but the Seven Sisters prophesized when they split the witches and the warlocks a hundred years ago, that a boy would come along, someone raised as a warlock, who had the light powers of a witch.”

“I don’t have any light powers.”

“What about in the cave? You healed me.”

“That was nothing. You helped me do it.”

I shook my head. “The only thing I haven’t seen you do…” I glanced out at the ocean, the dark, milky waves.

“Breathe?”

“So you can? Breathe in the water?”

“Maybe.”

He shifted toward me, moved closer. He held onto both of my elbows and leaned his face in close, locked his eyes on mine. So blue I almost lost my balance.

“Lily, I need to talk to you about something. I was going to go. Leave you alone forever—when I saw you up there. How happy you were. But…” The sincerity left his voice, the passion left his eyes. He practically growled, “Oh, great, we have company.”

Jonah’s back was to the bonfire. An orange halo of firelight circled him as he walked toward us.

Logan

Resting a hand on the small of her back the lame barista asked, “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s fine. This is…Logan.”

Jonah nodded at him. Logan nodded back.

That was about as friendly as it was going to get.

“Do you need help here, Lil?” The barista stood between them like some kind of hero. “Here. I thought you might be cold.” He handed her a knitted blanket, clearly wanting to wrap it around her himself. Logan read Lily’s mind. She didn’t want Jonah to make a scene.

“Thanks,” Lily said appreciatively. She accepted the gesture and hugged the quilt around her shoulders.

She wasn’t cold down by the water. Logan was keeping her warm.

Wasn’t he?

In the moonlight, Lily looked utterly luminous. If only this jackass barista would get out of their way and let them finish their conversation.

“So,” Jonah said, his mouth pursed.

Lily’s eyes fluttered from one boy to the other.

Fire throbbed through Logan’s body. He had to squeeze his hand shut not to pounce this tool. Count backwards from ten. Nine, eight, seven…

“It’s okay, Jonah. I’m fine,” Lily said finally. “We just need a few more minutes.”

When he thought Lily wasn’t looking, Jonah glared at Logan. Obviously he had no idea what kind of danger he was putting himself in messing with a warlock. “If you’re sure…”

Lily touched the human’s wrist. “I’m sure. I’ll be right back.”

“You know where I am if you need me,” Jonah said, but he kept his eyes on Logan’s the whole time.

Logan resisted the urge to bring him to his knees with a sudden stomach cramp.

Don’t be like him.

Don’t be like Jacob.

Just because you can hurt him doesn’t mean you should.

A voice. His conscience. Where was that coming from?

As if Lily could sense his inner conflict, she grabbed his wrist again. “Come on, let’s walk,” she said. With a sharp tug on Logan’s forearm, she headed out toward the inky shore. He ran his fingers down her wrist and tangled his fingers through hers. Immediately he felt the same surge of the energy he had at Black Mountain, at the Boardwalk, in the cave. Giggling, she untangled her fingers, like he’d shocked her. Which he probably had.

When they reached the spot where the water wet the sand, Lily sank down onto her knees, pulling him down too.

He could get used to all this pulling. She took off her purple Converse and her striped socks and dug her toes into the sand. “There, that’s better,” she said. “So what were you saying?”

“Before we were so rudely interrupted by that walking cone of cotton candy?”

Lily narrowed her eyes. “Jonah is a nice guy. Don’t make fun of him.”

“Sorry.”

“You should be.” She wasn’t kidding when she said that. She leaned back from him, letting go of his hand.

“I really am sorry. Something happened to me yesterday. I’m not quite myself tonight.”

Resting his palm on her shoulder, he cut right to the chase. He needed her to understand the importance of what he was about to ask. “Tell me about your amulet.”

“Tell me about yours first.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out Lily’s stone. The jewel flashed through the white handkerchief, which was starting to smoke. Before the orange embers ignited the cloth, Lily blew them out with her cool breath.

“Tell me its power,” Logan demanded.

Turning slightly, she lifted a blanket of wave-white hair. Inching closer to the soft spot on the back of her neck, Logan ran a finger across her silky flesh. “Give it back first,” she said, an alluring whisper in the night.

“Better?” he asked, as he clasped the chain, his mouth so close to her face, he could taste the lilies on her breath.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He crouched in front of her in the wet sand. “I need to know more about it, Lily. I’ve given you no reason to trust me, but your necklace has inexplicable power over me. It…takes care of me. And I need its protection.” Logan paused, trying to figure out how to word something so important.

Lily’s sea eyes glowed in the moonlight as he told her about how Jacob poisoned him, and in turn made him hurt Chance. Her look made him brave enough to take both of her hands in his own.

“Do you trust me?”

Lily

“I don’t know. Do you trust me?”

The warmth of his hands was melting me from the inside. I had to force myself to keep up a defense. To remember what Iris warned: “No matter what happens, remember he’s a warlock.” True, Logan had some of the signs of the Roghnaithe, but I still hadn’t seen the telltale mark.

But even for a warlock, this would be too cruel. I’d rather have him triumph over me in the Stones than manipulate me…
emotionally
like this.

“Lily, please.” His stare was so deep that I felt him, felt his
truth
. My whole body sprang to life under his gaze, telling me something my mind couldn’t wrap itself around. “You know I’m not evil.”

“I guess I do.”

“How do you know?” He bit his bottom lip and held my eyes with such intensity I thought I might burst into smoldering flames. “I’m completely untrustworthy. I’m a thief and a liar. I’m your enemy, yet you believe me.”

“Yes.”

His gaze dropped to his knees when he mumbled, “I’m trying to be better.”

I knew next to nothing about Logan. About his past, how he ended up at the Academy. I wanted to know everything. Why his eyes were so full of pain.

Most importantly, I needed to know whether or not he bore the art of a broken rose moon. Because if he did, maybe we could figure out a way to be together, like the ancients. Maybe we could fight for that. Fight for us as well as fight for our magic.

Reaching out, I gently moved a lock of hair away from those tortured eyes. “I know you are.” My words came out even more tenderly than I planned. My fingertips, with a mind of their own, brushed over his warm skin. “It’s not like I’m perfect either. I was the one trying to cheat with the euca leaves. I was the one trespassing on your property. If Iris hadn’t kept that a secret…”

“I’ve never met anyone like you before,” he interrupted.

My eyes opened wide, surprised once again I was the subject of his intensity. So I joked. “I’m a witch. There aren’t many girls like me.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. I mean someone so forthcoming. So honest about how they feel. I envy that.”

Pause. An exchange of shy smiles. Confessions like this, well, they sort of take your breath away.

“So I gave you your necklace back,” Logan said after a beat.