There is plenty of magic in my family. Hagar has charmspeak, which she uses with abandon, and a complete lack of remorse; and Adonai, before he—well, there was a time when he was noted across Solterra not only for the power of his water-magic but the irony of it. My mother, they say, made us from sand. (Most of the time I don’t believe it.) But I… I am lacking. There are the snakes, sure, but I cannot control them. They are their own beings, attached to me not out of duty but necessity. If they could survive without me, I know that they would be gone as fast as possible. I know they would leave without a glance backward.
All this to say I was raised around witches. The way he looks at me—with his eyes burning, with his brow furrowed, his lip curled; with wide, sharp arcs of crackling blue running the length of his wings, then his spine, rib to hip—does not scare me.
So, though I am surprised that such a short interaction between us has already brought out so much of his ferocity, I do not flinch. I do not blink or turn away. Instead, very deliberately, I raise a brow; I am entertained, my eyes calm almost to the point of sleepiness, expression schooled to neutrality. I am careful about this because I know it will inflame him; and I know it will inflame him simply because I know him. Or I know his kind. Full of rage, and the thought that that rage is righteous. He thinks he is the only man in the world with a pain in his heart. He thinks he is the only one of us who has a right to be furious.
It is pathetic. Childish. But I understand the allure: the world is much quieter when you are the only one in it.
The snakes are fully awake now. One nips at my ear, which stings but in a brief, wake-up! way I have become completely used to. They are saying what I have already surmised, which is: he is your type.
Dark and brooding. Tortured. No matter if it’s self-inflicted.
There is a scattering sound, like birds from a shaken tree. Behind him, a few of the more touristy-looking library-goers have fled for the hills, exchanging panicked looks, the sound of their hooves clicking quick over the hard-packed dirt. Perfect, the boy snarls. Suddenly he is surrounded by an aura of flickering energy, blue and pink and then all shades of rainbow.
I shrug. Turn my eyes down to a new book. Pretend I’m not interested at all. For a moment I am reabsorbed in something else. I am uncaring and unfeeling.
Why were you staring?
At home we have many servants. A few of them I flirt with so often it has become regular, and they have become bold enough to meet my eyes when I do so, and smile, or even come upstairs with me. It would be much easier to go back home with one of them. For a moment I think about it—saying no, turning around. But where is the satisfaction in wanting someone who wants you back?
“Why does anyone?” I flip a page, lazily curl a leg closer toward my stomach. “I thought you were worth a stare. Never mind.”
But I look him up and down again, almost-but-not-quite slow enough to be slow.
@
