CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elysian
Elysian walked into the kitchen, her heart and mind storming with a mix of rage and embarrassment and guilt. Walt had been the one who had danced them up to that cliff edge, reeled her in with such tempting words about how beautiful she was, how attracted he was to her. Ten more seconds of that tension humming between them, or one tiny move on Walt’s part and she would have let him sweep her away. She would have thrown herself backward onto the bed and begged for him to join her. But then whoops. Girlfriend, never mind.
Not that she had any right to be angry. He hadn’t done it on purpose. He hadn’t known. If anything it was her fault that they’d come so close to something he would have regretted for the rest of his life. He was that kind of man, she knew.
Elysian picked up a paper lantern from the stack that were lying, still folded, on the table between the napkin holder and the Cobb salad. With a twist of her wrist she expanded it, so it burst into a paper sphere with a satisfying ‘pop’, and raised it to her lips. She filled her lungs with sweet fall air and then slowly breathed out into the lantern.
As she did she let go of everything she was feeling—her embarrassment, her desire to keep self flagellating, and most of all her anger. Her anger at the grimoire, for the way it twisted and turned and slithered away from her expectations. The unreasonable dislike she felt for the faceless woman who had claimed Walt first. Her anger at herself.
She unfurled the hand that was holding the lantern, and let it roll off her fingers. It dropped just a little, then floated up, and a light sparked inside. It was difficult to see with the afternoon sun rolling in the window, but by nightfall it would be a beacon.
The troubling thoughts were still with her, but sharing them with the lantern made them smaller, easier to set aside in order to concentrate on the party.
The lantern floated up, up until it bumped against the ceiling and there it stayed, drifting around the room as the light draft in the house nudged it around. Elysian smiled, because that was magic in a nutshell. It might seem like it could take your problems away, but it never took them far.
“That’s incredible,” Walt said.
Elysian forced a smile onto her face. She could tell from his hunched shoulders and the way his hands were jammed into his pockets that he felt as awkward around her as she felt around him. But that was the trouble with a small house. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do. If he didn’t want to climb into the attic to hang out with Annette, hovering around her was his only option.
He reached up gingerly and brushed her lantern with his fingers. He was tall enough to touch the ceiling with ease, and his bicep was straining the hem of his shirt sleeve. She’d had to guess at his sizes and suspected she’d bought the shirt slightly too small, but he was pulling it off. He looked more delicious than anything laid out on the table.
Which was exactly the kind of thought she should not be having about him.
“You want to do one?” she asked, pulling another lantern off the stack.
“Would mine float like that?”
“Only if you tell it your troubles,” she said, holding it out to him.
His thumb brushed against her hand as he took it. “Do I have to say them out loud?” he asked.
Part of Elysian wanted to hear what he would say. The part of her that picked at old wounds and pulled loose threads in her clothes until the seams unraveled wanted to hear it. Whether he would tell the lantern that he was as upset that nothing would come of the two of them as she was. Or whether he would tell it about the crazy, reckless witch who has ruined his life.
But instead she told him the truth. “No. You can just think it.”
He held the lantern out between them, and let it drop the way she had with hers. There was a pregnant pause as it fell, and then the lantern lit up and began to rise. It bobbed over their heads and floated over to bump against Elysian’s.
“Whoa,” Walt said, watching its path with shining eyes. “Don’t you know how amazing this is? You can do magic. You live in a magic witch’s cottage with a ghost. How do you not just wake up every morning wanting to tip your head back and shout about it?”
“You can turn into a wolf,” she countered.
“Maybe I do wake up every morning wanting to shout with joy about that,” he said. “Or, you know, howl.” He tipped his head back. “Awhooo!”
Elysian couldn’t help herself. She cracked up, half in relief at the tension being broken, and half at his earnest attempt at howling.
Walt’s smile was an amazing sight, a grin of genuine happiness that lit up his eyes. “I actually feel better,” he said, looking up at his lantern. “Is it like magical Prozac?”
“It’s just temporary,” she explained. “It’s a spell to let a witch put her troubles aside and concentrate on whatever work the circle has gathered to do.”
Walt laughed. He reached up—he was easily tall enough for his fingers to brush the ceiling, and he scooped up the lantern in his broad palm and batted it across the room. He met her eyes, and for a moment she felt the most intense peace at seeing him happy.
The wards sounded a chime that only she could hear. It wasn’t the alarm for danger, just an alert that a member of her circle had entered the property. “Praneeta’s here,” she said. Her lips quirked up in a regretful smile.