CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
uke and Posy spent Christmas in Edinburgh with theirL parents. The winter markets and carousels and Yule logs kept Posy busy, while the sizeable research project Verity had handed him right before the holidays (“A real scholar doesn’t take holidays,” she’d said) left Luke without even the time for a spare thought.
Which, to be perfectly honest, suited him just fine. Spare thoughts were to be avoided at all costs.
He and Posy met Zahra, Verity’s friend, and Posy seemed to like her, while Luke, meanwhile, found absolutely nothing to object to (was helooking for things to object to? Maybe).
Then, like the universe was conspiring against him (or maybe it waswith him? He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about it), a little house came up for rent that had two bedrooms and a small garden, was just fifteen minutes from Zahra’s flat, and would be available from the beginning of February. There really wasn’t much more Luke could ask for than that, so he visited it, found it to be perfectly nice, and said he’d take it, ignoring the way saying so made him feel like he had turned hollow.
Like he had become nothing more than tin.
After Christmas came Hogmanay, with all the usual flutes of champagne and cheese boards and Auld Lang Synes, and then the week was over, and Luke and Posy headed back to the inn.
It was a cold, foggy evening, and as Luke drove up to the house, it emerged from the mist like the quintessential home of a witch. He could imagine that the warmly lit windows were made of spun sugar, the craggy chimneys of marzipan, the bricks of chocolate and gingerbread. An enchanted refuge in the middle of nowhere, a light in the dark. Not, thankfully, the kind of place where the witch in question would stick you in the oven (though there was no denying Sera was obviously tempted to do just that to Clemmie, the rooster, or both at least twice a week), but rather the sort of place where you might find shelter. Hot tea. A sticky
cinnamon bun straight out of the oven.
The freedom to be you.
Hope.
Home.
Ithurt.
Posy was out of the car as soon as it stopped, racing for the front door, leaving it wide open (“Were you born in the Colosseum?” Luke imagined Sera yelling). Warm light and joyful hellos spilled out from inside, as well as the distinctive clatter of Nicholas’s armour, and Luke was about to go in too when he was distracted by the sound of other voices from round the side of the house.
He followed the sound to the tall, rustling oak tree, where he found Sera and Theo.
“Well, this is a pickle,” Sera was saying from somewhere out of sight, sounding even more annoyed with the world than usual.
Luke saw Theo standing at the foot of the tree, head tipped all the way up, looking like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “I think you should let me go fetch Nicholas.”
“Don’t think I won’t put you in the post and mail you to the moon, Theodór,” Sera growled, which sent Theo into a fit of giggles. “We will not be sharing this little adventure with anyone.”
“But it’s not like it wasyour fault. It wasmy spell that
went wrong.”
“The answer’s still no.”
Snow crunched under Luke’s feet. Theo turned. His face lit up. “Luke, you’re back!”
“Oh, this is all I need,” Sera muttered from somewhere above them.
Luke came up beside Theo, who immediately tucked himself into Luke’s side to keep warm. Following his gaze up into the tree, Luke cocked his head, intrigued, at the sight of Sera sitting on a large branch a good ten feet off the ground, legs swinging, a rip down one thigh of her tights, one arm wrapped around the trunk of the tree.
“I’ll throw my shoe at you if you laugh,” Sera said direly.
Luke did not laugh, but it was a close thing. “How the hell did you get up there?”
“Sera’s been teaching me how to cast the levitation spell Posy’s always using,” Theo confided sheepishly. “I was supposed to make myself levitate, obviously, but I, um,
levitated Sera instead.”
“Into a tree,” said Luke.
“Clearly,” Sera bit out.
He ruthlessly suppressed a grin. “Do you want me to levitate you out of it?”
“I’d prefer not to levitate ever again.”
“Can you jump?”
“Too far.”
“Not if I catch you.”
Sera scowled. “No, thank you. Could you please just bring me the ladder from the woodshed?”
“It’ll take me five minutes to bring the ladder over and five seconds to catch you,” Luke pointed out. “Get it over with, Sera. Jump.”
Sera considered this for a moment, saw the sense in it, and sighed. She wriggled to the edge of the branch, glanced down once more, winced at the height, squeezed her eyes shut, and jumped.
He caught her, letting her slide down the front of his body until her feet hit the ground. Easy.
Easy, that is, if Luke hadn’t been able to feel every curve and dip of her body. If her skin hadn’t radiated heat, if she hadn’t bitten her lower lip, if there hadn’t been a frantic pulse in her throat that he wanted to kiss. If his heart hadn’t kicked so violently in his chest that he couldn’t believe she hadn’t felt it.
“See?” His voice sounded raspy and unlike him. “All done.”
A tremor ran through her. He stepped back, hands flexing at his sides to keep himself in check.
“Right. All done. Thank you.” Her eyes, large as a doe’s, looked hunted. She was about to flee. “Nicholas is doing dinner today, so I’d better go check it won’t kill us all…”
Then she was gone. Luke let out an uneven breath. For a few moments, when she’d been in the tree, he’d forgotten that they’d barely spoken for the last few weeks, since the night of the first snow, since he’d told her about Zahra and she’d told him he’d had one foot out the door since the very beginning.
“Did you meet Posy’s new teacher?” Theo asked, startling him. He turned. Theo was still standing under the tree, arms tucked around himself. “Are you going to move back to
Edinburgh soon?”
Luke nodded.
Theo’s lip wobbled for a fraction of a second before he clenched his jaw, tight, like he was trying very hard to be
brave.
“Hey.” Luke swallowed. “Come here.”
Theo didn’t need asking twice. He flung his arms around him, tight around Luke’s chest, and his voice was muffled as he said, “I’ll miss you, I’ll miss Posy, but it’s okay. If you have to go, you have to go.”
And very quietly, like it was a secret he was afraid to say any louder anywhere else, Luke said, “I’d stay if I could.”
You’ve had one foot out the door since the day you got
here.
It haunted him.
He buried himself in his work, but even the old books and long hours of research couldn’t make him forget that everywhere he looked was another reminder of a life that seemed to glimmer just out of reach.
He’d look out the window and see Matilda reading to Posy, or teaching her the names of plants, or showing her how to string together longer sentences by tapping buttons in an app.
He’d come down the stairs, long after he thought everyone else would be finished with breakfast, and find that Jasmine was waiting with tea and a stack of pancakes and that kind, gentle smile that never asked anything of him.
He’d go up to the roof to fix another leak and spot Nicholas below, cleaning his armour and patiently explaining to Theo and Posy how each piece fit together.
He’d see Sera everywhere, all the time, even in his fitful dreams. Sera playing with baby Evie while Malik dozed on the sofa beside them; Sera straining honeycombs through cheesecloth, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration; Sera putting a hand on the old bricks and beams of the house like they were having a conversation; Sera arguing with Clemmie; Sera refusing to look him in the eye; and Sera in his head, in countless dreams and memories and fantasies, her mouth on his and her skin under his fingers.
His longing to touch her, to make her laugh, to provoke her into one of her grumpy, overly dramatic speeches,any of it, was very nearly unbearable.
About a week into the new year, Howard rang, wondering if Luke fancied a drink. As Luke was no longer permitted on Guild property, Howard was strictly not supposed to be seeing him in the first place, and Lancashire was a bit far for Howard to drive just for a drink, they met halfway, in a
gastropub in Durham.
“How’s Posy?” Howard asked.
“Asleep, apparently,” Luke said, slinging his coat over the back of his chair. He’d checked in with the inn when he’d parked, and Matilda had assured him that Posy had gone to bed without a fuss and was already fast asleep. It was nice (and maybe also a little bit galling) that she no longer seemed to need him for things like that. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You already stuck your neck out for us at the masquerade when you went and got the Chancellor. If she hadn’t turned up when she did…”
“Don’t be daft,” Howard said. “Albert Grey’s temper tantrum isn’t going to keep me from seeing anybody I want to see. Besides”—he poured himself a hefty cup of tea, shuddering—“it’s rather nice getting out of Northumberland
for a bit. Albert’s been in a frosty sort of mood since the masquerade. And I mean that literally. The temperature at the castle’s a lot lower than it should be.”
“But you’re okay?”
“Pshaw, I’m fine. I do my best to avoid him.” Howard took a sip of his tea and let out a blissful sigh. “Now that’s good stuff. I saw Professor Walter yesterday. She says you’ll be back in Edinburgh soon.”
Luke nodded, tensing.You’ve had one foot out the door since the day you got here.
“Good city, Edinburgh. Best battered Mars bars I’ve ever had. That famous hill, what’s it called? I gotvery drunk there, oh, almost twenty years ago, and had an extraordinary night with a woman named Lucy…”
Even now, right this minute, you’re already halfway gone.
“…do wonder every now and then what became of her.
Not to toot my own horn, but Ithink she enjoyed herself. I wonder if she ever wonders what became of me…”
You’ve had one foot out the door since the day you got here.
“Ahem.” Howard cleared his throat pointedly. “You’re obviously no longer here with me, old bean. What’s eating you?”
Luke blinked back to the present. “Sorry. It’s been a long week.”
Howard called for another pot of tea. “Does this abstraction have anything to do with Sera Swan?”
“What’s Verity told you?”
“She didn’t have to tell me anything,” said Howard cheerfully, rolling his eyes in a most un-Howard-like manner.
“I saw you with her, if you’ll recall, even if I didn’t actually know who she was until the very end. If you could have seen
the way you looked at each other! And you! I’ve never seen you like that, Luke. You were open. Warm.Happy. Whyare you going back to Edinburgh anyway? For Posy?”
“Zahra can help her with her magic.”
“I can’t quite believe I’m about to say this, but, er, have you considered that magic isn’t everything?” Howard had even lowered his voice like he was afraid magic would hear him. “If Posy learns to hide her magic from nonmagical people, that’s all well and good, hurrah and everything, but is that what’s right for heror for you if it means giving up the one place you’ve both been happy?” When Luke just stared at him, struggling to come up with a reply, Howard prompted him. “You’ve been planning on going back to Edinburgh for months, long before you found out about this Zahra person, so it’s plainly not just about her. So?”
There was a time, not very long ago, when Luke would have retreated into icy, forbidding politeness and shut the conversation down. Instead, with his hands clenched tightly around his steaming mug, he found himself trying to explain the last few weeks.
“Er, hang on a tick.” Howard interrupted the explanation, looking utterly confused. “You say you told this boy that you’d stay if you could? Well, why can’t you?”
“Posy’s magic?”
“Yes, yes, you’ve said, but setting that aside for the moment, why can’t you stay?”
“I…” Confronted with the question, asked so bluntly, Luke was startled to find he didn’t know how to answer it. “I…”
You always expect to leave, so you’re always waiting for
it.
“…I’m getting ahead of it.”
“Ahead of what?”
Luke shrugged. “Outstaying my welcome.”
“Ah.” The creases in Howard’s brow vanished. “I see.
You’re doing that thing you do.”
It’s what you do. You always expect to leave, so you’re always waiting for it.
“Look, your parents did a number on you, old bean, and I’m not going to pretend the Guild has been particularly welcoming either,” Howard said, shuffling a little awkwardly like it was uncomfortable for him to acknowledge that the Guild he knew was not necessarily the same one that people like Luke and Sera knew. “You haven’t, er, had the easiest time fitting in anywhere you’ve been. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. You don’t have to exit, stage right, before you’ve even been asked to go.”
You’ve had one foot out the door since the day you got here.
Luke had never felt like his parents’ house was home, and he’d certainly never felt like the Guild was home, but he’d thought he’d learned to live with that. He’d thought he’d accepted that his choices were to be icy or to be alone.
Then he’d seen the same thing happen to Posy. He’d seen their parents and her schools and the Guild governesses treather like she was an annoyance, a burden,unwelcome, and it had been so familiar, so uniquely painful, that he’d refused to see it unravel the same way. Refused, for Posy’s sake, but he’d never actually let hisown history go.
“She was right,” Luke said quietly, stunned. “She tried to tell me, but I didn’t hear it.”
You’ve had one foot out the door since the day you got here.
It was true. He had. Hehad been halfway gone already.
It’s what you do. Every time he started to let his guard down, every time his mask cracked, he expected to have to go. It was what he’d learned. He, Luke, thereal Luke, was
not acceptable. Posy, thereal Posy, was not acceptable.
Sooner or later, they were too much, or not enough, and they had to go. So he’d been expecting it. Waiting for it. He’d gotten ahead of it at the inn, over and over, insisting time and time again that he wasn’t staying long, that they’d leave soon, and he’d thought he’d been protecting them both, but it hadn’t occurred to him that what he’d really been doing each time was hurting the people he’d insisted he was leaving.
“She was right,” Luke said again. “You’re right.”
“There reallyis a first time for everything,” Howard said, settling contentedly back into his chair.
There was a reason the house in Edinburgh had turned him back into tin. It didn’t matter how nice it was, or how much he loved the city, or what their parents wanted. It wasn’t home. Home was somewhere else.
Maybe it was time to believe in other people again.
Maybe it was time to take a chance on them.
Maybe therewould come a day when he’d outstay his welcome. Maybe therewould come a time when he wouldn’t
be wanted anymore.
Maybe that day would never come.
Luke would never know if he didn’t stay.
He stood abruptly. “Howard, you’re a very good friend and I promise I’ll see you soon, but right now, right this minute, I’m going home.”
