Page 9

Chapter 9

I woke up still in my clothes curled up with Hecate on my bed and rather than stew, rolled out of bed and opened up the door to my secret work space. Even with only two of the powers I needed, I could still finish a couple of commissions.

My stomach growled at me as I worked. But a heavy sensation weighed it down at the thought of having to go downstairs and confront Asher again, banishing all its concerns about hunger.

Hecate waited by my bedroom door, stretching as I approached her. She really was being nice this morning if she wasn't hounding me for breakfast.

I changed clothes before heading downstairs, promising myself a shower later when I was less ravenous. Priya would twig I had been out the night before if she saw me in my dark, sleuthing clothes. Although, who knew if Asher had already told her?

Breakfast was well underway by the time we got down; everyone already had plates full of the full English buffet Edward had made. He stood at the stove, dancing to some boppy music on his phone, waving tongs around in the air.

Everyone else ate and chatted across the kitchen table. The moment I walked in, Asher looked up, a chunk of bacon on his fork, and met my gaze. But I didn't hold it, choosing to take the only available seat and heap up my plate. Hecate jumped onto my lap and waited patiently for something she liked to make its way within snatching reach.

A prickling hush had fallen across the table when I sat down, but I ignored it and spooned a large helping of baked beans onto my plate. Only Edward's dumb music filled the silence.

"Late night?" Priya asked.

Tension rippled across my shoulders and had my already crunchy neck tightening. Gods, I needed a massage. But that didn't necessarily mean she knew what I had gotten up to the night before. In fact, she would have looked far less carefree if she knew Asher and I had nearly gotten caught stealing powers the night before.

My gaze wandered to Asher before snapping away again, but he didn't look up. Well, that I had been stealing powers. We weren't exactly as thick as thieves anymore.

"Yeah," I said. If I could leave it at that, I would.

Thankfully, the atmosphere was too awkward for anyone to bother prying.

Hecate snagged a piece of bacon off my plate and made off onto the counter with it. Priya glared at me, but Edward danced past Hecate, giving her a stroke and kisses as he went.

Chatter gradually resumed at the table but I stayed silent, chewing my meal and staring at the coffee stain on the table until my eyes blurred over.

I couldn't give Asher or anyone else any thought at the moment, not when I had another power to get. I would have to go back through the list of people I had found with the power I missed out on the night before and find another target.

The atmosphere held too much weight for me to bear and as soon as I had shovelled down my food, I got up and left the kitchen. I didn't think twice about the sound of scraping chair legs on the kitchen floor until I heard footsteps dashing to catch up with me. Whoever it was, they could talk to my back today.

"Bea." Asher said my name with a degree of force that I would have expected from a teacher, and I was having none of it.

I kept walking toward the stairs but Asher's hand curled around my arm and he steered me into the wall, pressing my back against it. He closed in on me, standing his feet apart and squaring his shoulders to take up as much space as possible. Just the action alone of him touching me, and cornering me like he used to whenever he intended to strip me of my virtue, among other things, set off every hormone in my body.

I tried so hard not to swallow; it would have given away just how much I wanted to tear his clothes off. Ugh, why did he still have this effect on me?

"You're mad, I get it.” Asher barely moved as I tried to pull my arm out of his grip. "But we've got to talk about this."

"Talk about what ? How you're an interfering jerk who needs to stay out of my life?"

"Maybe I wouldn't interfere if you weren't making such bad choices. You won't get away with this forever and I'm worried-"

" Worried ?" I snorted. "You stopped worrying about me six months ago, Asher. Don't stand in my way now and pretend it's because you care."

A low noise rumbled in Asher's throat; a short, snappy sound typical of his disgruntlement. Well, he only had himself to blame.

"You don't get it," he said. "You're going to get caught one of these days and none of us want to see you in jail."

"Oh, don't worry about that," I said, finally prising myself out of his grip. "At least if I'm in jail you won't be there. In fact, I might just turn myself in right now."

My own words burned a hole in my heart as I walked away. I wanted to hurt him as much as he hurt me to make me feel better, but all it did was widen the chasm in me that he had left behind the day he ditched me.

I spent the morning incorporating the two powers I had stolen into the covers of the respective grimoires; an easy enough process with my power, but the trick was making sure they stayed in there. Even a small crack in a crystal holding the power could allow it to escape. Once the power had slipped out of my grasp, it would return to its owner in seconds or less. If there was one thing I didn't dare do, it was to steal from the same place twice.

Setting the two completed grimoires out on the stand, I admired them for a moment to bask in their completion. There was no feeling quite like finishing a grimoire after spending tedious pockets of time binding it and adding whimsical accents to the cover between the man crystals embedded in the leather. The process relaxed me and pulled me so deep into focus that all my worries disappeared for a while. But the completion of one meant I could start another, and the prospect had an excitable spark lighting up inside me.

Maybe I'd make myself a new one and update the one I made years ago when I first started out. It wasn't exactly well used yet, but the binding was wonky and some of the crystals rattled around in the cover. It was a testament to my early years, but with my new skill set, maybe I could stand to upgrade.

At half twelve, I threw on my knee-length purple cardigan that Priya had knitted for me, and my shoulder bag ready to meet Penny for lunch again. My lips tingled with the prospect of being able to offload to Penny about Asher's arrival and his sheer audacity the night before as I popped downstairs.

Hecate had stayed in the kitchen, probably in the hopes of snagging scraps from breakfast, but her ears perked up as I passed the kitchen and she jumped down off the counter to pad toward me.

"Where are we going?" she asked, once she had jumped up my back and curled around my shoulders.

"Lunch with Penny."

"I'll have a salmon bagel when we get there. Thank you."

"You'll only eat the salmon," I said, as we made our way into the garage.

"So? You like the cream cheese and bread part."

"Some days I wonder if you should start earning your keep around here."

Hecate jumped into her carrier and curled up, blinking slowly at me. Yeah, she knew I was full of it.

The roads were fairly clear on the drive to the teleportation portal, and even through Cambridge, and I could truly lose myself in the sensation of a little speed. Sometimes I would pop over to Germany to burn some real rubber on the autobahn and leave my troubles in the dust. In fact, I was probably overdue a visit.

When we got up to the cafe, Penny already sat in our usual booth, a mug in both hands and a creased brow.

"Uh oh, what's up?" I asked, as I slid into the booth.

Hecate jumped off my shoulders and onto the table, picking her way across it to greet Penny.

"Oh, nothing." Penny stroked Hecate but her eyes remained glazed over.

"Hey." I snapped my fingers in front of her face and she jerked out of her daydream. "Come on, don't hide stuff from me. What's wrong?"

"I just think I'm overreacting, that's all," Penny said, taking a sip of her tea. "My mum's got this new boyfriend and he gives off these weird vibes.”

"How so?" I took my gloves off and flexed my fingers.

Penny gave a huge shrug and a sigh, the tea slopping around precariously in her mug. "It's just the weird comments he makes to me, you know? Like, 'oh, you're so beautiful today' and 'if I was twenty years younger' . It's just...gross, and now mum wants him to move in and..."

My cheeks heated up. "She wants him to move in after he's acted like that? Is she mad?"

"She's desperate," Penny said, rolling her eyes. "And I've done a few readings and, well...it doesn't look like things will get any better. If anything, they'll only get worse when he moves in."

I slumped in my seat. Penny had moved back in with her mum after returning to university and while they had never really gotten on that well while she was growing up, they had managed to make it work so far. But that looked like it would change in the immediate future if her mum let this weirdo into their home.

"You could come and live with us," I said, jerking out of my slump to lean on the table. "We've got room and I know the guys would love to have you as a roommate. Hec and I would."

Hecate pawed at Penny's neck, hopefully communicating to her the same. Penny's eyes shone and she took Hecate's large paw between her fingers and kissed it.

"You guys are sweet," she said. "But I can't pay rent or anything. It wouldn't be fair."

"You don't need to pay rent. And nobody would expect you to."

I hadn't when I first arrived. Nobody had made a big deal out of it then or made me feel bad about it. In fact, everyone had made sure I felt settled and set up my life before I paid a penny. Even my first rent payment had been at my suggestion, nobody else's.

Penny scoffed. "I can't just live off you guys while I finish my degree!"

"Give me a good reason why not," I said. "Besides, it'd be great to have you around."

It would give me someone to hang out with until Asher left and I could finally have my home back.

Penny's brow remained furrowed, her eyes glazing over a bit, hopefully thinking about my proposition seriously. But after a moment, she snapped out of it.

"Maybe...not right now," she said. "I don't know, it's all just a bit...ambiguous. I don't want to make any drastic changes yet. But thank you, Bea. I really appreciate it."

I sighed and cupped my chin with my hand. Dang it. For a second there, I could have had a roommate who was on my side with the whole Asher thing. "Okay, just know you've always got a place with us if you need it."

Penny smiled but it didn't extend to her eyes. Whoever this gross new boyfriend of her mum's was, he would need to watch his back if I ever happened across him.

"If you're proposing I move in with people, I should probably at least meet your other roommates before you start foisting me on them," she said.

I blinked. Sometimes I forgot Penny hadn't actually come around to my place before. She had met Asher when we were dating, and Priya once in passing, but she had never met Edward and Laura. In the three years we had known each other, we had always hung out at her place or gone out on the town.

"You'll meet them at Laura's birthday night out tonight, then you'll have no excuse," I said.

"It was ever so nice of her to let me come," Penny said.

I nodded, not wanting to tell her the real truth. Laura had suggested Penny come with us so I had someone with me given that I would have to suffer Asher all night. I appreciated the gesture, and I could introduce Penny to everyone in preparation for bugging her to move in with us.

"If it'll help you get away from that creep, all the better," I said.

"Anyway, enough about my rubbish," Penny said, stroking Hecate with one hand and grasping her mug with the other. "How's your life going since yesterday?"

Down the drainpipe to put it lightly.

"Oh, I didn't tell you?" I asked, rolling my eyes. "Asher showed up for some vacation from his stupid job and now he has the audacity to think he can tell me what to do."

Penny's eyes widened. "Nooooo. What happened?"

"I went out to get the powers I needed for the grimoire commissions and he followed me to one of them, saying that I couldn't steal from them because his company had just signed a contract with them. Then he has the gall to say that I shouldn't be taking powers anymore because it'll ' get me into trouble' ." I mimicked his voice with the most whiny, petulant tone I could muster.

"After he got you into that business in the first place? The cheek." Penny glared at me over the top of her mug.

"Right? And just when I need to start looking for another power to help me track down that stupid prophet," I said. "Not that I'm having any luck with that, anyway."

"How come?"

"I can't find anyone with the power I'm looking for and it's driving me crazy."

"Hmmm..." Penny stared into her mug, biting her lip.

I narrowed my eyes. "What?"

"Well." Penny chewed her lip harder. "Didn't Asher know someone he used to get information like that from? That contact he would call whenever you guys couldn't find a power you were looking for?"

All sound left my ears, as if I'd been plunged into a vacuum. She was right. Asher of all people, had the resources I was looking for, tucked away in his back pocket.