Page 81 of Spark of Sorcery

“I don’t want to …” I begin, then trail off because who am I kidding? I do want to. Fly is right, the way that man looks at me is like fire. All this time I’ve been mistaking it for hatred. Now I see it for what it is – want, an unfulfilled want, a want he thinks can never be fulfilled. No wonder he’s so freaking angry about it. I feel pretty angry about it myself. “It’s complicated.”

I poke at the remainder of my potato with a lot less force.

“It’s always complicated with you and those Princes,” Fly says. “If you ever turn around and tell me it’s easy and simple, I’ll drop dead of shock.”

“Some of it is easy and simple,” I muse. Fly snorts. “It is!” I insist. “I don’t know, I’ve spent time with Thorne now and I kind of like him.”

“But he doesn’t feel the same,” Clare says, nodding her head as if she’s worked out a tricky puzzle.

“Erm, actually no.” I drop my fork and slump back inmy chair, twisting a loose piece of hair back into my usual bun. “I think he does like me.”

“So what’s the problem, Cupcake?” Fly says. “You haven’t exactly proved shy when it comes to these men so far.” He leans in close. “You know there are rumors swirling about you and Dray at the ball.”

“Tsk,” Clare dismisses, “there are rumors swirling about everyone. Including you Fly.”

Our usually overly confident friend shuts his mouth and peers around the canteen as if to check whether people are talking about him right now.

“Like I said,” I sigh, staring down at my unfinished lunch, “it’s complicated.”

Clare removes her glasses and wipes the lenses with her sleeve. “A problem shared, is a problem halved.”

I chew on my cheek. “He can’t touch me,” I whisper quietly. They both lean in closer.

“Does he have OCD?” Clare asks. “Or an aversion to sex or something?”

“It’s his powers. He says if he touched me, he’d hurt me.” I shake my head in frustration. “I don’t really understand it.”

“Ahhh,” Fly says, “that explains the gloves. I thought that was a strange fashion choice.”

“But he controls his powers. I don’t see why it would be a problem,” Clare muses.

“According to him it is.”

“There must be more to it,” Clare says.

“If there were, though,” Fly says, “wouldn’t he have told you?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

Thorne Cadieux isn’t exactly the talkative type.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Briony

When I return to my room after afternoon lessons, telling my friends I’m skipping dinner to catch an early night, I find it less trashed than lunchtime and Blaze curled up on top of my bed sleeping.

Several of my socks have been strewn across the floor, several of them ripped to pieces, and the cage has once again been scorched, but there are no half-eaten rats this time.

As I climb onto the bed beside him, I discover why. He lifts his head, yawns, attempts to lick my face, then shoots up into the roof, yanks a rat out of the rafters by its tail and swallows it whole.

“Yuck, Blaze, that is seriously gross!”

Although, I have to admit, it’s better than rat remains all over the room.

He spins some somersaults in the air, letting out somepuffs of smoke, dive bombs one of my socks, then settles back into the bed beside me.

“I’m not sure I should be letting you sleep up here with me,” I tell him, as he begins to purr, “I think it sets a bad precedent.” I assume Blaze is going to grow pretty big. He’s already grown on this first day. Eventually he’ll be crushing the bed with me in it. But he’s so damn sweet, little legs twitching as he falls asleep, that I can’t help relenting.