Page 10 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

“It’s a big deal,” he tells me. His focus shoots to my mom.

“He’s been preparing for months. Had to get references from his professors, pull his project into a cohesive proposal, provide documented plans and real-world applications.

There was an award brunch. He crushed it.

” He includes his mom with a look. “It took strength to do all that.”

Half my mouth tips up.

I haven’t really felt all the work I’ve done, the accomplishment of it all. But yeah. It is a big deal; I did crush it. The same with getting that job—I’ve worked hard for all this shit, and I earned every bit of it.

Mom dries her hands and digs her phone out of her purse. “Did the university post photos of the brunch?”

My brief island of good feelings crumbles out from beneath me.

“Oh, ah—” I slip back into the kitchen and try to reach for her phone, but she holds it away.

“Sebastian,” she says. “If it’s such an accomplishment, then there are photos, aren’t there? I want to see. We deserve to be a part of your life.”

There’s a lot to unpack in what she said, but under no circumstances can I let her see a picture of Elethior and me. Together. And the announcement that I’ll be working with him.

The ramifications ripple out like a collapsing run of dominos.

“It’s not a big deal,” I repeat. And fling a helpless look at Orok. “Right? Orok’s exaggerating.”

He has the same realization and I see the Oh shit in his eyes. “There probably aren’t pictures,” he tries. “It was a small brunch—”

“The Mageus Research Grant?” Mom asks, reading on her phone, and my pulse hums a disjointed rhythm.

I’ve been unhappy about the grant decision, of course, but I haven’t let it in .

I’ve refused to think about what it means to work with Elethior— for me, beneath the implications of it on my degree, on my future career.

It’s easier to keep it distant. To be upset about it from a dozen other angles rather than think about how being in close proximity to Elethior will affect me on a personal level.

But I watch over my mom’s shoulder as she clicks around the university site, and reality knocks the wind straight out of me.

I try to think of something to say. Something so the three of them can head out on the two-and-a-half-hour drive to our hometown.

Then I can curl up in my room and spend the next few weeks cleansing myself of the brunch, and Mom, and Ghorza, and the Touraels.

I can find a way to pack all this down into that space in my stomach where I’ve learned to store things until they become an unavoidable, painful knot that only releases when I do something stupid.

Mom scrolls through a few pages until she gets to a photo of Elethior, Dr. Davyeras, and me. The caption gives the details of the grant along with the vague descriptions of each of our projects.

Her face transforms into a gleaming smile, her initial swell of pride now a full-blown hurricane.

“ Sweetheart . You were awarded a grant with a Tourael? You’ll be working with him? Oh, Sebastian, this is—”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” My fists beat on my thighs.

“Tourael?” Ghorza questions. Understanding dawns. “They ran the camp you boys went to? The one where—”

Just as quickly, her understanding folds back into blame directed at me.

But she doesn’t continue her sentence. Doesn’t say, The one where Sebastian convinced Orok to drop out, thereby ruining his chances of being an arcane soldier like Urzoth intended.

I feel the memory of it anyway. Feel it scrape along my spine and fizzle at the base of my neck. It’s been six years but there’s no protection from it, no dullness of time, no armor from any of the ineffective ways I try to shield myself. It’s always right there. Waiting.

“Camp Merethyl,” Mom says to Ghorza, beaming still, unaware of the way my breathing escalates. “Yes. The director of the camp is retiring, and we heard rumors that Mason’s under consideration to replace him—Ghorza, I told you about that?”

I recoil at my dad’s name.

Ghorza makes an affirmative noise.

“Well,” Mom continues, “it’s quite a big deal.

Most of the Camp Merethyl directors have been Touraels.

It’s an honor he’d be considered. And now, it seems Sebastian’s working with a member of their family.

” Mom studies the pictures—does she notice my lack of a smile in any of them? “Oh, Sebastian, this is wonderful!”

Orok watches me, and it agitates me even more. I don’t want to need him. But I did back then, and I do now, and he was wrong. I don’t embody any of Urzoth Shieldsworn’s teachings about strength.

I scratch at my forearms, the sting of pain enough to ground me briefly.

“Mom,” I say, but she won’t hear me. She never does. “Elethior isn’t—”

Her eyes mist. “Your father is going to be so proud.”

And there it is.

Orok wasn’t the only one whose legacy I destroyed. And you don’t have to follow the teachings of Urzoth Shieldsworn to believe in a black-and-white duality between what makes someone strong and what makes them weak.

Colonel Mason Walsh has three children who went to Camp Merethyl every summer of high school, graduated from it, then were promptly recruited to join the Arcane Forces.

Then there’s me. Who dropped out right before graduation. That plus my mild criminal record are the black marks on my father’s résumé as he tiptoes toward the goal of heading up the foremost magical paramilitary training camp in the country.

Is that all you’ve got?

Pathetic.

My stomach caves.

I move around Mom to attack the kitchen, but it’s spotless now, so I grab a towel and robotically dry the countertops.

She pats my arm. “This is what you two need: common ground, and you can—”

“Don’t tell him.” I pin my gaze on her. I want to glare. Maybe I am, maybe I only look pleading. “You are not to tell him about this grant. About Elethior. None of it.”

Those blue eyes are full of hurt she has no right to feel. “Things have been strained between you for too long. This is a chance to start again. It’s redemption, Sebastian.”

Redemption.

It was my fault, dropping out.

It was my fault, and I need to prove myself to my father again, earn back his trust.

“Do. Not. Tell. Him.” I say each word with its own beat, so there’s no misunderstanding.

“Don’t be disrespectful,” Mom snaps, her cheeks pinking.

“You know what scandal your withdrawal from the camp caused, and yes, it would help your father’s chances of becoming director if you could smooth over your reputation among the Touraels—but you can also use this to heal your relationship with your father.

This opportunity is more than a grant, Sebastian! You’re being unreasonable.”

“I’m really not.”

Her face tightens in exasperation. “Fine. I won’t tell him.”

I go back to drying. “Thank you.”

“As long as you tell him yourself when you come home.”

I bend over the counter, teeth clenching. “I’m not going home, Mom.”

She sucks in a shaky breath. “You haven’t been home in months. Months . And you haven’t spent the holidays with us in years . Your nieces and nephew miss you.”

“I mailed them some presents.”

“Your siblings miss you.”

“Doubtful.” An age gap of almost a decade between me and my next oldest sibling would’ve been enough of a divide without the addition of me being so… not them.

Mom’s upper lip stiffens. “Your father misses you.”

I have nothing left to give this conversation, hitting the bottom of my tolerance for speaking and not being heard.

So I turn and hug her.

She goes rigid before her thin arms come around my waist, her chin resting on my shoulder with a contented hum.

“Have a happy holiday season,” I whisper.

“Sebastian—”

But I push around her.

Ghorza’s got her arms folded, a look of smug confirmation on her face. Everything she believes about me is right. What son would treat his family this way?

“Happy Urzoth’s birthday, Mrs. Monroe,” I say politely, and it shocks her out of her victory, her smile shrinking.

I jog up the stairs, not at all surprised when Orok’s feet pound after mine.

I reach the landing and scratch my arms harder, red lines growing in the wake of my nails.

This is enough. This is enough .

I stole shit from the convenience store in our neighborhood after the first summer at Camp Merethyl. Orok hated that, but he was always there to cover for me.

After the second summer, I stole my oldest brother’s car.

Crashed it into a telephone pole going about ten miles an hour because I’d never driven before, but it knocked the pole down and shattered the windshield.

I still have a scar by my hairline where the glass cut me.

Orok had been in the car, too, and he’d been unhurt, but the realization that he could’ve been the one getting stitches had me rethinking things.

After the third summer, I started cheating on all my work at school and selling answers to other students.

That didn’t last long—it never gave me the same rush—so I opted to use spells for the dumbest shit I could think of.

Wizards have been experimenting with component amounts and quality for centuries, but I decided to do my own experiments.

If I used a handful of sparrow feathers instead of one big eagle feather, how long could a levitation spell hold me up?

Long enough to walk the length of the bridge that used to stretch over the gully behind the grocery store?

What if I mumbled the verbal part of the spell while drunk? Would it still work, or would I fall?

I claimed it was all for science, but the kids from school who’d gather to watch saw through my excuses. I was an adrenaline junkie, nothing more.