Page 38 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

CAMPUS-WIDE SECURITY ALERT: All students, faculty, staff, and visitors attending the Founder’s Day activities are being directed to avoid the southwest corner of the Quad where the Nomadic Order of the Enchanted Beast Pet Adoption Event is being held.

An adventure party is on site following the reported escape of an infant basilisk.

As of this alert, three Nomadic Order staff and four hopeful adopters have been petrified, and the basilisk remains at large. Authorities recommend all Founder’s Day guests have anti-petrification spells on hand. More updates as they become available.

“Aw, there he is!” I walk backward with the group, snapping about a dozen pictures on my phone. “My boy’s all grown up.”

Orok shifts his rawball helmet under his other arm and rolls his eyes.

The Manticore logo is emblazoned across his purple jersey with a smaller patch stitched on his shoulder, the symbol of Urzoth Shieldsworn.

Not every player has a patron god, but there are more than a few patches scattered throughout the forty-person rawball team as they make their way in full uniform out of the stadium.

Their designated Founder’s Day charity game against a local kids’ group doesn’t start for several hours, but the players are scheduled for photo ops in a massive booth across the Quad.

Founder’s Day goers stop to ooh and ahh at their procession. Someone shouts, “Feel the sting!” and a number of players chant it back.

Players and fans alike do not appreciate it when “Feel the sting” is followed up with “of going raw.” Ask me how I know.

The whole of Founder’s Day is in full swing all across campus, with gold-and-purple bunting covering every surface imaginable.

Booths line most walkways, selling food, drinks—including the aforementioned Founder’s Day punch, which I give a longing glance at—and university paraphernalia.

Guests are out in droves, mostly students and faculty, but also people from the surrounding city who take advantage of the festival-like atmosphere.

There aren’t carnival rides or stuff like that, and most of the events are Lesiara U–themed—does any young family care about professors competing against students?

—but the overall energy is bubbly, carefree fun.

I scroll through photos. “Look at you in your fancy costume. Such a handsome— ow! ”

Orok hauls me into a headlock without slowing his pace.

“Wait!” I wave my phone helplessly back toward the stadium. “I need to go that way—my event starts in, like, ten minutes.”

“No,” Orok says simply. “You called our uniform a costume. If I don’t give you some kind of punishment, the whole team will.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot how delicate you rawball players can be.”

Orok squeezes me tighter. I smack his arm, but he doesn’t let up.

“Okay—” I wheeze. “Uncle, unc—”

My phone buzzes in my hand. I look at it absently.

And see my mom’s name over a text notification. In the preview window, the words “… Camp Merethyl director. ”

I go limp.

Orok glances down at my change and lets me go. “Seb?”

His teammates continue around us when we become inadvertent obstacles in the sidewalk.

I swipe open the text.

MOM

Your father has officially been named the next Camp Merethyl director.

It would mean the world if you could call to congratulate him.

Emotionless, I hold my phone out so Orok can see.

“Shit,” he mutters, and if he says more, I don’t hear it.

My dad’s going to be the director of Camp Merethyl.

My father is going to be the one running that place. That place.

It’s fine.

It’s fine.

I think those words over and over, an endless loop weaving into a life raft that might carry this weight for me.

“Seb—” Orok touches my arm and I cringe away, hard.

Are my eyes tearing? No, it’s… allergies or some shit.

“It doesn’t matter,” I snap. “He’ll run the camp. Nothing’ll change. He’ll find whole new generations of wizards to—”

My throat closes.

Eyes burning, jaw tight, I focus on messing with my phone’s camera settings. “Smile, O. One more picture.”

He watches me a beat longer.

Then, deadpan, flips me off.

I spit a laugh, so grateful for it, and Orok manages a smile, too.

“Aw, that’s a keeper,” I say to the picture. “You probably shouldn’t pose like that when you’re taking photos with festivalgoers, though.”

Orok leans over my shoulder to look at it. He huffs another laugh.

Then threads his arm around my waist and gives me a side hug. “Let me know when you want to talk about it.”

Muscles cramp across my shoulders. I pocket my phone and lean against him, his rawball padding dense and uncomfortable on my back.

“Don’t you have fans to torment?” I shove him. Playfully. Sort of.

He grunts and trots off. And it isn’t until I watch him slump away that I realize maybe he wants to talk about it. He’s known my dad for years, and this is a blow to him, too.

I mean—it’s not a blow. It’s not anything .

I turn on my heel and head up the sidewalk. Most people are moving around me, but one person stays fixed in place, and I pull up short to avoid slamming into them.

Thio.

Seeing him slants reality. Makes me question if maybe reality was slanted, and looking at him is what it feels like to be level.

He takes me in from head to toe. Per Thompson’s suggestion, I wore clothes I don’t mind getting messed up—old jeans, a T-shirt I don’t particularly care about, my grungiest pair of sneakers, and I swapped my glasses for contacts.

The weather’s cool but tolerable without a coat, and I have my component belt, but that’s easily cleaned.

Thio’s similarly dressed, but his version of trash clothes are well-worn designer brands that fit him like a second skin: a black T-shirt and black jeans with holes in random places that let the straps of his component harnesses do really, really lovely things to his thigh muscles.

My eyes get stuck there. On the way the leather straps bite into the skin I can see through one of the rips in his jeans.

We should’ve blown each other before this. But Orok and I took public transport in together rather than Thio picking me up, which was fine at the time, but now?

I pretend I’m adjusting my component belt but, nope, I’m adjusting something quite different.

Thio’s smiling by the time my eyes make it back up to his. “You ready, partner?”

“Yup. You hear what it is we’re doing?”

Whatever this challenge, it’ll let me scorch through my mom’s text. Melt it right out of my mind.

My chest thrums, twists sharply.

It’s fine.

We fall into step, heading toward the stadium. Our mystery challenge is at the rawball field until the charity game.

“Not a clue,” Thio says. The crowd pushes us together, our arms brushing as we walk.

His fingers stretch against mine.

He doesn’t take my hand, though. That would be— nope .

“You two are close?” Thio nods behind us.

To where Orok had his arm around my waist.

I stop in the middle of the sidewalk again. People pass us when Thio matches me, and I study his expression, bracing for accusation. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it’s usually what people jump to in regard to me and Orok.

But Thio looks… interested? Like he’s honestly curious.

“Yeah. We’re close,” I say, testing the waters. “We’ve known each other most of our lives. He’s important to me.”

Thio smiles, and it’s kind of sad. “You’re lucky. He seems to care about you a lot.”

They’ve only met twice, barely: once in the lab when Orok went to get my stuff, and once when Thio was doing the walk of shame out of our apartment.

Thio turns to resume heading up the sidewalk, but I grab his arm.

“Wait. What’s this?” I point at his face.

“What’s what?”

“ This . This— coolness. You were jealous of a bartender I talked to for two point three seconds, but you aren’t jealous of Orok?”

Thio blinks. “I don’t get that vibe between you two.” His head cocks. “Should I?”

“Gods no.”

“Okay then.”

“You don’t think it’s weird?” I’m still bracing. Still… confused.

Most of my exes had some issue with Orok. His, too, with me. And a few hookups would either get squirrelly and duck out, or assume we were down for a three-way. Which, fuck no. And if it wasn’t that, it’s been weirdness from other people, like how Ivo and Crescentia assumed we were together.

But Thio looks at me with that bittersweet smile.

He wars with himself, decides on something with a flicker of his lips.

“Every friendship or relationship I’ve had has been fucked over by my family somehow.

Fame seekers who wanted what the Touraels could do for them, or people my relatives planted to manipulate me, or friends bribed to leave because they weren’t good enough to associate with me.

So to have the kind of friendship you have…

” He shrugs, forlorn. “You’re lucky, like I said. To have someone you can count on.”

I’d been pissed at his family when he only had me to help him during his mom’s seizure. That anger surges to life again, and I include now all those assholes who could’ve been friends with him, could’ve had him in their lives, but chose Tourael fuckery.

For a second, we stare at each other, and all the crowds, the smells of fried festival treats, even the escaped basilisk we’re supposed to diligently watch out for—they vanish.

What would the fallout be if I kissed him here?

Why do I want to kiss him here? To claim him, now, in public.

To remind him that he’s not alone anymore.

I pause too long.

His weak smile hardens, then fragments.

“But whether or not I’m jealous doesn’t matter, does it?” he asks. “Since that’s not what this is between us. We only agreed to be physically exclusive.”

My heart kicks hard against my ribs. It rocks me backward, awareness shuddering through me like a shot of tequila. I can feel it everywhere; it’s corrosive.

“Yeah. Right. We should head on,” I say, and start back up the sidewalk.

Thio’s next to me, both of us silent.

He doesn’t want this to just be physical. I don’t think he ever has.