Page 40 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

“No way. I’m not dumping this thing on some unsuspecting person. I can encase it in a force sphere.” An equally common evocation spell. “Chalk, iron, glass, a silver disk, and a ruby.”

He smiles wryly. “That’s one more component than my spell needs, so it’d waste time.”

“But your spell would dump this cube on some random person . No.”

“I wouldn’t make it some random person. I’d drop it on our competitors .” He points at the main dividing wall, beyond which Thompson and Narbeth are working against their own cube, but we can’t see their progress.

An evil smirk spreads across Thio’s face, and I can’t help it: I grin.

Gods, it feels good.

And it seems to surprise the hell out of Thio, who leans toward me, his smile shifting from demonic to intent—

Only he straightens up. Above the wall.

The next chunk of ooze cube blasts him in the side of the face.

He goes down with the force of it, but immediately pops up onto his knees and scrapes goo off his face.

“ Fuckinghellgodsdamnit, ” he curses, sucks in a breath, then again, “ Fuuuuck —this shit is cold .”

There’s goo all in his hair, plastering it to the side of his face, and dripping in globs down his shoulder, his chest.

Laughter grabs me. I can’t fight it; I’m sputtering as Thio wipes purple goo out of his eyes and his annoyance dissolves in a smile.

“Laugh it up, Walsh. Wait until it’s your turn.”

“Oh, I don’t plan on getting hit.”

“Hm.” Thio scoops another chunk off his shoulder and flicks it on my jeans. “Let’s test that confidence. I’ll take the left side, you take the right. The chalk and diamond boxes are on my side, the iron and copper wire are on yours. First one back without being cubed gets a blowjob.”

My jaw pops open and blood rushes to my cheeks.

He beams at me, knowing he’s distracted me even more, and I want to kiss him so damn bad.

“And go !” Thio takes off, leaping out from the wall and barrel-rolling behind the next closest obstacle, a wooden door.

I glance over the wall, note the cube lurching and gurgling in Thio’s direction—it’s staying on the platform at least—and don’t give myself a chance to hesitate. I bolt out from the wall, duck under a segmented open window, then copy Thio’s barrel roll behind a boulder.

Oh hey—a component box. This one’s marked with a symbol for herbs, and even though it isn’t one of the things we need, I keep it.

Three consecutive globs of goo launch from the cube, hitting the window I ducked behind, the wall, and somewhere on Thio’s side.

The stairs to nowhere have the box for the iron at the top, and the bottom step is only about two yards from this boulder.

Tucking the herb box to my stomach, I hobble-sprint in a squat for the staircase. The side closest to the cube has a wall at least, and I make it to the first step before the cube propels a chunk of itself at me. It plops against the side of the staircase, splashing goo across my shoes.

I’m not counting that as a hit.

I clatter up the staircase, keeping pressed to the wall because the other side is a sheer drop to the field.

Shouldn’t we have had to sign a waiver to do this?

The top stair hangs precariously over the cube’s platform. I stop before it, watching the cube spit several rounds of projectiles around the field, hitting things at random.

Thio’s across from me, creeping through what looks like the first floor of an abandoned house, clutching at least three boxes. He’s grabbing as many as he finds, too.

The cube spits at him, and I dive for the top step, snatching the iron component box and flinging myself backward as the cube gurgles and fires at me. This chunk hits the step and sprays into my hair, but I miss the worst of it by hurling my body halfway down the stairs in a cumbersome topple.

The crowd makes a noise—a cheer? A gasp? It’s hard to tell.

My heart’s already thumping with the running and ducking, but it lurches painfully as I catch my breath against the staircase wall.

Anxiety still prickles across my skin, makes me want to dig at my forearms.

I need to get the copper wire. Thio said it was on my side.

Go.

Focus on that.

I scan the area from my elevated place on the stairs. A few more boulders are scattered around the staircase, more walls, a concrete sphere—ah, there. A box is wedged next to the sphere, and I can see the symbol on it for copper.

Movement out of the corner of my eye turns out to be Thio, nearly back to our wall.

I curse but clutch the boxes and clatter the rest of the way down the stairs to make a run for the sphere.

Halfway there, a downright frigid projectile lobs onto my side, sending me careening to my knees with a yelp.

Shivering, I scrape it off and army-crawl my way to the sphere, grab the copper box, and haul ass back to the main wall, cover be damned.

Thio’s already there.

Which means he has a front-row seat for the chunk of cube that hits me in the back.

I wheeze but stagger to safety behind the wall next to him, where he’s wearing that way too smug, way too satisfied grin I hate. Used to hate. Not sure I ever did hate.

“I win,” he says.

My answering smile is only a little exasperated as I dump my armful of boxes between us, into the pile he’s already made with his. “Well, I like making you come apart in my mouth. Who’s the real winner here?”

His cheeks are already red with exertion, but he bites one of his lip rings, and I don’t want to be here.

Don’t want to be doing this challenge or using a lot of energy to not think about so many things.

I want to be in the back of Thio’s car or in my kitchen—no, I want to be in a bed because we haven’t had that since the first night, after the club.

I want a bed and a locked door and I want him naked and spread out for me.

That becomes the bright light in my tunnel, the only thing I see: getting out of here.

I tear through the boxes. “Diamond, copper wire, iron?”

Thio follows suit. “Yeah. I grabbed chalk and sulfur, too—the chalk will be good. If I can draw a teleportation circle, I can get the coordinates of the location more exact. Do you—Sebastian?”

The boxes are wood. No clasps. The lid just pops up.

I’ve got the iron one open.

It’s empty.

The copper wire box had its component in it. I check the herb box I grabbed—it’s full of vials stuffed with various herbs.

But the iron box.

I stare at it. Flip it upside down, checking the hinges—more wood—even the base.

It’s empty.

There’s no iron.

My back tenses muscle by muscle. Rising up my spine, panic comes like a tide until my hands quake so badly I drop the empty box and it clatters against the others.

Thio grabs my forearm. “Okay, Sebastian, what is going on?”

“The iron,” I hear myself say. “The iron’s gone.”

“I don’t give a shit about the iron. Look at me .”

I can’t.

Unclench your fists. Stay grounded. Come back into your body.

I look up and see Thio.

And then my eyes shut, and I see that scar on Orok’s shoulder.

Is that all you’ve got?

Orok’s screaming. He’s screaming and there’s blood everywhere—

But it isn’t Orok this time. It’s Thio. And it’s my father’s voice echoing through the room, telling me there’s only one way out, this way out.

I’m panting, nostrils flared and fingers clawing into the grass, dirt and rocks biting under my nailbeds. My eyes open again but everything’s gone red.

Fuck this challenge.

Fuck playing by the rules.

They want us to defeat that damn cube? I’ll defeat it. I’ll obliterate the ever-loving shit out of it, and it won’t matter that there’s no iron, it won’t matter what they ask me to do; I choose how I use my own power.

I snatch the box of sulfur Thio got. It’s all I need for several fire-based attack spells.

“Sebastian!” Thio grabs my arm and I try to jerk away but he holds on tight; I’d wanted him to bruise me earlier, he is now.

“ Stop, ” he tells me, face halfway between furious and concentrating, like he wants to spring to action right alongside me but he’s staying present because—

Because I’m not .

“Stop,” he repeats, and seizes the back of my neck.

“You don’t want to tell me what’s wrong?

Fine. You want to be angry? That’s fine, too.

But use that anger, Sebastian. I might’ve thought you were an immature nuisance once upon a time, but you’re not, and I know you’re smart enough not to do something dumb right now. ”

No. I’m not.

I’m the kid who did stupid shit because I couldn’t handle anything that happened.

I’m the guy who doesn’t think and makes a mess of everything and no one takes me seriously, no one ever took me seriously ; so I embodied that, I embodied it so much I forgot how to be anything else.

But… I’m not just that. Not anymore. I haven’t been that guy in weeks. Months, maybe.

My grip releases.

The sulfur falls between me and Thio.

I’m still panting, shoulders heaving, but my anger is parting like curtains over a window and there, there’s that dawn again, the one that’s been rising, the one I can’t always see. But I feel it now, and it’s warm and clear and safe.

Thio sees me coming back. “Now, there’s no iron. How do we fix that?”

He’s asking me directly, giving my brain a more immediate problem to solve.

We need iron for the spell.

How do we get it?

My body twinges, but I shake my head, shake it and shake it, no, no . Another way. He isn’t talking about that. There has to be another way.

What other components do we have?

Herbs. Herbs—

“I can summon Nick,” I mutter, my lips trembling. “I can—I can have him—” My eyes meet Thio’s, a burst of lucidity. “Can we use any components on the field? Not just on our side of the field?”

A slow smile spreads across his lips. “You know, they didn’t clarify that.”

“So everything’s fair game?”

He shrugs.

“I can send Nick to steal the iron from over there.” I point at the dividing wall, behind which Narbeth and Thompson are working on their own spells.

Thio’s face blows into a wide grin. “Go for it, baby.”

I pick up the herb box and he starts sketching out a circle on our wall. The cube’s still spitting at us, but most of it seems to be hitting the wall itself or patches of grass on either side.

Thio’s face bends in concentration as he draws some conjuration runes.

“Have dinner with me.”

He stiffens. Glances over his shoulder. “What?”

“Have—” I twitch. “Have dinner with me. A… a date.”

Gods, I’m flayed open. This morning has done nothing but peel back my layers until all I have left is pathetic neediness, and I know it’s painted on my face.

Thio lowers his arm, chalk pinched in his fingers.

I’ve seen him smile so many times. So many different flavors of it, I could write a thesis on the dozens of ways Elethior Tourael’s lips move.

But this smile? It puts all the others to shame. It’s joy and relief, it’s ecstasy and an unspoken, vibrant finally .

“Tonight,” he says through that smile. “I’ll pick you up tonight at seven.”

I start to agree, but— “Wait, I asked you out. Shouldn’t I plan it?”

Confidence sparkles in his eyes. “Fuck no. I know exactly what I want to do with you. To you. Let me?”

I should fight him more. Just, like, set a precedent for not being a huge pushover when he goes all— him.

But I nod, pretty sure there are heart emojis circling my eyes. “Okay.”

He beams. “Good.”

“Good—oh no, gods, we aren’t doing that again.”

He laughs. And nudges the herb box in my hands. “Call Nick so we can win this thing and get out of here.”

But I don’t move. Not yet.

“I’ll tell you,” I say. “I want to tell you.”

Everything. All of it.

It’s another shock how much I mean it, how easily I make that promise.

I should have explained what exactly I want to tell him—but Thio’s face softens.

This smile is small yet overwhelming.

“Whatever you want, Sebastian,” he whispers. “You can tell me whatever you want.”

I summon Nick. And not long later, my invisible fox plops a chunk of iron into my palm.

The boxes aren’t latched. I could’ve dropped the iron at any point in my mad dash across the field.

It doesn’t matter.

Thio’s going on a date with me.

He finishes the teleportation spell. Our cube vanishes, and after a pause, there’s a loud, wet plop from across the wall, followed by aggrieved shouts.

The crowd cheers, a roar that cocoons us in white noise as Thio turns to me.

“Looks like we won,” he says with a breathless grin.

I return that grin. Feel it through my whole body.

We won?

Yeah.

I’m pretty sure I have.

CAMPUS-WIDE SECURITY ALERT: The missing infant basilisk from the Nomadic Order of the Enchanted Beast Pet Adoption Event has been safely recovered and all affected parties have been de-stoned.

After her daring exploits, during which we are told she assisted in the recovery of a stolen wallet and prevented a fire on the second floor of the Herbology building, the infant basilisk is no longer available for adoption, and will instead be trained to become a guide basilisk for the visually impaired.

Have a happy spring break!