Page 48 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

A good chunk of that dread gets slapped silly when Thio and I return to the lab and neither of us lets the new dynamic of our relationship alter the preestablished dynamic of our working partnership.

Translation: he immediately pisses me off.

I swear to the gods, I’m practically beaming through that first argument.

Something about still being able to yell at him and have him get mad at me, too, helps the fuzzy edges of our expanding relationship come into clarity.

Yes, we’re sleeping together every night, but in this lab, we’re still Sebastian and Elethior and fuck if he’s going to get away with taking point on a test for my project.

But this anger is his insecurity coming back out, his fear of what happened to his mom—and now, his fear of what I told him about my own past.

Instead of letting the argument barrel on, I kiss him, hot and heavy and anxious.

And there’s that dread again. The bruising throb of This can’t last. This is too good. You’re too broken to handle this .

We’re both broken, though. And our jagged pieces don’t exactly fit together, but we know how to move around the sharpest points of each other’s, how to adjust and make space so no one bleeds.

We spend a week setting up extra safety precautions before we do more tests.

During that, I still try my best to find evocation solutions for Thio’s project, but he’s right; it’s too big.

Too complex. We don’t have a hope of solving it, let alone making any headway, and I can’t be too upset about it, what with how dangerous it would be for conjuration wizards to be able to disconnect from what they conjure.

Even though Thio’s project won’t be a big part of our final presentation, we’re still incorporating conjuration ideals into mine, and that pacifies Davyeras, Thompson, and Narbeth at our next check-in.

They’re excited we’re running tests and thrilled at the measuring cup concept we’re trying, even without Thio’s project.

A little over a month until we’re due to present our joint paper, we run a test on my spell safety net.

It’s small, a cap to limit component drain on a low-level ice spell.

The spell requires a cup of water and one gram of quartz; we’re trying to take that amount from a full, solid pound of quartz.

That’s the safety net rune we’ve come up with, one that should automatically pull a gram of a material component, then stop. No focus needed from us.

We set it all up. I summon Nick for a boost, and he sits at my side in a sharp purple beret.

Thio has Paeris wrapped around his arm for his own boost, and he activates the security measures and gives me a thumbs-up from the side of the room.

He’s watching everything, checking wards, monitoring the components.

It’s a simple test and we’ve done simple tests before. I don’t know why this feels big.

I draw the evocation circle on the center marble dais with the added safety net rune. Murmur the incantation, tugging on my connection to Nick for an extra controlled swell of magic.

The spell triggers.

The block of quartz vibrates, and Thio and I both watch as a chunk vanishes from the top corner before the water freezes solid.

Neither of us moves. For one minute. Two. Watching, waiting for a rebound, for the magic to decide it didn’t like our new rune and go haywire.

But nothing happens.

It—worked?

Our eyes lock.

My face hurts with my smile, and Thio’s grinning, too.

“Again?” I ask, winded; my heart thinks we’re sprinting around campus.

He nods, giddy. “Again.”

“That last glass of champagne was a bad idea.”

I verify that statement by tripping on the warped carpet outside my apartment, a warp I’ve successfully stepped over every day for several years.

Thio catches me, sputtering laughter, and rolls us until I’m trapped against the door. His eyes darken, and it flips all the switches in my body, every single one. Heat here and my own internal fizzy bubbles rocketing through my veins there.

“No,” he says against my jaw, nipping at the skin in a slow ladder-climb of bites up to my ear. “What was a mistake were those awful gin drinks you ordered.”

I scoff. “Excuse you, gin is never a mistake .”

“It tastes like old lady perfume.”

His teeth on my skin and the fuzzy-headed fog from the alcohol are working against me in perfect sync, so I almost forget we’re talking, almost forget we’re still in the hall.

He’d picked the restaurant, somewhere to, and I quote, celebrate both of us being brilliant .

There’s a rune now that prevents wizards from draining their components.

We’ve run test after test the past two weeks, with six variations to account for six different component amount requirements, and the safety net rune works every time.

Knowing it exists, knowing it works, heals something inside me.

No, not something ; I know what it heals.

I can tell eighteen-year-old me that there’s a way to stop it now.

What they made me do to Orok. I didn’t use an evocation circle then, I didn’t use runes at all, but this is a start—it’ll lead to figuring out a way to incorporate safety nets into incantations, into every part of a spell, until that protection is ingrained in magic.

I grip the lapel of Thio’s jacket and rock up against him.

“You’re the one who chose that pretentious bar,” I manage. “They had the high-end gin, so I had to—”

His phone vibrates. It’s in the front pocket of his jacket, so I feel it hum between us.

He drops his forehead to my shoulder with a groan before pulling his phone out, glancing at the screen, and clicking it off.

Fingers still locked in his jacket, I stiffen. “Arasne?”

“Yeah.” He shoves it back into his pocket, avoiding eye contact.

She’s been calling on and off all evening. For several days, in fact; since Thio’s last regular meeting with her about a week ago, right after our second check-in with Davyeras and the advisors.

She wanted details on our project.

He only told her about the conjuration side of things, which is next to nothing.

He’s so close to getting his degree, to finding a different job, to being free of his family—but they’re suspicious. They know how unhappy he is.

“Do you need to call her back?” I whisper.

Thio finally looks at me, lips quirking up. “Fuck no.”

“Thio—”

He kisses me, effectively shutting me up, but the questions I don’t get to ask churn in my belly and make me grip him tighter.

Thio maps my face with his lips, down my jaw. He fastens his lips to my neck and sucks and fuuuuck —okay, sex won’t solve everything, but it sure as hell will distract him, won’t it? Big sacrifice on my part.

“Keys,” I moan, head thumping against the door. “Let me get my keys.”

The door opens.

Did I open it?

Dizzy, I look over my shoulder.

To see Orok, his face… grim.

He hasn’t opened the door all the way. Enough that I can see his head and half his body.

Does he have someone here? We almost went back to Thio’s place, but mine was closer, so—

My grip on Thio clenches tighter and he releases my neck to look behind me.

“Sorry.” Thio winces. “Did we disturb—”

“You weren’t answering your phone,” Orok says. Not accusingly—but he is upset.

My brain’s moving through about half a bottle of champagne and two elaborate gin-and-blackberry something or others, so I squint at Orok while still tangled up in Thio.

Why would he care about Thio answering his phone?

Oh gods. Did Arasne talk to Orok? Did she do something to get to us through him? No, that’s insane—right?

“What phone?” I ask. “Whose phone? Thio’s?”

Orok sighs. “Your phone, Seb. Your parents are here.”

Okay. Now I know I had more than half a bottle of champagne. There’s no way he said that. There’s no way that’s true.

Thio straightens immediately, processing what Orok said faster than I am. “What? Now?”

He nods, eyes flicking from Thio to me. “You need to talk to them,” he says, voice low. “They’re—just get in here.”

And he closes the door. To give me time to compose myself.

Which would take years.

My parents are here. They came to see me.

I’m still facing the closed door. Thio hooks his fingers under my chin and turns me to him. “Hey. Are you okay? What do you want to do?”

My instinctive reaction is to cover up what’s happening with a joke and brush it off, but he already knows. He knows about my dad, all of it.

“Come in with me?” I haven’t let go of his jacket. Not sure I can.

How quickly he’s become a lifeline.

“Of course,” he says. Then, “Are you sure?”

“You don’t have to.” I cringe. “I don’t know why they’re here. It’s probably about my dad’s new job, and if so, it’s—it’s not going to be pretty, so I understand if you’d rather—”

He kisses me. Pillowy lips and the soft lick of his tongue against mine.

“Let’s go in,” he promises.

I droop, forehead to his, for a breath.

It’s been a month since Mom texted about Dad’s job. And radio silence between all three of us since.

This isn’t good.

No hesitating. No running. Get it over with, and move on.

Get it over with, and ignore the shit out of it.

I scramble for the doorknob behind me, shove it open, and push inside.

My parents are on the couch. Orok’s perched in a dining room chair he dragged over, arms folded, discomfort screaming from every strained muscle.

Dad’s in his usual business-casual button-up and slacks, and Mom’s in a nice sundress. They’re here, not a projection.

But my dad looks rough. His shirt is wrinkled, his hair flattened but not brushed.

These facts filter through my disbelief and I frown at them.

Thio closes the door behind me.

Not two seconds after it shuts, Mom leaps from the couch, runs into the kitchen, and hugs me.

Her shoulders shake, her grip death-tight around me, spots of wetness seeping into my shoulder.

She’s crying.