Page 53 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

“Releasing this idea, solving what my family couldn’t, rubbing their faces in how we did this without their methodologies—” He waves at the lab, all our work, every surface we’ve spent the past few months filling with research.

“They pushed us and broke us, but they still failed . This idea redeems everything they did to us. That’s how it’s different. ”

Obscurity… nothing substantial to contribute to this world …

Oh my gods.

I remember now. Why I know those words.

“That’s what you said to me,” I gasp, eyes rounding.

Thio scowls. “What?”

“Before the grant banquet. In the bathroom. You said that to me—you told me I would die in obscurity because I have nothing substantial to contribute to this world.”

He cringes. “I didn’t—”

But his mouth stays open, nothing else coming out, no rebuttal.

“You said that’s what Arasne’s been telling you. For how long? Months? Probably longer. She’s been beating you down like that to try to get you compliant in any way she can, and that’s what you said to me. What she’s always saying to you.”

His face drains of color. He shakes his head once, a sharp, desperate snap. “I’m not them. I’m not my family.”

I nearly fold right in half. “I didn’t say you were. I—”

“ I am not my family, ” he cuts me off, anxious.

Tears fill his eyes, hands in white-knuckled fists.

“They almost killed my mom. Then I find out they almost killed you . I’ve been living for them, playing along with their sick games, accepting the hatred from everyone who sees them for what they truly are.

I’ve been obedient . They’ve hurt everyone I love and I just let them . ”

Love.

Everyone I love.

Moving slowly, stunted, I step closer to him. “I know, Thio. I—”

“No,” he growls and tries, tries to refocus, but he’s feverish now, unhinging.

“We need my family to know they failed. DaylarTech and Arasne and my immediate asshole relatives; and Camp Merethyl, too, and the Touraels who were involved, Colonel Vemir, Lieutenant Hana. We need them to know they hurt us, but they didn’t destroy us. They failed .”

I gape at him. Something shatters, glass, maybe; no, it’s internal.

“How do you—” My tongue scrapes the roof of my mouth. “How do you know those names?”

Thio’s jaw shuts.

“I never told you who was running the ouroboros project at Camp Merethyl,” I whisper. “I never told you their names .” Oh my gods. “Did you talk to my dad? Did you—”

“No, Sebastian, I didn’t—”

“Then how do you know those names ?”

His glare weakens, eyelashes fluttering.

“I searched what members of my family were there at the time, and who were in positions to have been part of that project. What if it was someone I was closely related to? What if they were at one of the pretentious meetings Arasne has and I smiled and shook their hands and treated them cordially, while all along they were the ones who—” He pants, tongue pushing against his lower lip, and one of the tears he’s holding back slips down his cheek.

“The ones who touched you, and I didn’t know? ”

“Did you contact them,” I ask, or try to; it’s flat, lifeless.

Thio hesitates. Hesitates enough that panic floods my veins, replaces all the liquid in my body, before he says, “No. I’m not closely related to them. I shouldn’t ever have to run into them. I wanted to be sure.” Another pause. This one holds a dagger to my chin. “But—”

“ No .”

“No one ever held them accountable. No one ever stops my family, no one ever does anything, and I am sick of doing nothing .” His voice cracks, words echoing between choleric sobs.

He wants me to let my father sue his family, doesn’t he? He hasn’t told me that. We haven’t talked about it since my parents came. But he wants that.

Thio’s crying, splitting apart, and me?

I’m standing, dry-eyed, numb.

“I told you I didn’t need that from you”—I can’t feel anything, not my lips moving—“and you found out their names anyway, then used those names in an argument against me. ”

Thio looks like I sucker punched him. “That’s not fair. I was trying to—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you were trying to do.” I laugh humorlessly, it throbs in my chest. “You don’t see the irony?”

His desperation peels back. Confusion.

“I asked you not to do something,” I say, “and you found a way to do it regardless. Just like your family would with this spell. They wouldn’t give a shit how we came up with the idea, that we got it on our own without their messed-up approaches.

They’d take it, and they’d abuse it, because that’s what Touraels do. ”

The wrong thing to say.

I know as soon as the words leave my mouth, and I see it hit him. The final tap on his already fracturing shell.

I see him break.

“ I am not my family! ” he screams, the words shearing his throat. “ Gods, Sebastian, is that what you think of me? Still? When I fuck you, do you just think about Camp—”

He stops. Eyes wide.

I stop, too. His unsaid words beat against my skin.

And the words he said. Everyone I love.

“Sebastian,” he says, shuddering, adrenaline releasing. “I didn’t—”

I hold up my hand, palm flat.

Air jerks out of my lungs. I’d fold double if I wasn’t already walking for the door.

“Sebastian— wait. ”

He touches me now. Grabs my arm, tries to get in front of me. He’s saying things, apologizing, but I shove him, hard .

Thio topples back into his desk with a rattling thud.

I’m not looking at him. The floor, I think. Something white and rippling.

Everyone I love.

“Stay away from me,” I tell him. Beg him.

And I leave.