Page 55 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

I pull my phone out of my pocket and tap the screen.

My background is a picture of me and Thio, a selfie we took at a date I set up for us, an outdoor concert on the river.

The song that’d been playing was folksy and sad, all about yearning, but in the photo, I’m beaming at the camera and Thio’s grinning, his face pressed to the side of mine.

There aren’t any notifications. But I haven’t reached out to him yet either.

Are we letting each other cool off?

No. We are letting each other cool off.

I pull up his text thread. It’s relatively empty. We’re usually together, at the lab during the day or his place at night; we rarely have to text each other because we’ve made a habit out of always being near one another, and I hadn’t realized how easily that habit reshaped my life.

I tap out a text to him.

THIO

I’ll come to your place tonight. We both have things we need to say before tomorrow.

Like I love you. I’m so in love with you. I’m sorry I didn’t see how much you were hurting, but we’ll get through this together. Gods, please, let us get through this together.

Before I can convince myself to toss my phone on the coffee table, three dots pop up. Then his response.

THIO

Not tonight. I’m sorry. I need some time.

I sit bolt upright. Orok’s beside me, so he reads Thio’s response, and hums.

“He’s only asking for time,” Orok tries. “You both said some hurtful things. Him especially. He’s probably kicking himself for what he did, and—”

“But he doesn’t have to be.” I stand and get halfway to the door—

—when Orok scoops me up and flops me back onto the couch.

“What the fuck!” I gawk up at him, pissed .

He points a threatening finger at me. “Do not go storming over to his place when all he asked you for was time. Didn’t you just get angry when you thought he went against something you asked him to do?”

I scowl. “Fuck you and your logic, I swear.”

“You’re meeting him before the presentation tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.” We both knew we’d need to get ready in the morning at our respective apartments, so we always planned to meet outside the same banquet room where the grant award ceremony happened.

“Then meet him like normal, and give him time . Get your head together. Let him get his head together. Graduation, this project, jobs, his family, the lawsuit, you . Any one of those things would be overwhelmingly stressful on its own, but all at once? No wonder he’s a mess.

No wonder you’re a mess. Sit your ass down and breathe . ”

“He doesn’t have to be stressed about me, though,” I counter. “And I want to help him with the rest. Neither of us has to be shouldering any of this alone.”

Orok’s smile is sweet. “I know. Make sure Thio knows that, then give him what he asked for.”

One last glare at my supposed best friend, and I type out a message with quaking hands. This kills me as much as everything else has today.

Okay. I’ll give you tonight. But we’re meeting tomorrow morning like we’d planned, and before we say a gods-damned word to each other, I’m going to kiss the fuck out of you.

I almost add I love you, but like hell will the first time I say that to him be via text.

Orok, deciding I’m not a flight risk anymore, sits back down and flicks on our TV to a pro rawball commentary show. I let it fade to background noise as I watch Thio’s text thread, willing three dots to appear, willing anything to appear.

Nothing does. My message doesn’t even switch to Read .

Fine. He wants time? He gets exactly—I do some quick math—twenty-two hours and seventeen minutes.

After that, he’s mine, for the rest of our miserable lives, and he’s just going to have to deal with it.

Mr. Walsh—

On behalf of the Clawstar Foundation, I wanted to wish you good luck on your presentation today. The Mageus Research Grant is a very prestigious addition to your already impressive résumé.

We are all still tremendously excited to have you join our team,

Dr. Zishi Zuarashi

I read over the email from my future boss three times before I realize what’s missing.

Anxiety.

I’m not freaking out that I need to prove myself to her.

I’m not going over all the ways I could fuck up the presentation and lose my job.

Not a flicker of my emotions is spared for Clawstar, because as I stand in the hall outside the banquet room, dressed in my one nice suit like the last time I was here, I know I’ve got this. The presentation, our paper, all of it.

But Thio?

That’s where my anxiety goes, rocketing right toward the knot in my chest that made my sleep erratic and my dreams muddled.

I don’t like not sleeping in the same bed as him. I don’t like not being near him, and maybe he was right, actually. About needing this time apart. It’s helped me crystallize that realization I had yesterday, helped it grow from an idea to a concrete belief.

I’m in love with Thio.

Orok nudges me with his shoulder, dressed in his own suit, a dark, smoky blue. “Put your phone away. He’ll be here.”

I comply, giving him my fourteenth exasperated glare of the day.

Orok grins at my annoyance. “He’ll be here. Hands.”

My fingers stretch automatically.

The presentation’s due to start in a few minutes.

The banquet room has been set up with a stage at one end and rows of padded chairs lined in front of it, the hall and room already filling with people.

Grant committee members, university board members, donors, professors, faculty.

Even a few students, drawn by the topic of our research.

Arasne’s here with Myrdin. They’re inside, right in the front row, along with people who have to be Thio’s other relatives. Those who run DaylarTech or who knows what Tourael properties, all come to make sure the next cog in their Tourael machine does what they expect him to.

I force myself not to think about them. Thio isn’t going to get sucked up in his family’s bullshit.

I scan the hall again, searching the faces of new arrivals.

He didn’t respond to any of my texts this morning.

I bounce on my heels. My anxiety grows, swells up and out, pushing on my ribs, and—

He’ll be here, Orok said.

No.

I don’t think he will be.

I don’t know where the thought comes from. It seizes me like an errant muscle cramp; one of my knees buckles, and I glower at everyone around me in business attire chatting amicably.

Orok catches my change of expression. Before he can ask anything, Dr. Davyeras comes rushing up the hall at a tight clip between a jog and a walk.

He spots me, and his shoulders sag in relief, which immediately sets me on alert.

In the time it takes him to reach me, I check my phone again.

Nothing from Thio.

Something’s wrong.

“Mr. Walsh,” Davyeras says. He smiles tightly, trying to look professional despite the flicker of panic in his eyes. “I’m hoping you can shed some light on the situation?”

“Situation?” But Davyeras is ushering me to the side of the hall, throwing pleasant smiles as people pass us to enter the banquet room.

“With Mr. Tourael.” Davyeras lowers his voice. “Dr. Narbeth and the grant committee received unsettling letters from him this morning, and he isn’t responding to our attempts to reach out. Given your close proximity to him, we were hoping you had insight into—”

“What letters?” My heart’s in my throat. Orok followed us to the side of the hall and his bulk helps create an illusion of privacy, but he touches my arm, reminds me not to shout.

Davyeras eyes Orok, then me in confusion. “Mr. Tourael has resigned from the program. He informed us this morning of his intent to withdraw from the grant as well as his degree.”

Orok’s hand is around my wrist, holding me in place. I’d run otherwise. Sprint right out of here and go find Thio.

“What?” I ask; nothing congeals. “What are you talking about? He isn’t dropping out.”

Davyeras seems just as confused. “Forgive me, Mr. Walsh, but we assumed you knew.”

“I didn’t know, because he didn’t drop out .”

Davyeras pulls his phone out of his suit jacket. After a moment of tapping, he shows me his screen.

It’s our paper. Thio’s and mine. I scan the title, look at Davyeras questioningly.

“The paper was submitted last night,” Davyeras tells me. “You are the only author listed.”

My eyes go back to his phone. Under the title, it says Sebastian Walsh.

And that’s it.

Yesterday, Thio and I were going to submit our paper together.

We didn’t. Because we were yelling at each other.

Thio submitted the paper on his own last night. After taking his name off it. After I said he was like his family. After he used Camp Merethyl against me.

Oh my gods.

He dropped out.

He couldn’t take playing their games anymore, and he dropped out .

“I have to go.” I shove Davyeras’s phone back at him. “I have to—”

I expect Orok to be the one to stop me. But he releases my arm, and it’s Davyeras who leaps in front of me, blocking my path.

“Mr. Walsh.” His voice is clipped. “It is admirable that you care about Mr. Tourael. But one of you needs to present your research today, or the final requirement for your degrees remains incomplete.”

Everything’s overlapping.

Yesterday, Thio sobbing in the lab.

Six years ago, the voice that became my nightmares: Are you going to let this be a failure?

And right now, Thio’s family sitting in that banquet room, expecting him to walk in and puppet himself for them.

They’ll cut him off. They’ll stop paying for his mom’s care. He’ll have nothing. No money, no support. And now, no degree, nothing to use in the fight to come.

Are you going to let this be a failure, Mr. Walsh?

Vibrations race up and down my arms, burrow into my lungs, dig into the bedrock of that new realization, I’m in love with Thio, and set off earthquakes, one after another.

I’ve had this emotion before. I’ve had it so many times over the past few years that I almost surrender to it out of familiarity alone.

This is what precedes me doing something dumb, something I can’t come back from: fear.

I lash out to protect myself. I lash out because I’m terrified, and reacting aggressively is the best way I’ve found to reclaim the power they’ve taken from me.

But this isn’t the same as Camp Merethyl. Thio dropping out now, me dropping out then. This isn’t the same. Getting his degree wouldn’t make him a toy for his family to abuse; it’d give him what he needs to break free.

I can separate these events. Similarities don’t have to consume me. I can take a breath—gods-damned anger management techniques—and see through the haze.

I don’t have to be reactive. I don’t have to let it control me.

And that is far more powerful.

“He didn’t drop out,” I tell Davyeras, jaw wired shut. “He’s not—tell Narbeth not to process anything yet. Thio isn’t dropping out.”

Not if this is his fucked-up way of atoning for what he said to me. And if this is what he wants, I’ll talk to him, support him; but like hell is he not going to have the option to complete his degree, not when he’s this close, not if I can help it.

Davyeras smiles, tentative. “No one is eager to see Mr. Tourael give this up, I assure you. I’ll speak with Narbeth, but for now—” He glances at his watch and winces. “The presentation is supposed to start. I’ll introduce you?”

“Yeah,” I say, muscles still coiled to run. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Davyeras lingers one more beat, nods decisively, and slips into the room.

In the past few minutes, the hallway has cleared. The seats inside the banquet room are filled.

And Orok’s unmoved beside me, his eyes wide. “It’s possible I was wrong when I told you to listen to him. You should not have given him time. He dropped out ?”

“He’s getting his degree.” Certainty wells up inside of me.

“And he can chuck it aside after for all I care, but he’s getting it, because he’s earned it.

And maybe I should’ve raced after him yesterday, maybe I could’ve changed his mind then, but it doesn’t matter.

I’ll find him after this, and we’ll figure it out. ”

I’m furious. At Thio’s family, at all the situations that forced him to this. I’m livid, but not at him, and not at myself, and not at Orok.

Thio told me once that if I was going to be angry, I should use it.

Well, I am.

It’s giving me clarity and a target.

Within the banquet room, Davyeras’s voice rings out. “Thank you for joining us today. The Mageus Research Grant has a long history of—”

“I can start looking for him,” Orok offers. “Tell me where he might be.”

He’s poised, waiting for whatever I want to do. Always.

I’m going to miss him. I’m going to miss him so much.

“And this year’s project,” continues Davyeras within the room, “is an exciting collaboration presented by Mr. Sebastian Walsh.”

The audience applauds.

I adjust my glasses, blinking away the rush of heat in my eyes, and throw my arms around Orok in a quick, fierce hug.

“Thanks,” I say. “Check his apartment?”

Orok squeezes me tight. “On it.”

He jogs up the hall, but not before tossing a grin over his shoulder. “Present the hell out of your project, Mr. Walsh!”

Head high, an unavoidable vibration in my hands, I walk into the banquet room, and the audience claps politely.

This research, this project, has always symbolized healing for me.

I didn’t think it was ever something I’d get, though.

And it wasn’t something I got, not all at once—I got it slowly, the smoothing of a scar there, the stitching together of a wound here.

Part of healing is growing again, too, even if it risks those scars stretching, even if the skin breaks back open.

But I know I can heal now. I can look at the wounds and think, You are not all of me.

Gods, there’s so much more to me. So many more fascinating, enthralling parts. And I can feel them, a feeling that takes my breath away as I climb the stage.

My eyes land on Thio’s family, front and center. They’re scowling, likely wondering where Thio is, why it’s just me up here.

Resolve is strength. Healing is anger and it’s sorrow and it’s calm certainty.

It’s peace.

Davyeras yields the podium to me. There’s already a copy of my paper laid out on it. Only my name is typed across it.

I rest my fingers on that line, then look up into the watchful, waiting eyes of the audience.

“Hi,” I say. The microphone squeals. “I’m presenting ‘The Proposed Effect of Energy Limitations on Material Component Usage.’ By Elethior Tourael and Sebastian Walsh.”