“If I take this seriously, Taavi, then I have to accept that everything I’ve ever known is a lie.” My heartbeat picks up speed, my chest tightening. “I have to accept that I killed a person by accident, that Aunt Em is missing in a strange world, that my mother spent my entire life keeping the truth from me.”
Taavi’s face darkens, his gaze sliding to one side as he considers how to answer me. This close up, he smells like woodsmoke, sandalwood, and magnolia. It’s an appealing scent, I won’t lie about that.
“Oz,” he starts again, looking back at me, a truth resting on the tip of his tongue. Whatever he’s about to say is interrupted by Stryker, swinging the door wide and appearing with his dark hair wet, his blue clothes striking against his bronze skin.
“Good morning, my fair companions,” he says, glancing over at the dead birds on the table before turning back to me. “Before we start the day, I’d very much like to offer up my thanks again for last night.”
“You can thank us by explaining all the shit that Taavi wants to know,” I say, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and forcing my mind away from thoughts of what if.
What-if this world, this delusion, this magic … if it’s real? What if my Aunt Emily is actually missing? What if I hadn’t insisted my family take the boat out onto the lake that day?
What-ifs are not productive.
I can’t do that to myself again. Even though some part of me wonders if Taavi might be right, it doesn’t matter. My mind hasn’t been the most stable place since the accident. It’s better if I just assume this is all a dream. It seems to be working for me anyway, like maybe I’m just a little braver, a little bolder this way.
“I want to know more about Dorothy’s Ruby Trials,” Taavi says, grabbing the birds by their feet and letting their feathered bodies dangle from his hand. “You can tell me while you help pluck our breakfast.”
Stryker’s mouth curves up in disgust as he looks at the dead creatures dangling from Taavi’s fingers.
“A wizard never prepares his own food; that’s what guardians are for.”
“Only, you have no guardian, and you’re only alive at Oz’s great mercy,” Taavi snarls, getting up in Stryker’s face. He slams the trio of dead birds into the wizard’s chest, and then glances my way again.
“I’ll escort you to the stream; you can use the bathroom and clean up there. Stryker will start breakfast.” Taavi heads out the door and down the steps as Stryker studies the items in his hand, frowning hard.
“He’s a bit … prickly,” I say, shrugging my shoulders and wrapping my arms around myself.
“So I noticed,” Stryker purrs, giving me a lascivious little smile. “But all guardians are, to some extent. I can only pray you have the privilege of meeting Court one day.”
“Court’s the name of your guardian?” I ask, giving myself a much-needed squeeze. The morning is bitter cold, the crisp air and the crackle from the fire that Taavi’s started out front have me falling down the rabbit hole of old memories. It’s like I’m camping with my family again, yawning as I climb out of the tent, wrapping a hoodie around my shivering form as I pad out to the campfire.
But those days are long gone, and this is nothing like that.
“It is,” Stryker replies with another smile, watching me as I study him right back. There’s no missing how handsome he is, how dark and silken his hair is, how his tattoos are sharp and black, the perfect complement to his skin. He looks human enough, but there’s just enough weirdness that if I saw him at home, I’d think he was a master cosplayer or something. “He’s a felid, however, so much worse than your canid guardian.”
If canid means dog-like shifter then … felid is cat-like shifter?
“I can only imagine,” I say, remembering my family’s three cats. Uncle Henry wouldn’t let me bring them to Kansas, so I pawned them off on friends back home in Seattle; he tried to force me to give up Toto, too, but the dog would have none of it. I blink to clear the cobwebs away and force a smile. “I should get cleaned up.”
I start to move past him, but Stryker stops me with a hand on my wrist, his thumb teasing my pulse point.
“It’s not often one wizard runs into another outside of a C.R.O.W.S. meeting. And even less often that one finds such a pretty wizard he’s never met.”
“Meaning what?” I ask, feeling my pulse race under the back and forth motion of his thumb. Stryker, the Vain and Arrogant, is clearly hitting on me. And I’m not totally hating it.
