Page 16 of Ravenous Prophecy
The entryway opened into a narrow hallway, with the kitchen branching off just before the hallway ended at the living room. Griffin stood at the junction of the hallway and living room, surveying the only space I could really call my own. “Is there a couch under there, or is it just more books?”
I winced. “Here.”
Setting the text from Williams’s club on the coffee table, I picked up a handful of books and stacked them on the already precarious piles of books and papers covering the dining room table. A pile of undergraduate papers slid to the floor, and I bent to clean them up. Griffin watched with amusement, before he said, “Listen. How about I make us something to drink?”
“Tea is in the drawer next to the sink,” I said.
“Yeah, because I was really thinking about tea,” he muttered, but I heard the sink turn on and the water flow into the pot.
By the time he brought out a couple of steaming mugs, I had exposed the couch, ugly fabric and all. We sat down on opposite ends of the couch, and I cleared my throat.
“I can… that is… I’ll need to translate the book and do more research to determine what, exactly, Williams is planning. You don’t need to stay. If there’s somewhere else you’d rather be…” I trailed off.
His eyebrows went up, and just as I was reminding myself ‘not boarding school. I’m paying him. He has to be nice to me,’ he said, “Listen, I don’t exactly have… a place to stay in the city. It was meant to be a layover at best. And I wouldn’t be earning my paycheck if you ended up dead before we got to my area of expertise.”
Griffin smiled, and the expression did things to his face, did things to hiseyes, which were tracing up and down my body, over my arms and up to my lips. I cleared my throat.
“Oh, uh, of course you’re welcome to… stay.” I cleared my throat. “It would be good to have you available if I have any questions about blind shamans who throw people off cliffs or how to punch things really hard.”
The joke flopped, and the smile dropped off his face. “Yeah. That’s me. Mister Punch It Into Submission guy.”
“No, that wasn’t what I meant.” I sighed. “I know our first meeting wasn’t under ideal circumstances, but that is… I suppose I made the same assumptions about you as people do about me.”
His eyebrows furrowed, and he said, “You keep talking about that.”
“You met my family.” I shrugged. “All of them are tremendously powerful magic users. I’m the only one who isn’t.”
“Isn’t magic mostly genetics?” Griffin looked me over.
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure what else to say, because I’d heard it all before. The whispers that I wasn’t my father’s son, the rumors that I was the personal trainer’s son, or that my father had a bastard and made my mother raise me.
Then there were the worst ones, accepting that I was my parents’ child, but I was just a failure. A flop. The trial run before my sister Elaine had come along with her perfect magic and winning temperament. No awkward trailing off for Elaine.
“Hmmm, well, at least your parents love you.” Griffinseemed startled by his own words, and he picked up his mug of tea again, examining the university logo on it.
“They do,” I said. And that was the crux of it, the most terrible part. My parents loved me so much that they would bend over backwards and spend half the family fortune making my life as easy as possible, if I let them. It was a terrible thing to know that your life was so pitiable your parents would rather spend half a billion dollars on you than accept you as you were.
Griffin seemed to read it on my face, though, and something softened on his own expression. “So. What’s up with this book that you had to hit a guy with a chair, and we nearly caused some club kid to get trampled just so we could get it?”
I looked down at the leather-bound volume sitting on the table. “JA Williams approached me with a job offer. He’s known in magical research circles for funding projects that might not otherwise be able to find funding sources. I thought—foolishly, perhaps—I thought that I had found a kindred spirit. Someone who also was interested in the historical record of the Hive.”
“How did he approach you?” Griffin asked, and I looked over in surprise. I knew he was skeptical of the Hive. Everyone was, but he’d kept his tone neutral and avoided the landmine of whether the Hive were more or less fictional than the latest superhero movie.
“Email. He said that he knew I was an expert, and he wanted me to verify a manuscript he’d bought at auction. This manuscript.” I pulled out my phone, finding the email chain, and passed it over. As I did, my fingers dragged overGriffin’s, and my skin prickled. I blushed hot and refocused on the book.
Standing, I went into the kitchen, using the excuse to refill my mug of tea. Then I considered and washed my hands in the sink, scrubbing and drying carefully as though I were about to go into surgery. When I finished, I went back and sat down, opening the book cautiously.
“This says he was considering it for resale and needed an authentication note.” Griffin put my phone on the table next to the book and leaned forward. He examined the first page. “So, what is this?”
“Can you get me a notepad?” I asked, distracted already by the tome. “There should be several on the dining table.”
Griffin rose, retrieving one of the yellow notepads scattered among the piles of books and papers. I was hyperaware of how close he sat when he returned and shook off the feeling, smiling politely and taking the pen offered. He stayed there, pulling out his phone occasionally but mostly focusing on the notes I was taking.
I tried not to be self-conscious, and eventually I forced him out of my awareness until he pressed something into my hand. Toast. Shaking my head, I leaned back, examining the notes I’d taken. A shaft of sunlight crossed the living room, and I shaded my eyes.
“What—?” I blinked at him.
“Yeah, you’ve been… focused. It’s seven in the morning. Any clues?” He offered over a plate of eggs, and I began eating as though I was starving and this was the only food I’d ever tasted. He would be worth the thousand a day alone if he could get me to eat when I went down a research hole.
