Page 46 of Spears and Shadows (Defenders of the Light)
“Thad?” Nora gently pushed on the broad wooden door leading to the room where the sounds of the piano came from.
Thad was indeed seated at the piano bench, idly picking out a melody on the keys, much more focused on another figure perched on the corner of the piano, clad in a plaid shirt and laughing.
“Drew?” Nora asked.
At the noise, both men jumped, Drew so hard he nearly fell off the piano, having clearly been so distracted by his conversation he hadn’t heard her enter.
“Ah, Nora, how lovely to have you join us,” Thad remarked, and Nora detected amusement in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
Drew hopped down off the piano, smoothing down the front of his plaid shirt with fidgeting hands.
“Hi Nora,” Drew offered, obviously trying to sound casual. “I didn’t know you would be here tonight. I was just… I mean, we were… Um, Thad was showing me—”
“I was just teaching Drew how to play the piano,” Thad interrupted.
“Of course,” Nora teased. “It’s a logical extension of discussions of emergency medicine.”
“Funny enough, Drew has managed to spend a fair amount of time clutching his pearls over my lack of sterile technique, but he’s also quite good company.”
Drew attempted to clear his throat and succeeded in falling into a fit of coughing. Thad gave him a hearty clap on the back before returning his focus to Nora.
“So now that we’ve got you here, is there a reason that you interrupted our piano lesson?”
Nora blinked. “Oh. Ezra mentioned that you might be able to help me fade these bruises.” Nora held out her arms, showing the men the scattered marks on her skin. “Not that I’m not proud to have earned these the hard way, it’s just that they might raise some eyebrows when I’m forced to wear short sleeves at a work event next weekend.”
Thad clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “Not the worst I’ve seen on somebody who has just started training with a spear. You must be doing Ezra proud. I think I’ve got something that can help you.
* * *
Nora and Drewemerged into the clear Chicago night and stepped out from under the shelter of the Bean into a crisp wind that whipped Nora’s curls into her face. Nora carried a miniature Mason jar filled with a yellowish ointment that smelled vaguely of rosemary with a sharper undercurrent that she couldn’t place. She had thought the container a bit odd when Thad passed it to her, but he’d just commented that Drew shouldn’t have introduced him to Pinterest if he didn’t want his concoctions to look rustic-chic.
Drew and Nora walked to the nearest bus stop in a companionable silence, calmed by the familiar sounds of honking cabs and the rumble of the train passing a few streets over. Drew had insisted on accompanying Nora back to the city, saying that he was heading home anyways, but Nora didn’t miss the familiar hug Thad gave Drew as he left.
“So you’ve been hanging out at the Sanctuary with Thad a lot?” Nora asked, breaking the silence.
Drew shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and shrugged. “I mean, we’ve become friends. He seems to enjoy having more of a connection to the outside world, and he is…”
“Handsome, charming, funny?” Nora supplied, her tone teasing.
Drew coughed. “I don’t want things to be awkward between us, and I know our breakup is still sort of fresh, but I saw you and Adam and I thought… It’s not really anything, though. I think Thad flirts with everybody.”
They reached the corner of the bus stop, and Nora turned to look up at Drew. “It’s not awkward. We said we would be friends, and friends want each other to be happy, even when it seems like they are being intentionally dense about how much a certain Healer might like them.”
She was being completely honest. In the past few weeks, the ache deep in her chest had faded. Every day she came to the Sanctuary, the Drew-shaped hole in her life had been slowly filled in with bits of information she was gathering in the library and the confidence she was gaining from Ezra’s training. Without her even realizing it, she had started to find a new place for herself among the Eteria. She was feeling the beginnings of a sense of belonging that had been missing since she’d broken up with Drew—and even before, if she thought about it.
“You’re just being nice,” Drew huffed. “It’s so obvious with you and Adam, but Thad… It can be so hard to tell.”
Nora blew out a breath that clouded in the night air as she turned to look out at the street. “Do you know something I don’t? Adam and I are pretty far from being a thing. I haven’t had any contact with him since we almost crashed a plane together.”
As much as she tried to sound light, Nora couldn’t keep a small amount of disappointment from her tone. She had hoped to see Adam around the Sanctuary this week, but she was hesitant to seek him out herself.
“I think he only reached out to me in the first place to get to see the sword, and now he’s kept me around because he feels responsible for what happened.”
The assessment seemed to go against Adam’s character, even to her own ears, but it was what she had been telling herself to explain why she had seen so little of him.
Drew threw his head back and laughed. When Nora glared up at him in confusion, he said, “You just accused me of being dense when you’re acting like this? I forgot how oblivious you can be when somebody is into you. It’s like back when you were in grad school, and I was always coming up with any excuse to bother you in that café you used to study in. And it’s probably even worse now that you haven’t had practice in the dating game for a while.”
“Be serious, Drew,” she scolded, slapping his arm lightly.
