“Why not?” Jared demanded.

“Because there are too many of them,” Kami said. “And you would die. And then we would have even fewer sorcerers than we currently do.”

Jared nodded and stepped away from her, out of the picture. Kami did not know what made him act like this, as if he didn’t care what happened to him and nobody else did either.

She walked away from the window, away from him, and continued across to the front hall and out of Aurimere.

The wind met her on the front steps in a cold rush, and she realized she had left her coat out to dry in the library.

Kami squared her shoulders under her jumper, pulling the floppy green sleeves down over her hands and her cauliflower-shaped knitted hat down to her eyebrows. She began to walk the icy path down from Aurimere.

“Wait,” Jared said, close behind her, and she felt his jacket settle warm on her shoulders.

Kami put up her hand and held the collar of the jacket closed at her chin. It hung loose around her, warm inside from his body heat, the leather rough under her fingertips.

He circled around to meet her eyes. “I just want you to know,” he said. “I don’t care what Aunt Lillian wants. You don’t trust me, or you just don’t want me bothering you anymore. I don’t blame you. That doesn’t matter. You can count on me doing what you want. You can be sure I’ll take your orders and not hers.”

It was beginning to snow again, Kami realized. Faint, almost transparent pieces of white, like ghosts torn into shreds, were drifting and settling around them.

“I don’t want to give you orders,” Kami said.

She thought they could walk back together, at least for a bit, that perhaps he could explain what on earth he was talking about, but Jared backed off as soon as she spoke. The look he threw her suggested that any attempt to accompany him would not be welcome. He walked away through the falling snow, hunching his shoulders against the chill. All he was wearing was a long-sleeved T-shirt.

Kami wanted to be angry with him, but the emotion would not quite resolve in her chest. She had been so frustrated with Lillian, had felt like no matter what she tried to do, the sorcerers would make sure she was ultimately helpless, and he had come to her. He could not fix things any more than she could, but one thing he could do was always be on her side. She pulled his jacket closer around herself and walked home warm.

Chapter Fifteen

Wild Night

The snow was melting by the next morning, and school was open. Kami didn’t see Holly except in their last class, which was English, where Holly was sitting at a desk with Derek Fairchild. Kami stopped on the threshold of the room, startled: she and Holly usually shared a desk.

Holly was laughing, all curls and lip gloss, casting out so much color and sparkle that it took a moment for Kami to see she looked tired. She shot Kami a glance through her tumbling hair that might have been apologetic.

Kami took a seat on her own and tried to catch Holly after class, but Holly was using boys as bodyguards, and Kami could not get through. She was distracted at a crucial moment by the appearance of Ash.

“Damn it, I lost her,” Kami exclaimed as Holly’s crowd melted around a corner.

Ash blinked and smiled. “Who were you trailing this time?”

“Holly,” Kami answered. “I think—I thought she might need to talk. But maybe she doesn’t want to.”

“I’d like to,” Ash said. “If Holly has left a gap in your schedule.” He inclined his head toward the school doors. Together they went through them and down the steps.

The slate roofs and yellow stone of the town were visible now, wreathed with snow. As they walked through the gates, Ash offered her his arm, and she looked up into his eyes.

The very first time she had ever seen him, she had thought he looked like a dream come true. Now she knew that he tried to live up to everyone’s expectations, and that worried her but did not really take away from his charm. It was an amazing relief to know that how you felt about someone mattered to them.

“What did you want to talk about?” Kami asked.

“Anything,” said Ash. “It doesn’t matter. I only want to talk to you.”

All she had to do was smile at him. He wanted to charm her, wanted her to make him feel good about himself and wanted to make her feel good about herself too. She could feel wanted with him: wanted in the right way, and she could want him back the right amount. This was how things should be between a boy and a girl. This was healthy.

“We should probably talk about kissing,” Kami blurted out.

Smooth. She was so smooth.

“Kissing?” Ash repeated. “I wasn’t aware we really needed to have an in-depth conversation on that topic. Since all I have to say is ‘Sounds great.’ ”

“I mean past kissing,” Kami said. “Specifically, in the Water Rising. We never talked about it, and now that we—I think we should. I know I gave you the impression that I like you. And I do, I do like you, but I wasn’t—I didn’t—”

There was a reason Kami had not brought this up before, she discovered. She had thought it would be humiliating, but she had not realized she would find it literally impossible to tell Ash what had happened.

The last thing she expected was for Ash to finish the sentence she could not.

“That wasn’t me,” he said.

Kami swallowed down the tangled debris of words rising in her throat. Then she swallowed again. “I beg your pardon?”

Ash dropped her arm and moved away from her, leaving a cold space against her side where he had been.

“I never kissed you at the Water Rising.”

“You didn’t?” Kami said.

Ash shook his head. Nothing about his manner was trying to be appealing anymore. He seemed all shut up inside himself rather than reaching out to her. Kami felt desperately sorry for him, for what must have seemed like someone choosing to forgive him. Her smiling and speaking to him after the Water Rising must have made it seem like she had chosen him, wanted to be with him, not that she wanted to stop thinking about someone else.

“So it was Jared,” Kami said slowly, and saying the words aloud made them seem real. She had been right the first time, right to trust that she knew him well enough to know him in the dark.

And he had kissed her.

Kami realized that Ash was looking expectantly down at her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a rush. “I’m terribly sorry, what an awful mistake to make, you must think I’m a complete fool. This is very embarrassing,” she added. “I really thought it was you.”

Ash’s eyes were bleak. “It wouldn’t matter who it was,” he said quietly, “if you had wanted it to be me. But you didn’t, did you?”

Kami opened her mouth, and closed it.

Ash had wonderful manners, almost always. He was too much of a gentleman to leave her scrambling for an answer he already knew. He nodded, and walked back toward the school so she would not have to walk with him. Kami put a hand on the gate, wanting to call after him, but she did not know what to say except that she was sorry again.

The sun was glittering on the lingering snow and turning it to water, washing everything clean.

Jared had kissed her.

She could go home, Kami thought, and get his jacket. She knew his hours at the Water Rising: when he was done with work, she could go return it to him, and maybe they could talk. She had a secret to tell him.

* * *

Holly could not talk to Angie and Kami. She was scared they would be able to see right through her and know the secret she wasn’t ready to tell. And she couldn’t talk to boys, because they knew nothing: all they wanted was pretty surfaces and nothing underneath.

Being angry at the world made her think of Angie, and thinking about Angie made her miserable. She told the guys she was talking to that she had to go to the bathroom and walked out of school alone, ready to get on her bike and escape it all for as long as she possibly could.

Instead she met Ash, inexplicably walking back across the icy gravel of the playground to the school.

“Hi, Holly,” he said, unfailingly pleasant, trying to smile at her. Ash was the only one of the Lynburns who had a face that seemed human, handsome but not like a painting or a statue.

Right now he looked as if he wanted to feel better. “You look like you’re having a worse day than I am,” she said. “Want to go to the pub and have a chat?”

* * *

They had to go to the Water Rising, because the Mist and Bell was closed. There were a lot of people in Sorry-in-the-Vale lying low these days.

But the pub was noisy, as if there were a lot of people in town craving an escape. Not only Martha and Fred but even Jared seemed busy, moving among the customers and working the bar. Holly caught glimpses of manically cheerful faces, smiles stretched too tight, and she focused her smile on Ash.

He bumped shoulders with her companionably. “How are you feeling?” he asked her. His voice was warm and sympathetic, and exactly what Holly did not want. She didn’t want to let anything slip: she wanted a distraction.

She slid her fingers over the back of his hand, circling his wrist under his sleeve. Small intimate touches that could be passed off as casual, and thus seemed even more intimate, had served her well in the past.

“I’m feeling fine now.”

“Your parents are sorcerers working for my father,” Ash said, his voice still gentle, as if he could see that she was in pain. “But your brothers and sister are just like you. They can’t do magic. They won’t be on the front lines, and they’re probably scared.”

“Who says I’m scared?” Holly asked. She took a deep swallow of her ginger ale and continued to flirt her fingertips along Ash’s pulse.

She knew Ash felt it: it was in the way he smiled and looked down, then back into her eyes. Holly leaned forward. She saw him take in the significance of that move too, but he didn’t make one of his own.

So she made another. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss on his lips, light as a casual question, and drew back to wait for his answer.

“I’m glad you asked me here,” Ash said. He kept trying to be so considerate, Holly thought in exasperation. As if he cared about her. As if they were on a date.

Holly’s smile pulled tight against her teeth. “So am I.”

“Because . . . ,” Ash said, and looked down at the table. “I mean, I’m sure you noticed that I have family issues as well. I’m sure you’ve noticed that my family has more issues than the Times.”

Holly did not laugh. She didn’t want to talk about her family, or about his; she didn’t want him acting as if she’d asked him out because she liked him. She’d thought that, well, he was a Lynburn, one of the family who had come to town and ruined everything. He’d come very close to hurting Angie once: it didn’t much matter if Holly hurt him.

Ash put his free hand over Holly’s, and her clasp on his wrist went loose.

“If you want to talk to someone,” Ash said, “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” Holly said, standing up. “This was a mistake.” She tried to think of a way to tell him that she was leaving because she didn’t want to be cruel, because he was better than she had thought he was. Finally, she said, “I don’t want to talk. That’s the last thing I want.” She turned away, heading straight for the bar. All she wanted was to con a drink out of somebody so she could try to forget about how terrible the whole world was, including her.

Holly leaned against the bar. At the same time, Jared came over and dumped his empty tray. There was snow on the ground, but he had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up past his elbows and a couple of buttons undone. He looked overheated and overtired, but aside from that, Holly didn’t know if he was feeling anything at all. He wasn’t like Ash: he was like the other Lynburns, with faces cold as stone and eyes cold as steel.