"I'm so stupid."
"Not stupid. Just a little too human for your own good." I didn't mention that we'd both criticized Morgan for exactly the same thing. "Sometimes too human, sometimes not human enough. And either way, sometimes a stone-cold idiot."
"Now, that," Mallory said, "I can agree with."
"He's been in love, you know."
Mallory looked over at me. "In love? Ethan?"
I nodded and relayed the information Lindsey had once passed along. "Her name was Lacey Sheridan.
She was a guard for a couple of decades, I guess. Lindsey thinks he was in love with her, although they broke it off years ago when she started her own House."
"She's a Master?"
"One of twelve."
"Is it perfectly fitting that if you were the next Master in line, you'd be the thirteenth House?"
"Given my luck, pretty damned appropriate."
She rose off the couch, then walked toward the hallway. "Come on, genius. Let's get you something to eat."
I wrapped my hands around my stomach, which was just beginning to stop swimming. "I'm not hungry." She glanced back and offered a flat stare.
"Well, not that hungry," I said, but followed her to the kitchen anyway. I had missed dessert, after all.
"Dear Lord," I said, stepping into the kitchen. What had once been a tiny cottage kitchen had become a - well, I wasn't sure what to call it. The potions classroom from Hogwarts, maybe?
I walked to the kitchen island and trailed my fingers over stacks of books, a deck of tarot cards, boxes of salt, glass jars of feathers, grapevines, corked bottles of oils, matches, and dried rose petals.
I plucked a card from the tarot deck - the ace of swords. Fitting, I thought, placing the card gingerly atop the rest of the deck. "What is all this stuff?"
"Homework," she grumbled.
"Oh, my God, it is Hogwarts."
She gave me a snarky look and began to clear off an area on the island. "I'm playing catch-up with little witches who've been doing this stuff for years."
I pulled out a stool and sat down. "I thought you were training alone?"
"I am. But I'm not the first student my teacher's had. Before he was sent to the Siberia of sorcery - "
"Schaumburg?"
"Schaumburg," she confirmed. "Before that, he taught lots and lots of kids. Kids who were much younger than me when they got their magic. Turns out, hitting my magical stride at twenty-seven puts me pretty far behind the rest of the pack."
"But I bet you make up for it with sass and charm." She narrowed her gaze. "I make up for it with being twice as powerful as anyone else."
"For serial?"
"Completely for serial."
I surveyed the spread on the table. "So why the homework? I distinctly remember a lecture by Catcher about how you guys don't have to use spells or potions or whatever" - I dropped my voice an octave and bobbed my shoulders in what I'm sure was an Oscar-worthy impression of Catcher Bell - "but could funnel the power directly through your bodies."
"Was that supposed to be Catcher?"
"Kinda. Yeah."
"Huh. Sounded more like John Goodman."
"I'm not an actress. I just play one on TV. Get to the point."
"This will shock you," Mallory said, pulling out a stool beside mine and plopping down, "but it turns out Catcher's a little pretentious about the magic thing." I snorted. "I feel bad you're only just figuring that out."
"As if there's a way to miss it. Consider anything that comes out of his mouth about magic - except for the major Keys; he's got those right - to be a matter of opinion. He thinks the only legit way to do magic is to will things to happen. That's not true," she said, shoulders slumped as she surveyed the piles of materials.
"Sorcerers are like craftsmen of magic."
"Craftsmen how?"
"Well, the four Keys are a little like painting. You've got folks who paint with oils, with acrylics, with watercolors. In the end, you still get art. You just used different tools to get there. You can use any of the four Keys to make magic." She held up a cork-stoppered glass jar of white powder to the light and spun it around like a connoisseur might twirl a glass of wine before taking a sip. Its pearlescent sparkle made it seem extraordinarily white; densely white.
"Ground unicorn horn?" I wondered.
"Glitter from that craft store on Division."
"Close enough," I said. I fingered the Cadogan medal at my neck, working up the nerve to get out the thing we hadn't talked about yet - the speech I hadn't yet made. "I've missed you." She swallowed, but didn't look at me. "I've missed you, too."
"I wasn't there for you. Not like you were for me." Mallory blew out a slow breath. "No, Merit, you weren't. But I was unfair about the Morgan thing. I didn't mean to push you; I just didn't want you to get hurt. And that thing I said - "
"About my daddy issues?" That one still stung.
"Completely uncalled for. I am so sorry."
I nodded, but the silence returned again, as if we hadn't quite worked through the wall of awkwardness between us.
"Turns out, I was completely right about the Ethan thing." I rolled my eyes. "And so humble about it, too. Fine - yes, you were right. He was - is - dangerous, and I fell right into his trap."
She opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again. She shook her head, as if unable to decide whether to voice the words in her head. When she did decide, the words flew out in a rush. "Okay, I'm so sorry, but I have to ask. How was it? I mean, seriously. Grade-A ass**le or not, the man is gorgeous."
A corner of my mouth quirked up into a smile. "It was almost worth the emotional trauma."
"How almost?"
"Multiple times almost."
"Huh," she said. "That both figures - as pretty as he is - and irritates. You kinda hope a guy who pulls a stunt like he did this evening is seriously lacking in the nookie skills department. And your performance?"
"Mallory."
She made the sign of a cross over her chest. "I have a point, I swear." I rolled my eyes, but grinned a little. "I was impressive."
"So impressive that the next time he sees you in that leather, he's going to rue walking out?" I grinned at her. "Now I recall why I best-friended you."
"You have a faulty memory. I best-friended you."
We looked at each other for a minute, schoolgirl-silly grins on our faces.