The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (novels in english .txt) 📗

“What just happened?” He asked in a half-murmur.

“What do you think?”

He paused, his tongue running across his lips. “Where’s Landon?”

I flinched. “I couldn’t reach him.”

“Oh,” that was all he could say, not a word more. He knew then, just as I did, what had happened. I heard him turn, his head looking away from mine and upwards once more. There was not much else to say, not much else to think. If we focused on it too much, then it would consume us. “I don’t understand any of it,” Leo admitted, “and yet I’ve roped you in.”

I exhaled, a shaky breath escaping me in response. There was nothing to say to him, no way to make it all make sense. A simple goal to remove a curse, and now it appeared that everything had gotten out of control—magic, the real kind, that was dangerous. Leo and I were in over our heads, and yet, I couldn’t find the words to say no. Landon had tried to warn us, but I knew we’d be at that shop by daylight, just as I knew I would see this through.

“You’re cold, Lyra,” Leo began, painfully heaving his body up to sit beside me, his hand still on my outer thigh, feeling the chill through my tights. He reached for his buttons, shrugging the dark blue cardigan from his shoulders, revealing the long-sleeved shirt below it. “I don’t want you to get chilled on the way home,” he said, handing the cardigan over to me. “My home,” he clarified, taking in the glassiness of my eyes. “You call Yvie, and you make sure she’s okay, make sure she doesn’t go back to your place. You can stay at mine.”

“Do you ever drink coffee or anything else?” I asked, huddled in on myself on his couch, another burnt orange mug sitting in my hands. It was strange; I’d only been there once before, yet it was easy to make myself at home in Leo’s space. Our phones on the coffee table face down, feet up and all airs left at the door; I was far too comfortable there.

He sat in the armchair across from me, his feet balanced on the edge of his short coffee table, hands wrapped around a mug of his own. It was one of the first times I’d seen him in the light without his sweaters on, his cardigan still wrapped loosely around my shoulders. His shirt clung to his body, leaving little to the imagination, I could see his lean muscles moving beneath the thermal cotton. “Frequently,” he admitted as he blew the steam from his mug. Pomegranate, cherry, and black tea; very tart and bitter, but Leo seemed to have a talent for balancing out flavors, and the agave cut through most of it. “My mother is a big coffee drinker, as was my father. You’re just never here in time to see me drink it.”

“Or you just fill me full of tea leaves because you think it’s befitting a witch,” I muttered, taking another sip. Admittedly, I wasn’t one for coffee.

“If I were doing it just because you were a witch, I wouldn’t fish out the leaves every single time. I’d leave them in and make you read them,” Leo informed me. “A lot less work.”

I snorted, but then, just as soon as I did, I felt terrible for doing it. My eyes stared at the red liquid in my cup once more, the spoon moving absently through the water—Red, not the best color for a cup of tea with all things considered.

The nice thing about Leo was that he didn’t try to make things better if he knew he couldn’t. It didn’t even cross his mind to turn to me and say that maybe Landon was okay because we both knew otherwise. He didn’t bring him up, or Autumn. He knew better. He knew that, whatever happened to Landon, he was lucky to survive it the first time, and now?

“Are you still cold?” Leo asked, noting the way my body shivered. Not waiting for a response, he got up, crossing the distance to place his hand across my forehead, feeling for my temperature.

Beside myself, I leaned into his touch, enticed by the warmth of his hand, my eyes closing. Did I always feel this cold? I didn’t know. But his touch then was a liferaft, just as it always was. Leo was constantly hot, and these days I’d been bone-chillingly cold.

He agreed with that observation, withdrawing his hand with a worried nod before moving over to fit into the space beside me on the couch, his arm wrapping around my shoulder as he pulled me closer. It appeared that whatever distance we once favored was gone, having quickly dissipated during our adventure. I sighed in relief as he pulled me in, nestling into the warmth. I felt deathly cold, and I couldn’t tell if that was because of traveling or fear.

“I’m sorry,” Leo began to speak again, a heavy sigh escaping his body. “I know that you didn’t want this, that you never wanted any of this. And yet now…” He trailed off, unable to find the words. Only one fit the situation, only one warranted saying. He repeated himself hoarsely, his arm betraying him as it held me tighter, “I’m sorry, Lyra.”

It was a little too late for that, and yet…

“Leo,” I croaked his name, knowing that if I didn’t say it then, then I would never say it. “I don’t want you to die,” there was absolute misery in the way that I said it, in the way that I admitted it. A thousand more words laid beneath it, ones I knew he would never be able to understand. I was becoming attached. Being human didn’t seem to matter as much anymore, though I still desperately wanted it.

A dry laugh escaped him, his head resting atop my shoulder as he still held me near. There