My eyes narrow. I feel like I’m missing something. “Why would any witch offer to die? That makes no sense.”
“I’m not killing anyone.”
I let out a wry laugh. “Don’t you dare say that. I’ve seen it. I watched my mother hack up black blood. I watched her grow weaker and weaker until she couldn’t even get out of bed, let alone cast a spell.”
“Control can be difficult.” Levi looks down as if he’s ashamed, but I don’t buy the act. “But the Curse isn’t supposed to kill.”
“Control? What the hell are you talking about?” I’m breathing way too hard. I try to stop myself, try to calm down. It doesn’t work. “So you control the Curse to torture us for as long as possible?”
He rolls his eyes. “Damn, you’re slow. You know what the Curse does, right?”
“Of course. It drains your magic, makes you weak, slowly kills you.”
He sighs, and for some reason it seems sad. “And where do you think all that magic goes?”
My jaw slackens as this information clicks into place. No. It can’t be. That is the most disgusting thing I’ve heard in my entire life. “You . . . your kind . . . you take it? That’s how you can use magic—you steal it from us.”
“I told you I do not steal,” he growls.
I cover my mouth, horrified. Some man was leeching my mother’s magic for himself? “How dare you claim to be anything but evil? Magic belongs to witches, not to people who murder for it!”
He glares at me. “So you’re going to judge me based on what others of my kind did? You think witches never do anything wrong with their power?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You basically did, which is incredibly ironic, seeing as you’re looking at one of the biggest mistakes your people ever made.”
It feels like the wind got knocked out of my lungs. “Excuse me?”
He holds up his hands. “You know what? Screw it. You can find out the hard way. I wanted to help you—I came to apologize for showing up like that on Wednesday—but you’re a stuck-up little brat. Find me when you realize you’re not any better than I am, oh holy one.”
I squeak, but that’s the extent of my comeback. Levi walks away as I stand there trying to find the right insult. It never comes.
When I get back to the diner, my food is at our table and probably cold. I sit next to Winn on his side of the booth. Why do they always put couples on opposite sides? It’s stupid. I pull my plate over and dig in to the mashed potatoes. “I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone so much in my entire life.”
“Good. Then we’re in agreement.” He slips his hand around my waist. “He didn’t try to make a move on you or anything, did he?”
“No. I would have killed him if he did.”
“Then what did he want?”
I pause, searching for a cover. “He thinks I have something that belongs to him, but I don’t. He’s totally insane.”
Winn doesn’t look completely satisfied. “I don’t want to sound like a possessive boyfriend, but you shouldn’t be alone with him like that. It’d be nice if you never saw him again, even. He seems really unstable.”
He has no idea. Just the thought of Levi—of what he can do—makes me sick. I didn’t think the Curse could be worse than it already was. I squeeze Winn’s hand, looking him directly in the eye. “I know, and I’m not ever doing that again.”
“Okay.” He breathes a sigh of relief. “Let’s get back to our date, then.”
“Yes, please.”
After dinner, we drive to Winn’s house, which is so much more beautiful in the dark. The white glows a silvery blue in the moonlight, and the stained glass shines bright from each lit window. Winn parks in the gravel up front, since their garage is closer to the barn.
When we get out, my stomach twists at the thought of meeting his parents. Maybe I shouldn’t have made fun of him, because it’s kind of scary. I want them to like me, but at the same time I’d rather avoid them completely. Winn takes my hand and, to my surprise, doesn’t head for the house.
“We’re not going in?” I ask.
“Not yet. I wanted to show you my favorite place out here.” He steps into the long grass, and a few fireflies flee at his steps. “You know, before my parents scare you away forever.”
I laugh. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“I guess we’ll see.”
The evening gives up its last shreds of light as we walk hand in hand. It’s quiet, which is when I realize Winn and I aren’t usually quiet. It’s nice, being together like this. Sometimes I worry the second I stop coming up with clever comments he’ll get bored, but maybe not. He doesn’t look bored, at least.
I like the trees here, mostly because they aren’t willows, which get tiring in large quantities. Winn’s trees are oak, and I imagine the person who planted them planned to be here a long time, since they aren’t the fastest-growing tree. These are massive, their new leaves not big enough to hide the starry sky.
When I see the swing, I smile. It’s wide enough for two and carved with flowers. Old things were always done with such care, and I immediately get why Winn likes it so much. “I haven’t seen one of these in forever.”
“My grandpa put it here.” He grabs the old rope, and the tree branch creaks like my house. “I guess my grandmother loved to swing, but she died before I was born.”
“It’s beautiful. May I?”
He smiles. “Of course.”
The tree protests when we both sit, but it holds our weight. I lean my head on his shoulder and watch the fireflies dance around us. The air is quieter since it’s spring. There are crickets, but they are timid about their newfound voices. The bullfrogs sound young, the deepness of their croaks not quite there.
“I never brought Chelsea here,” Winn says.
I look up at him, his profile strong in the remaining light. “What?”
“I hardly ever brought her to my house. It’s weird, but everything wrong with her seemed to stand out when she was here. I guess I was in denial about it.” He pushes the swing back, and we rock softly. “But you fit here so well it’s scary.”
Hearing him say that makes up for everything that happened at the diner. “Great. I’m scary.”
Gently, he kisses my cheek. “Terrifying.”
It sends a wave of warmth through me, and I hold my breath as I wait for what must be coming next. I study the lines of his face. The creases from his smile. The place by his eyes where laugh lines will someday show his age. We have so much life ahead of us, so many more experiences that will change our faces from young to old. And then something in my heart snaps.
This won’t last forever.
I look down, trying to recover the water pooling in my eyes. Now. Think about now. Enjoy it now.
“Jo?” Winn puts his hand on my face. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing.” I look back up, smiling as best I can. “I just wish this moment could last forever.”
He leans in. “But there are so many better ones to come.”
“True.” When our lips meet, it’s unlike anything I expected. It’s not “meh,” as Gwen once described her first kiss. The power inside me tingles, growing stronger the more we kiss. It begs me not to stop, as if my magic has been waiting a lifetime for this moment.
Winn pulls away first, breathless. “Where . . . how . . . was that as amazing as I thought it was?”
I gulp as I search his eyes, confused not only by how strong our connection seems to be, but by his ability to recognize it. “I think so.”
He kisses me again, and my magic sizzles at our lips, so addicting I can barely control myself. The only thing that stops me from unleashing it is my confusion over what it wants, why it would react to Winn. Maybe this is totally normal for a witch. If it is, I plan to be with Winn as long as I can, even if I can’t have forever.