Bonnie wriggled with delight under the sheer force of his smile. “I’m interested in mythology,” she said. “Druid and Celtic, mostly, but myths and stories in general. The Druids were into the moon, too: they had a whole astrology based on the lunar calendar.” She sat up straighter, enjoying the admiring look on Zander’s face. “Like, right now, from late August to late September, we’re in the month of the Artist Moon. But in a couple of weeks, we’l be in the month of the Dying Moon.”
“What does that mean?” Zander asked. He was very close to her, gazing straight into her eyes.
“Wel , it means it’s a time of endings,” Bonnie said. “It’s al about dying and sleep. The Druid year begins again after Hal oween.”
“Hmm.” Zander was stil watching her intently. “How do you know so much, Bonnie McCul ough?” A little smile played around his mouth.
“Um, my ancestors were Druids and Celtics,” Bonnie said, feeling stupid. “My grandmother told me we were descended from Druid priestesses, and that’s why I see things sometimes. My grandmother does, too.”
“Interesting,” Zander said softly. His tone grew lighter.
“So you see things, do you?”
“I real y do,” Bonnie said, seriously, staring back at him.
She hadn’t meant to tel him that. She didn’t want to weird him out, not on their first date, but she also didn’t want to lie to him.
So blue. Zander’s eyes were as deep as the sea, and she was fal ing farther and farther into them. There was nothing above her, nothing below, she was ceaselessly, gently fal ing.
With a wrench, Bonnie pul ed her eyes away from Zander’s. “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “That was weird. I think I almost fel asleep for a minute.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zander said, but his face looked stiff and strange. Then he flashed that warm, enchanting smile again and got to his feet. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
Bonnie stood slowly. She felt a little strange stil , and she pressed her hand briefly against her forehead.
“Over here,” Zander said, tugging her by the other hand.
He led her to the corner of the roof and stepped up onto the narrow ledge running around it.
“Zander,” Bonnie said, horrified. “Come down! You might fal !”
“We won’t fal ,” Zander said, smiling down at her. “Climb on up.”
“Are you crazy?” Bonnie said. She’d never liked heights much. She remembered crossing a high, high bridge once with Damon and Elena. They’d had to if they were going to save Stefan, but she never would have been able to do it, except Damon had used his Power and convinced her she was an acrobat, a tightrope walker to whom heights were nothing. When he’d released her from his Power, after they crossed the bridge, her retroactive fear had been nauseating.
Stil , she’d made it across that bridge, hadn’t she? And she had promised herself she would be more confident, stronger, now that she was in col ege. She looked up at Zander, who was smiling at her, sweetly, eagerly, his hand extended. She took it and let him help her climb onto the ledge.
“Oh,” she said, once she was up there. The ground swam dizzyingly far below her, and she yanked her eyes away from it. “Oh. No, this is not a good idea.”
“Trust me,” Zander said, and took her other hand so that he was holding on to her securely. “I won’t let you fal .” Bonnie looked into his blue, blue eyes again and felt comforted. There was something so candid and straightforward in his gaze. “What should I do?” she asked, and was proud when her voice was steady.
“Close your eyes,” Zander said, and when she’d done that, “and pick your right foot up off the ledge.”
“What?” Bonnie asked, and almost opened her eyes again.
“Trust me,” Zander said again, and this time there was a rich undercurrent of laughter in his voice. Hesitantly, Bonnie lifted her foot.
Just then, the wind picked up, and Bonnie felt like it was about to scoop her off the ledge and throw her into the sky like a kite whose string had snapped. She tightened her grip on Zander’s hands.
“It’s al right,” he said soothingly. “It’s amazing, Bonnie, I promise. Just let yourself be. Life isn’t worth living if you don’t take risks.”
Inhaling deeply and then letting the breath out, Bonnie forced herself to relax. The wind was blowing her curls everywhere, whistling in her ears, tugging at her clothes and her raised leg. As she relaxed into it, she felt almost as if she was being lifted, gently, into the sky, the air al around supporting her. It was like flying.
Bonnie realized she was laughing with sheer delight and opened her eyes, gazing straight into Zander’s. He was laughing, too, and holding on to her tightly, anchoring her to the earth as she almost flew. She had never been so conscious of the blood thrumming through her veins, of each nerve catching the sensations of the air around her.
She had never felt so alive.
10
The pub where Elena and Damon ended up was lively and ful of people, but of course Damon made sure they didn’t have to wait for a table. He lounged across one side of the booth, looking as arrogant and relaxed as a big gorgeous cat, and listened peaceably as Elena talked. Elena found herself gaily chatting away, fil ing him in on al the minutia of her campus life so far, from finding out that Professor Campbel knew her parents to the personalities of the other students she’d met in her classes.
“The elevator was real y crowded, and slow, and my lab partner’s back was against the buttons. Somehow she accidental y pushed the alarm button, and the alarm started going off.” Elena took a sip of her soda. “Suddenly, a voice came out of nowhere and asked, ‘Do you have an emergency?’ And she said, ‘No, it was an accident,’ and the voice said, ‘What? I can’t hear you.’ It went on like that, back and forth, until she started shouting ‘Accident!
Accident!’”
Damon stopped tracing patterns in the condensation on his glass with one finger and glanced up at her through his lashes, his lips twitching into a smile.
“When the doors opened on the ground floor, there were four security men standing there with a medical kit,” Elena finished. “We didn’t know what to do, so we just walked past them. When we got out of the building, we started to run. It was so embarrassing, but we couldn’t stop laughing.” Damon let his slight smile expand into a grin—not his usual cool twist of the lips or his brief, bril iant, and enigmatic there-then-gone smile, but an honest-to-God cheek-puffing, eye-squinching grin. “I like you like this,” he said suddenly.
“Like what?” Elena asked.
“Relaxed, I suppose. Ever since we met, you’ve been in the middle of some crisis or another.” He raised his hand and brushed a curl away from her face, gently touching her cheek.
Elena was vaguely aware of the waiter standing by the booth, waiting for them to look up, as she answered with just a touch of flirtation, “Oh, and I suppose you had nothing to do with that?”
“I wouldn’t say I am the one who’s been most to blame, no,” Damon said cool y, his grin fading. He looked up, his eyes sharp and knowing. “Hel o, Stefan.” Elena froze in surprise. Not the waiter, then. Stefan. One look at him, and she winced, her stomach dropping. His face could have been carved from stone. He was looking at Damon’s hand, stil stretched across the table toward Elena.
“Hey,” she said tentatively. “How was your study group?” Stefan stared at her. “Elena, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Pul ing out her phone, Elena saw that there were several messages and texts from Stefan. “Oh, no, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear it ring.”