His eyes widen a fracture.It’s a fertility rite.
“But what is a fertility rite?”
He stares straight ahead, jaw still flexing.We should talk about this later.
“Why do you care if someone heard us talking?”
His eyes shut as he lets out a sigh.
I don’t want us to seem like we’re friends, he snaps.
Pink colors my cheeks and I reach for my wine glass and slap myself to the back of the chair. Once I’ve drained my glass my limbs feel weighted and I feel oddly giddy. I can’t even bring myself to care that the person next to me despises me. I decide it doesn’t matter if anyone hears us because they will plainly hear how much he hates me.
“They’re building a prison?”
You heard just as much as I did.
“What did your mother do?”
I didn’t think he could go any stiffer than he already is but he does. He doesn’t even oblige me with a response.
“Are you going to take a second wife?” I whisper.
No.
Surprise ripples through me. It didn’t really sound like he was going to get the choice. “Don’t you want one?”
He finally turns and locks eyes on me. The look on his face is sharp enough that I wonder if I should’ve kept my mouth shut.I didn’t want one, why in the hell would I want two of you?He voices it into my ear, holding up one finger and then two, exasperated eyes wide as if there were truly no worse fate.
“Right,” I say, quickly looking away, but I find myself soon turning back. “But this one would be a Magi.”
He doesn’t face me.
“That way you could have witchy babies together,” I whisper, stupidly bold with the aid of the wine.
This time he turns his head to glare at me again in warning and then looks away.
“Well, just in case it does happen…I call dibs on the couch,” I say defiantly.
He’s so still I think I might be working him further into a rage but then he lets out a quiet almost inaudible laugh. His shoulders seem to loosen slightly, finger twitching again as he asks,Is that all you’re concerned about?
“What else would I be concerned about?”
He lets out another one of those almost inaudible laughs.It’s your couch, pet.
The Magi below us busy themselves in their plates and the people around them, a portion rising from the seats to mingle once they’ve finished eating. It’s hard to pick out any one conversation in the cacophony of voices. After I finish that second glass of wine it refills once more and I drain that one too. It feels like my head is floating somewhere above my body in a kind of clouded daze—highly preferable to the anxious, daemon rattled state I was in before.
You should probably eat something if you’re going to keep guzzling wine like that.
I defiantly bring the glass back to my lips.
Have you ever drank…anything before?
I don’t deign to answer. I imagine my silence is telling enough.
It’s not the time or the place to be testing your limits for the first time. Eat something or you’ll be sick.
I take another stubborn swig.
