Viv sighed and followed Sasha toward the bricks, glad for his unwavering support, but when she turned, Micah was still standing there with the wool in his arms, frowning.
Run-ins with her mother always left Viv disoriented. On the one hand, she had every right to be furious. No child deserved the aching loneliness of her early life, following around a mother who treated her like a ghost. On the other, she knew Daria regretted it, and there was no real way she could make up for it. What should she do, be miserable for the rest of her life? Viv was a sadist, but she wasn’t cruel. She didn’t think suffering was the same as atonement.
But she wasn’treadyto forgive her parents. It still felt too raw. With her sickness relapsing almost twice a year, though, Viv feared deep down that if she didn’t forgive them soon, it would be too late. It was all a tangle of bitterness and regret, and it made her feel like she’d spent the morning wading through mud.
“Viv?” She jumped at a touch on her arm and turned to see Micah holding an armful of wood. “Do you want to look through my book tonight?”
Viv narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Maybe. Do you want to, anyway?”
“Yes, damn you.”
Micah smiled, and Viv caught Sasha grinning at both of them, his gaze fond. “That’s all right, then.”
The walk back was slower, because Micah and Sasha were burdened with wood and bricks, and Viv snorted when they collapsed in a heap in the spare room. Micah looked at Sasha and smiled, and Sasha patted Micah’s face.
“Good dom,” he said. “Burly dom. Build up those muscles.”
“Oh, f-fuck off.”
“Did you just say fuck off?” Sasha sat up. “I didn’t think you knew how to swear. Say it again.”
Micah made a rude gesture, and Sasha beamed.
They built the rest of the kiln in a few hours, and Micah immediately started moving a lump of clay around in his fingers, kneading it until it was malleable and cutting pieces out of it with one of Viv’s knives. Viv lounged on Sasha and flipped through Micah’s book, which was full of complex diagrams and recipes in tiny handwriting. There were helpful hints everywhere, from how to arrange sprigs of thyme to summon good fortune to the best way to position a mirror on the wall for scrying.
“Your great-grandmother has to have been the most educated witch on Lukos,” Viv said, and Micah blushed, looking away. “I mean it. No wonder your magic is so powerful. These spells… they answer questions I’ve had my whole life.”
“Do you want to try one?” Micah held up his creation: a perfect, simple model boat, just the kind an eight-year-old would love. “It’s a summoning. I thought it was just a fanciful idea, so I always used a string to reel it back, but… Here, come look.”
Viv climbed out of Sasha’s lap and sat next to Micah, who showed her a bump in the bottom of the boat. “So you draw two circles around this bump, and you write the name of the kid the boat belongs to. It’s supposed to make it so he can call it back and it’ll float toward him.”
“And how do you call your magic?”
Micah stared at her.
“You don’t even think about it, do you? When you cast a spell, it works because you expect it to.”
Micah nodded. “But I’d like to see how you do it.”
Viv carefully drew two circles, then Timon’s name, and called on her magic, letting it rise from her core and enter the boat. She thought of Timon, with his round face and his booming voice despite his youth, and when she looked down at the boat again, the circles were gone. All that remained was Timon’s name.
“Perfect,” Micah said, taking the boat from her. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a witch.”
ChapterFive
The storm rolled in shortly after dinner, thunder echoing in the caves as it drew closer and closer to the Compound. They were all cozy in front of the fire, and Sasha was amused at how much Viv and Micah weretalking. Sure, Sasha didn’t understand half of what they were saying about magic and shit, but it was nice to see her so animated… and Micah, for that matter. He’d evensmileda time or two, and damn, what a cutie he was when he smiled. Sasha was sure that Viv was catching all the appreciative glances he was casting Micah’s way, but Sasha couldn’t help it. Competence just did it for him, and Micah might be twitchy when it came to things like talking and socializing with people, but was he ever smart when it came to magic and the pottery stuff.
And unless Sasha was really wrong about his wife, shewas giving Micah a few appreciative glances of her own. Not only about the magic, either—when Micah went to put more logs on the fire and bent over, Sasha elbowed her and gave her a sly grin when he noticed her checking out Micah’s ass. She shrugged and gave him aLike you weren’t noticinglook in return.
The conversation had ebbed for the moment, with Sasha sprawled on one of the sofas and Viv curled up next to him, cocooned in her usual nest of blankets. Micah was in the chair where Viv usually sat to weave, with her table loom pushed aside so he could see them. He was covered in an old quilt that Viv had made when she was a little girl, patchwork squares haphazardly sewn together, with a few dangling threads. It was one of the few things she’d brought with her when they’d married, and she’d told Sasha it was one of her first magical endeavors: sewing a quilt with comfort and healing magic, so she could wrap herself up in it when she was scared, or unwell, or after one of her bouts of sickness passed and she was left to cry herself to sleep all alone.
Fuck, he wanted to go yell at her parents every time he thought about it. Who the hell ignored their young daughter like that? Instead, he focused on how sweet it was that Viv had offered the quilt to Micah, sensing he might need a dose of that old comfort magic.
Sasha wasn’t sure it was working, though. Micah had gone from chatty to withdrawn, huddling in the chair and tensing up like he was expecting to be told to leave or something. Sasha glanced at Viv, but she was reading and so engrossed that the cave could catch on fire and she wouldn’t notice.
“You want a book or something?” Sasha asked Micah.
