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“Just these hands.” I give him the old razzle-dazzle.
“And our winning personalities,” Tris adds. “Never discount that.”
“What about your personal grimoires?” Aspen asks hopefully, then adds, “Not the ones down at Books & Blots.”
I straighten with excitement. “Oh, sure. I have one of those. Give me a second.”
Turning, I run to the screened-in part of the porch, then into the house through the back hallway. Haut’s unique forest scent fills his room, and the comforter on his bed still lies on the floor where it fell last night. I pick my way over the mess to grab my grimoire from his nightstand.
With it in hand, I race back outside.
There, I stop next to Tris and hold the book up proudly. “My grimoire.”
Aspen studies the beaten-up cover, where one corner clearly shows teeth marks of the canine variety. “What happened to it?”
“I smacked a bitch in the face with it.” When his eyes widen in alarm, I rush to reassure him, “She deserved it. She and her hoochie friends were trying to kidnap Tris for mating rituals.”
“Against my will.” Tris shudders. “Girls wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
I admire his bare, sun-kissed chest. “I mean, you are hot breeding material.”
He nods solemnly. “Tis a curse.”
“Okay.” Aspen reaches out for my grimoire. “Let’s see what kind of structure you’ve developed for your lessons.”
“Oh, I haven’t used it yet.” I let him take the book. “But I got one, so that counts, right?”
Aspen sighs heavily. “Well, I suppose that means we don’t have to break any bad habits. We can come up with a table of contents and a bullet system…”
He trails off as he flips open the book. “Oh, I see you’ve made a title page. It’s very…creative.”
I eagerly step forward and point to the stick figure at the bottom of the page with a balloon of red hair and a pointy witch hat. “I thought, if I drew myself as a witch, it would get me into the right frame of mind.”
“And there’s commentary from…your men, I presume?” Dismay fills his voice as he reads the notes the guys all added. “Truly a group effort.”
“Look, even Mel got in on it.” I point to where she added the Rothaven last name next to Branning and Haut’s addition of Wendall.
Aspen’s blue eyes shift to his partner.
She shrugs. “Everyone else was doing it.”
Aspen snaps the book closed and hands it back. “And, Tris, where is your grimoire?”
Tris takes the grimoire from my hands and holds it up. “Right here.”
Aspen pinches the bridge of his nose. “You can’t share a grimoire.”
I step closer to Tris. “But we share everything.”
“There’s no reason to write something down twice.” Tris wraps an arm around me. “We’re trying to reduce redundancy, not make it worse.”
Aspen takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Okay, before we begin lessons tomorrow, everyone needs their own grimoires. No sharing,” he says firmly when we open our mouths to protest. “Our first lesson will be to create your wands.”
Mel smiles brightly. “Wand making is fun. You’ll enjoy it.”
Tris cocks his head to the side. “Have you made a new wand?”
I cringe with guilt. I accidentally destroyed Mel’s last wand during the battle against the huntsmen, which is why Aspen is here. Apparently, when I shattered her wand, it proved I was stronger than Mel in magic, so she needed an assist.
