“Hmm?”
“Thanks for lunch.” Skye gives him a look that saysthat isn’t what he means, and they both know it.
Then, because he’s twenty-three and brilliant and still occasionally kind enough to throw his old man a bone, he says, “Thanks for answering the real question.”
And then he’s gone, swallowed into the current of students with the basket in one hand and his future taking shape around him, not fragile at all.
Grayson stands in the doorway for a long moment after, a familiar ache in his chest reminding him that somewhere across the city, Nix knows he’s happy.
Once, he had thought magic would define his life. Thought power would be the thing that chained him down, or at very least narrowed his choices and decidedwhohe got to be.
It hadn’t. It was love that had shaped his life, and just when he thought he’d experienced every gift that life could give him, he was shown there was yet something else to be grateful for—the chance to become himself, and then to help others do the same.
By the time his next class begins filtering in, noisy, and carrying all the strange, fragile things young people bring with them, Grayson is smiling.
“Alright,” he says, stepping back inside. “Let’s begin.”
The End.
