Silas scoffed, nearly choking on a piece of lamb. “You sound like my mom.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
Silas paused, looking up at his friend. “What?”
“Silas, you had a job to do, and you failed. I kind of get why they’re upset.”
That word—failed—nipped at him. It had nipped at him his whole life, even though he had never actually failed at anything. That wouldn’t be allowed. Not for Silas Khatri. When he had trouble learning geometry, his parents brought in a fleet of private tutors who worked with him every day until he got it right. When he got rejected from Brown, his parents bought him a spot at Princeton. When he struggled with the meditation exercises that would allow him to hold more spells in his body at once, his parents commissioned a pocket spellbook so he’d have everything he needed at his fingertips, no skill required. When he tried to tell them he didn’t actually want any of that, they steamrolled over him until he had no choice but to accept.
He pushed off the couch, making a show of looking for a drink in Anika’s fridge so that the door would block his expression. He collected himself, then grabbed a water and downed half of it in one gulp.
“I had a job that I never wanted to have,” he said.
“Yes, but youhadit,” Anika said, her voice rising as she stood and stepped closer to him. “I would give anything to be in the spot you’re in, and you’re just throwing it away.”
Silas’ cheeks heated. “You can have my spot! I don’t want it.”
“That’s the problem, Silas. No one else can be you. No one else can be the Khatri heir.”
The few bites of biryani he’d managed to force down started fighting to escape his stomach.
“You have what everyone wants.” Her voice cracked as she spoke.He wondered how long she’d been holding this back. “You have whatIwant. And you didn’t even have to work for it.”
It was true, but hearing her say it still cut straight to his heart.
“You keep talking about how you want to give all that up, but you don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know what it’s like not to have the world laid at your feet.”
“I never asked for any of that,” he rasped.
“Does it matter?”
No. It didn’t.
“I didn’t earn any of it. How am I supposed to be okay with that?”
“I don’t know, Silas,” Anika snapped. “How is anyone okay with anything? We’re all born with certain advantages and disadvantages. It’s up to you to take the things you’re given and actually do something with them.”
Silas huffed, squeezing the plastic bottle in his fist. “But I don’t want to do what my parents want me to do. I want to help people, and I don’t think what they’re doing is helping.”
“Yeah, well, neither is running away from everything. You can want to do something else, but you can’t just do nothing.”
“I’m not doing nothing,” he said. “I’m resigning. I’m going to tell them I can’t do this anymore. I’ll recommend you as my replacement.”
“Silas, that’s not what I—”
Silas walked out, ignoring her calling his name as the door swung shut behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Katherine paced the Sunspot parking lot.
She’d had an endless night of alternating between fidgeting in bed and fidgeting on the couch as her mind ran the gamut of possibilities about what she’d seen the day before. It was irrational to think that Sylvia’s magic had changed. It was a trick of the light. She’d had something in her eye. She’d taken an edible before she left the house and it totally slipped her mind.
Just because it looked different, flowed different,feltdifferent didn’t mean itwasdifferent.
Right?
By the time the sun finally rose, she’d waffled between thinking it was nothing to thinking it was the end of the world. By the time Sunspot finally opened, she’d landed on just needing to get the fuck over here to talk to Sylvia and find the reasonable explanation that had to exist for all of this.
