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Sid arranges himself on the woodpile like a magistrate.
Try being angrier. It's your only setting.
"Nobody asked you."
Gage's head turns. "Asked who?"
"The cat is heckling me."
"He does that."
Thirteen. Fourteen. On fifteen I get a thread of smoke, which turns out to be my own breath.
"Okay," I say. "I'm done. I'm a witch who can't light a candle. Very intimidating. The Veiled Hand must be terrified."
"Come here."
"I said I'm done."
"Come here."
I go, because I'm cold and because when he says two words in that tone my body votes before I do.
He stands behind me. Not touching. I can feel him anyway, that furnace running under his skin, close enough that the cold gives up on the back of my neck and I shiver anyway.
"Hold your hand out," he says.
I hold my hand out.
"Now don't do anything."
"That's the opposite of the assignment."
"Hush."
I go quiet.
His palm settles over the back of my hand. Rough. Hot. His fingers close around mine, and something in my chest drops through a floor I didn't know was there.
The kindling catches with a soft thump, like a lung filling.
Flame climbs. Yellow, then orange, then a hot clean gold that throws our shadows across the grass and up the side of his house, one shape, not two.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
Then I pull my hand out from under his.
The fire dies. Not down. Out. Between one breath and the next, the pit is nothing but black sticks and a curl of smoke.
I put my hand back. It roars up again like it never left.
"Well," I say. "That's horrifying."
"It's a good start."
"Sure, this is a great development." I step away and turn to face him, and the fire goes out behind me again, and I don't care.
"I can do magic. As long as a hot man is holding my hand. That's not a power. That's a leash with a nice grip on it."
