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Kami strolled in, closing the door behind her. “I could’ve sworn we gave you a desk of your own.”
“Well … I happened to see the map,” Ash said. “And I wanted to—it sounds stupid, but I wanted you to see that I wasn’t working on the paper or anything. That I was waiting for you.”
It was silly, so silly it was almost plausible. But then Ash, with his bright clear voice and his bright clear face, always seemed so very plausible. Kami rubbed the spot between her eyebrows. She was sick of drowning in uncertainties. “Why were you waiting for me?”
“I wanted to talk about you being Jared’s source. It explains—a lot about you, and you and him. And us. I understand why you couldn’t tell me before.”
“Because you were being so frank and open with me about the magical details of your life,” Kami observed.
Ash ducked his head in abashed assent, and Kami felt guilty for snapping at him.
“I guess I can understand that too,” she conceded.
“We both had a lot of things we had to hold back,” Ash said. “But now we don’t.”
He was gorgeous and sweet, and his sudden reawakening of interest in her was making Kami suspicious. She was either becoming a paranoid freak or having a perfectly reasonable reaction to the world going mad around her. “Yes, openness is a beautiful thing. You do realize we have a murderer to catch.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“That was not the impression I was getting,” Kami said slowly. Unless Ash had been about to confess that he had some sort of fetish for sassy girl detectives. Maybe he’d read Nancy Drew at an impressionable age.
“I think you should cut the connection between you and Jared,” Ash said.
Kami stilled, halfway across the room. She laid her hands down gently on the surface of the nearest desk, Holly’s, as if it was breakable. “Oh?” she said.
So that was what all this was about.
“Haven’t you considered,” Ash asked softly, “that you are not safe?”
“Why would I be less safe than anyone else?” Kami returned defensively, but even before Ash replied, she knew. Nobody had tried to take her, nobody had wielded a knife to sacrifice her for power. But somebody had tried to push her, tried to eliminate her. Somebody else knew about her and Jared’s connection and did not want a Lynburn to have such power.
“This sorcerer doesn’t want anyone else to have power,” Ash said, echoing her thoughts. “Why should anyone else have power? Why should you, when the sorcerer is the one killing for it? If they kill you, they kill Jared. Source and sorcerer, taken out with one blow.”
So that was Jared’s excuse for staying connected gone, Kami thought. He wouldn’t like that. He already didn’t like it. She could feel his anger and his fear for her, chilling her own blood.
“Working out a motive is progress,” she said, her voice shaky in her own ears.
Ash’s expression cracked. Beneath the broken surface of his calm, Kami saw emotions more desperate than she’d ever suspected Ash felt. He dropped his gaze back to the map. “I don’t care about progress,” he said in a low voice. “I want you safe. And as long as you’re his source, you’re not safe.”
“And I’m sure pure chivalrous concern for her safety is your only reason for wanting the connection cut.” Jared sneered from the doorway.
Kami did not know why she was surprised. Naturally Jared would skip out of class to go after Ash for this. He was standing in the doorway bristling, hair going in all directions. He looked as if he’d run all the way there.
Ash stood up. Kami saw Jared’s eyes flicker, felt his ripple of suspicion, and knew he’d seen both the fact that Ash was sitting at Kami’s desk and the map.
“What do you mean by that?” Ash asked in a soft voice. He did not rise to Jared’s challenge, his tone staying level. It gave him a dignity that made Jared look bad.
Jared heard Kami’s thoughts. Their feelings tangled together. She felt his fury flame higher and tried to keep control. “Uncle Rob told me more about sources last night,” he said. “People who are suitable to be sources are rare. Interesting that you’re so anxious to free Kami up.”
“You think I want to use her for power?” Ash demanded. He looked sick. “I agree with my father. He says that sorcerers who use sources are no better than leeches. He says they’re pathetic. And weak.”
“Weak?” Jared tilted his head. “Really?”
Now that Kami knew what was happening, she could feel him do it. The sensation was as if he was leaning on her for balance, but with his mind and not his body. It was just a slight pressure. The map rolled up in front of Ash, and then lifted and laid itself at Kami’s feet, unrolling there like a carpet.
Ash’s mouth curled. The light on Kami’s desk turned on by itself. Her glass full of pens tipped over with a clink and all the pens rolled out. Then a box of paper clips turned over. Pens and paper clips spread out, made a glinting and colored pattern below Ash’s spread palms.
Kami had only seen Jared, whom she trusted, and Rosalind, whom she hated, do magic. She had felt wonder with Jared and fear with Rosalind. She did not know how she felt seeing Ash do it. Disturbed, perhaps, seeing the world be so manifestly different from the way she had always believed it was. She was not sure she could trust Ash’s magic any more than she was sure she could trust Ash. But she wanted to.
