Alistair was smaller.
“You will stop this madness now,” Alistair commanded, his voice shaking. “The entire future of our family is at stake.”
“But should it be?” Scout asked, because this had been bugging him. “Shouldn’t everybody there be allowed to make their own way? I mean, think about it—if Josue ever decided to do a Macklin and bail, you people would befucked. And he stayed, ’cause he’s a standup guy. But how fair is that, to tell him he’s got to go work this big financial job and he can’t have a life of his own?”
“He’s got a wife and children,” Alistair said, looking bewildered.
“Thatyoupicked out for him. As far as I know, they never speak!” Privately, Scout had always wondered if Josue hadn’t been like Scout himself—gay as an Easter parade but too honorable, too entrenched in family duty, to say something.
“Josue is important to the family!” Alistair argued. “He helps us sustain our wealth, our home, our—”
“You know,” Scout told him, hands on hips, “Kayleigh and I have paid our own rent for the past six weeks, earned our own wages, bought our own food. I mean, we don’t have much, but you know what we do have? Free choice. We pay taxes, which sucks, but it also means we help other people who might have a tougher time, and roads, and that’s fine too. It’s not a bad life, Alistair. You should let your children live it. Because I’m telling you, that thing you’re doing with the barracks and the military upbringing and the ‘my way or the highway’—that shitblows.I mean, if Kayleigh and I had known what we could accomplish with some fake IDs and a car, we would have been out of there way earlier.”
And apparently that was Alistair’s breaking point. His lofty tone, his attempts at intimidation, all of them fled.
“We didn’t even want you! You’re not valuable to us. It’s Kayleigh we want! And I don’t care if you’re happy. That wasn’t my function as a parent!”
Scout’s jaw clenched. Oh. Well. Now he knew. “Which explains why you sucked at it,” he retorted. “And you know what? Kayleigh and Ididneed that from you. If you’d shown her even the smallest bit of kindness, she might have married this guy out of pity, although it would have been a mistake. But you threw her through a wall, Alistair. You’re not getting within a mile of her.”
“And you’re going to stop me?” Some of Alistair’s power came back with his derision.
“Where are we, Alistair?” Scout asked. “Are we by the compound? Because that’s where your portal was going. Is that where we ended up?”
Alistair shivered almost convulsively, some of the coldness of the seawater and briskness of the wind probably seeping in through his senses. “I have no idea where we are,” he said, and for a moment, he sounded lost. He took a deep breath, and Scout watched him consciously square his shoulders. “But it won’t matter, because we won’t be here for long.”
Scout knew what magic felt like, had known since he was very small.Hismagic felt like a delicious tickle, like a twitch of the feet when a dancer hears a melody or the seduction of vanilla to a pastry chef. It had always been a summons, a promise, a much-anticipated invitation to the delight of play.
But he’d also known, again since he was very small, that Alistair’s magic felt different. Alistair’s magic was a sledgehammer, a freight train, a vast and terrifying presence, much like the darkness that lurked over the clearing itself.
And suddenly he knew why he’d brought them here.
Alistair’s magic was charging, like the force between a great meteor and the atmosphere of a planetary titan, and Scout’s feet were beginning to tap. He tilted his head and smiled a little, thinking about Kayleigh and how happy he’d been when she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and urged them far, far away.
It had been one of the best moments of his life, surpassed only by the night before when Lucky, prickly, surly Lucky, had given himself over to Scout’s wide-eyed amazement. Their lovemaking had taken him to a place like magic but better,beyondmagic, where the sounds Lucky made, his touch, the way he seemed to need Scout and only Scout was the greatest sorcery Scout could have ever conceived.
But those moments came with promises. Promises to keep Kayleigh safe. Promises to not leave Lucky alone, and in that moment, he realized that these two promises might be mutually exclusive. Lucky had begged him to stay on the island that day, but Scout had urged them to leave. Scout still believed it had been the right move, but Lucky had been right too. Scout had made himself vulnerable to Alistair. Lucky’s reverent murmuring of Scout’s name had obviously summoned the beast, and now Scout was needed for the reckoning.
He was pretty sure he could do this, but he wasn’t sure if he could walk away.
Still, he wasabsolutelycertain that he had no choice.
He looked at Alistair, who was moving his hands with definitive, sweeping motions, shaping the world, the forces of wonder, the forces ofmagic,to his specifications. Scout’s worst trait as a magician had been that he had no patience for that sort of showmanship. The magic was there; it didn’t need to be petted—or assaulted—into submission.
He moved his hands absentmindedly, all of the island seeping into his senses. The cold of the spray, the heat of the sun-warmed sand, the roar of the surf and whisper of the wind, the taste of salt and the grit blown between his lips, and the smell of the greenery, of the tide, of the sky—all of it permeated his muscles, his core, his very breath.
He felt the presence at his back, the one so afraid of change it had almost killed Scout in that first evening of how-do-you-do, and the tension from it was growing.
It was furious, but not at Scout.
And still, Alistair’s movements were growing grander and grander, the freight train of his magic gaining speed.
Scout’s own movements were growing too, but with dance, with the grace imbued by years of practice, of natural inclination, with joy.
Scout was so taken with the delight of wielding naked magic that dance was a simple extension of himself, and he waited patiently, lost in movement, as Alistair gathered enough force to make Scout’s hair crackle around his head with suppressed electricity.
Scout didn’t need to watch Alistair do this. It was all in the taste of the air.
“Scout, pay attention!” Alistair’s voice cracked like a whip, but Scout had years to ignore it. “This is your last chance to simply give in.”
