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Augustus chuckled. "That's the technical term?"
"You can't avoid it forever. These storms are increasing in intensity, and magic is causing them," Mara argued.
"I know." Augustus didn't want to fight with her about it. He wished he couldn't feel the magic in the air and know that it was waiting for him. He had only just gotten her, and if he closed the magic gap…
"What's wrong?" Mara felt the shift in him instantly.
"For the first time since I broke everything, I don't want to die. I want, well, you. And to study something other than my stupid mistakes. I want to travel away from this city. I want things that I have no business wanting," he admitted.
Mara put her mug down and wrapped her arms around him. Her face fitted neatly into the groove of his chest. "It's going to be okay, Augustus. I believe it, even if you don't. I'm not going to let the magic take you without a fight. It wants to be healed, and maybe it wants you to be as well. It keeps pushing us together, doesn't it?"
Augustus kissed the top of her head. "True. I suppose if I can believe it's sentient enough to maliciously kill me in revenge, I have to think the opposite could be true too. Damn you, saint, it's a terrible thing to give a man hope like this."
Mara tilted her head back to smile up at him. "I'm not sorry. Do the work, Augustus. You'll feel better about it. I'll be back later, and we can make a plan."
Augustus cupped her cheeks, his eyes dancing over her face to memorize every line.
"Okay, you win. But don't think I'm not also going to be thinking about a way to make a magical cat feeding spell for the future."
Mara clicked her tongue. "Possessive little sorcerer, aren't you?"
Augustus kissed her slowly and thoroughly. "You should've paid closer attention to the warnings in your book about just how possessive and obsessive sorcerers can be when something has their curiosity piqued."
God, he'd almost killed Connor for asking her out, even if they were barely friends at that point. He had been fighting himself since the day he met her.
Mara gave him a cheeky smile that hit him in the groin. "I'll pretend to hate that, shall I?"
Augustus let her go with a pained sigh. "Go, quickly, before I change my mind and let Athanasius starve, then we'll never hear the end of it."
* * *
After Mara had left, Augustus had a shower and tried to clear his brain of sex haze. His smile turned even smugger when he spotted the few scratches and hickeys Mara had left on him.
She was a saint, but she was no prude, and damn if he didn't love that about her.
You need to focus. Just because you got laid doesn't mean you can forget your purpose.
Feeling more on task, Augustus went into this study and looked about at the years of frustrating research he had done on Melbourne's magic. It had consumed him in more ways than one.
He had cut himself off from the world as penance and punishment, and it had been for nothing. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
"No point crying over it now, Vance. What's done is done," he said to himself. He pulled up his map of Melbourne, put on his glasses, and got to work.
Hours later, Flynn arrived and stuck his head into the study. "What's all this then? How come I can smell a woman in the house? Where is she?"
"Good morning, Flynn. Mara was here. Yes, you have met her. No, she's cursed, so you won't remember her," Augustus replied, rubbing at a smudge on his map before realizing it was on his glasses.
His mind was lost in the magic. The hole in it had definitely gotten smaller. He hadn't had tea, so maybe it had been spending the night with Mara?
"Mara, the saint?" Flynn asked.
Augustus looked up, snapping him to the present. "Yes. How did you know? People don't remember her because of her curse, so how do you?"
"I don't, but the trees are talking about her." Flynn walked over and leaned against the table beside him. "It's why I'm here. They've sent me to tell you that the saint is the key and that you can't put it off any longer."
Augustus pinched the bridge of his nose, a sudden pressure in his head. "The trees sent you as an emissary? Why are they so worried all of a sudden?"
"The storms since the blood moon are battering them to hell. They aren't natural for this time of year or at all. They are magical and will only get worse until you sort it out. Fuck, it's 2003 all over again, and we'll get worse than wish trees if it's not fixed," Flynn replied.
