CHAPTER 8
In For a Penny, In For a Pound
I threw my arms around Izzy in a big hug, and gave Hugo a quick hug, too, although technically I wasn’t supposed to touch a wizard boy who wasn’t my betrothed. Hopefully no one saw us in the crush of people. I was taking all kinds of risks today.
“Whoa. Down girl.” Hugo stepped back, his face set in a nervous grimace. “What was that about?” he asked, glancing around to see if anyone had seen us.
“Sorry.” Chagrined, I apologized to Hugo. “Wasn’t thinking. I really needed hugs from my two best friends.”
“I don’t think anyone saw anything,” Izzy assured us with a quick grin.
“That’s my third time today to be totally inappropriate.”
“Oh, do tell,” Izzy smirked, arching an eyebrow.
So, I told Izzy and Hugo an abridged version of what had happened with my brother and Rory, and then I told them about my argument with my father, including the permanent lowering of the family IQ. As I predicted, Izzy squealed and high fived me for what she called my new found spunk.
“You need to be more careful, Addie,” Hugo warned. “But go you. The thought of you with Bart sends chills up my spine.”
“Exactly,” I agreed.
Over the next couple of hours, wine was poured, trays of food devoured, and the cake was cut. Both Zarius and I blew out candles. Wizards had adopted the custom of singing the Happy Birthday song, and I couldn’t help but notice that most of the party-goers inserted Zarius’ name. A few exceptions sang my name, including a handful of relatives who regularly had to put up with Zarius in the keep and, of course, Izzy, Hugo, and Rory, who belted out my name.
At one point, I noticed my father speaking to Bartholomew Magnuson and his father. I wasn’t sure, but I thought my father might have rolled his eyes when he turned away. I was probably imagining it. Surely the great and dignified Manfred Evangelista would never roll his eyes.
While Hugo and Izzy made a trip to the dessert table, I searched for Rory in the crowd.
Occasionally, I caught Rory staring at me. Sometimes, he had that same look of wariness I’d seen in his eyes earlier in the day. At other times, he had an intent look that made me feel like he was fighting an internal battle. Probably the same one I was fighting. Every time I caught him staring, he quickly glanced away, pretending to pay attention to someone or something else.
An idea struck me—an awful, amazing idea that I had no business contemplating. I studied the entrances to the various balconies dotting the length of the ballroom. People moved in and out of those doorways, but behind the dessert table there was one balcony entrance that no one was using. I caught Rory’s glance and motioned with my head for him to follow me. I discreetly waved at him as I stepped outside onto the balcony. Each balcony had an outcropping to protect its occupants from the wind, which also meant privacy. I waited, wondering if he dared come.
Adrenaline from what I was doing sent my heart racing. This pretty much broke every rule in the book and meant retraining if I got caught. Girls didn’t rendezvous with boys, and especially not norm boys. Although Rory was anything but a norm.
Just when I’d lost my nerve and was about to go back inside, Rory parted the brocade drapes and stepped out onto the balcony. For a few seconds we only stared at each other. Rory’s amethyst eyes pierced me with an intensity I’d never seen before. I hadn’t really planned what would happen when he came out.
“You look really pretty—all grown up,” Rory said, his demeanor serious.
“You look pretty, too.” My cheeks burned with heat, and I cleared my throat. “I meant handsome, or…” I leaned my head back and sighed. “I’m not good at this,” I admitted, even though it was painfully obvious.
“I don’t want you to be good at this,” Rory said with a lopsided grin. Then his eyes turned stark, almost grim. “You know we shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes. If we get caught, I’d probably be retrained,” I agreed. “And you’d—”
“—have my memory wiped and be permanently exiled, or worse,” Rory said, as he closed the distance between us.
My breathing quickened. I wasn’t sure if it was the fear of being caught, or the dizzying feeling I had when Rory was close, or maybe both.
He held up his hand. “May I have this dance?” he whispered, his expression soft, but his eyes fixed on mine.
My eyes went wide for a moment, because he’d just upped the risk level of what we were doing into the stratosphere. But honestly, wasn’t this secretly why I’d wanted Rory to meet me on the balcony? This was the birthday present I most wanted in the deepest, hidden part of me. And besides, what had Hugo said earlier? In for a penny, in for a pound.
I surrendered my hand into Rory’s. His bigger fingers enfolded mine as he enveloped me within his embrace. As with all good wizard girls, I was well-trained in the art of ballroom dancing.
We danced one song, two songs, three songs, and Rory glided me around the balcony. Exhilaration trilled through me, and the breeze whipped through my hair as Rory smiled down at me.
The next piece of music was slow and romantic, lilting out to the balcony from the orchestra inside. I leaned my head against his broad shoulder, and he rested his chin on the top of my head. We swayed together, our bodies so close I could feel the beating of his heart.
Being with him was forbidden on so many levels, but it felt so right to me.
The music stopped and a garbled announcement filtered out to us.
I didn’t ever want this to end. I blinked several times, as if to wake into the real world, the world where there could be no us.
“You slip inside, Addie,” Rory suggested. “I’ll follow in a couple of minutes.”
I nodded and slid inside through the drapes.
Spotting Izzy and Hugo, I walked over.
An air of anticipation filled the ballroom with an accompanying wave of whispers. Then, a hush swept across the massive room.
“Where did you go off to?” Izzy whispered.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“And now, please welcome the Knower of Familiars, Master Bertrand,” Tristan announced into a microphone in front of the orchestra.
And in that split second, my heart started thrashing inside my ribcage, and beads of perspiration broke out across my upper lip.
How had I forgotten about this moment? How had I so completely denied it might be coming? What if Hugo and Izzy were right? What if a familiar chose me? No, surely not.
Master Bertrand, the only Knower of this generation, walked forward. Amidst all the colorful ladies’ gowns and dark men’s tuxedos, his velvety white robes made him seem like some exotic mystic straight out of our history books.
His own familiar, a great snowy owl, rode his shoulder. A red-tailed hawk screeched as it soared above his head, a ferret peeked out of a large fold in his robes, and a black panther slinked beside him. In his wake, a gorgeous white arctic wolf followed, his noble head held high, his glacial blue eyes almost glowing in the shimmer of the wizard lights.
My father and Zarius moved to greet Master Bertrand in the center of the ballroom.
“Welcome to the house of Nostradamus, Master Bertrand.” My father’s voice resounded throughout the ballroom.
“I bid you greetings, High Chancellor, and I bring potential familiars to bond with your son on this most auspicious occasion. Tonight, I have several potentials who have chosen to accompany me, along with my own Bia of the Snow Owl Clan, of course. The potentials include: Caelia of the Black Panther Tribe, Hadrian, above me, of the Red-Tailed Hawk Cadre, and last, but certainly never least, the noble Cheeva from the White Wolf Pack.”
Gasps of awe sporadically erupted throughout the room. It was extremely exceptional for a white wolf to become a familiar, so it was a rare and revered honor to be chosen by one. Even wizard girls knew how uncommon white wolf familiars were. We were trained in the care and feeding of all familiars, both common and exotic.
An angry chi
rping came from Master Bertrand’s mid-section. “Ah, Piri of the Ferrets, I do apologize for my negligence. And now, you have been introduced to all of our potentials. Wizard Zarius Evangelista of the house of Nostradamus, please come and greet the potential familiars.”
Zarius, who’d changed from his tux into traditional black wizard’s robes, confidently strode forward and began the process of greeting the potentials. The red-tailed hawk landed on Master Bernard’s free shoulder.
Zarius moved from familiar to familiar, giving each one a nod of respect, the traditional formal greeting, and staring into their eyes for a few seconds without blinking.
Dread churned in my gut, and fear made my legs go wobbly. I just knew this would not end well for me. I started slowly pushing back through the crowd, Hugo and Izzy moving with me.
“It’s going to be okay, Addie,” Hugo whispered, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but I could see the worry lines on his forehead. “Just take deep, slow breaths.”
“I want a familiar to choose you,” Izzy whispered near my ear. “But at the same time, I don’t, because that would pretty much blow the lid off of everything.”
I couldn’t manage to vocalize what I wanted to say—that’s not helping, Izzy.
On top of that, our proximity still felt way too close to what was going on. I retreated deeper into the crowd of partygoers, blinding myself to what was happening. Hugo, as the tallest, would have to keep me updated on what was going on.
“The ferret crawled up your brother’s arm,” Hugo told me.
“Piri has chosen you, Wizard Zarius!” Master Bertrand’s voice boomed with excitement.
I might be a girl, but even I knew that while Master Bertrand recognized every familiar was sacred, and to be chosen was written in the stars, most wizards were not as enlightened as the gentle Bertrand. Others saw it as prestigious to be chosen by impressive animals as familiars. A ferret was not the kind of familiar my brother felt entitled to. I knew he might just get so angry he would lose it.
“Your brother looks really mad, Addie.”
A few heartbeats passed. “What’s happening, Hugo?” Izzy asked.
“The white wolf is moving forward. Your brother is smiling. It’s the greatest honor of all to be selected by more than one familiar. Zarius looks relieved.”
I heard more gasps and whispers echo through the ballroom.
“Addie.” I heard the panic creeping into Hugo’s voice.
My knees almost buckled with the resurgence of dread inside me. I swallowed hard. “What? What do you see?” I panted.
“The wolf passed by Zarius, and it’s moving through the crowd.”
“He’s not coming this way. Hugo, please, please tell me he’s not coming this way.”
“I’m sorry, Addie.”
“Should we run?” Izzy asked.
Right at that moment, the crowd parted in front of me to let the white wolf through.
It was too late.
I stared into a pair of glacial blue eyes, almost glowing against the wolf’s thick snowy white fur. Everything in its bearing spoke of a single-minded purpose, communicating its unquestioning destination—me.
The wolf stopped directly in front of me, sat down on his haunches, and stared at me, unblinking.
Master Bertrand followed, and my father wasn’t far behind. I watched the fleeting shock on my father’s face fade into an expression devoid of emotion. The flinty hardness in his eyes provided the only clue that he hid darker emotions behind his practiced façade of composure.
Bertrand scratched his jaw, looking between my father, the wolf, and me. “Well,” Bertrand said affably. “I have not seen this before. Perhaps it is because Zarius and Adriana are twins.”
The wolf stared at me, his eyes transforming to a hazel identical to my own. I lost myself within his eyes, forgetting everything else. In the next instant, I found myself running through the forest, racing past trees, jumping over fallen logs, the wind moving like fingers caressing my fur. In the next heartbeat, I fell back into my own body, stumbling with the dizziness of the blindingly fast shift.
Wide-eyed, I glanced away from the wolf, and met my father’s eyes, which burned with anger—and something else. Was it fear?
“I have never seen anything like this,” Master Bertrand said again. “Cheeva has formed some kind of connection with your daughter, High Chancellor, but it can’t be as her familiar.”
“Of course it’s not the connection of a familiar, Bertrand,” my father agreed with calm conviction. “Adriana is a girl, after all. She is not a wielder of magic.”
I gulped down the lump lodged in my throat.
“No!” Zarius’ yell reached my ears as he stomped toward us.
Zarius, please, please don’t make this worse! I silently pleaded at my brother.
“Merlin’s curses.” Izzy whimpered into my ear.
“The white wolf can’t choose my sister. She’s nothing but a stupid girl.” Zarius hissed at Master Bertrand as if it was somehow his fault. “Make the wolf choose me, Bertrand,” he ordered.
“We don’t command familiars, Wizard Zarius,” Bertrand replied apologetically, arms outstretched in supplication. “They have their own free will to choose who they may. It is the way it is. It is the way it has always been.”
“I don’t care. The wolf made a mistake, and you need to fix it,” Zarius insisted.
My father moved up behind Zarius and clutched his shoulder. His knuckles went white with strain as he squeezed hard, eliciting a soft squeak from my brother, ironically similar to the sound the ferret had made only moments before.
“Enough.” My father bit the word out so quietly that few could have heard him.
“Master Bertrand,” my father’s voice boomed out, “my deepest thanks to you for bringing these fine potentials and for facilitating the connection of a familiar to my only son. I’m sure, as you say, that Cheeva feels a connection to my daughter because she is the twin to my Zarius. No doubt this has something to do with the essence they share from birth. In good time we will sort this all out, but for now, let’s enjoy the food, wine, and music that my lovely wife, Lady Clarissa, has arranged for us all.”
I searched for and found my mother just as she managed to stop wringing her hands together. She gave my father a tremulous smile, which quickly transformed into the overly bright smile of a gracious hostess appeasing her guests.
Surreptitiously, I watched as my brother stomped off, only turning back to pierce me with a glare so full of hatred that I instinctively reached out for the wolf at my side. Cheeva moved in closer to me. I felt the vibration of his deep growl, the sound of it lost in the din of the party.