I frowned. “But if it came in by the rain, then how the heck did you kill it by washing it down the sink?”
“The water has to be clean,” he leaned around and patted a large hand on the faucet, “and your grandmother’s pipes have been sanctified. “Plus,” Max’s voice became distant as he returned his attention to the storm through the windows, “wherever this weather is coming from, I doubt it’s the sky.”
I frowned even harder at that completely bizarre comment. “Ah, looks like it’s coming from the sky to me. What do you mean, anyway?” I asked as I quickly swallowed my sarcasm – there was a look in Max’s eyes, and it was making my stomach turn summersaults.
“If I’m any guess, it’s the Lonely King drawing something to himself,” Max answered so quietly I had to shift forward half over the table to pick up his muttered tones.
The hair along the back of my neck stood on end, and a cold wave of sweat prickled between my shoulders. I sat back slowly and swallowed. “I thought you said we had some time on that? I thought you said taking Fagan down would be a blow to him?” My words weren’t hysterical – far from it. They were quiet, slow, directed. And as I asked, I watched Max for all I was worth.
Max sucked in the kind of breath that punched his chest out and rumpled the fabric of his tight T-shirt. “We still do have some time. How much I’m not sure. But,” Max turned his full attention to me, “it all depends on you, Chi McLane.”
There. There he was. The shadow. I watched it grow sharper, darker, take up more space by Max’s side.
“Have you been trying to develop your powers like I showed you? Have you been reading through your grandmother’s journals and following her instructions? Have you looked through the newspaper clippings I left by your bed?”
And by the bath, and by the back-porch door, and by the couch. Oh, Max had been leaving pictures and newspaper clippings everywhere – all in an attempt to call on my powers.
I watched him, the pounding rain falling away, the stiff table beneath my equally stiff hands falling away, too. In fact, the rest of the world seemed completely irrelevant as I faced Max. Or his shadow, at least.
Several minutes ago, Max had been completely normal. Or at least mostly normal. He hadn’t bothered to mention a thing about the photos or my powers. Now all that levity was gone.
He was like a completely different person. A person with the intensity of a burning sword right by your throat. Or should I say palm?
As I blinked my eyes quickly and rubbed at them, I swore I saw a perfect copy of that carved up palm pressing towards the center of my forehead.
I leaned back and took a breath. Then? Then I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been working on my powers,” I answered with a completely neutral expression. There was a small, easy smile pressing gently at my lips, and my shoulders and torso were relaxed, not a hint of tension anywhere.
Max looked at me evenly then shrugged his shoulders.
He believed my lie. He turned away and continued with the dishes.
I watched him like a hawk surveying the meadows. It took exactly 32 seconds before his shoulders relaxed, before the stiff line to his back eased off, and before his shadow settled back to its normal size.
I sat there and controlled my breathing.
I’d just lied to Max, and he hadn’t picked up on it. Because I was a very good liar, wasn’t I? I had a lifetime of experience to draw on. A lifetime of experience of reading people and telling them exactly what they needed to hear. And right now the shadow needed to hear I was throwing myself into my powers….
I leaned back, thumbed my hair behind my shoulder, and came to a decision. No more playing games. It was time to draw on every resource I had to figure out who the heck Max really was.
I shoved a hand into my pocket and texted the only person I could think of. Bridgette. She owed me. Plus, she was the only other witch I knew in this magical world who told it as she saw it. And I seriously needed that kind of honesty right now.
As I waited for her to reply, I returned my attention to Max. Though my interaction with the shadow had been more than enough to banish the last of the passionate tingles that had raced down my spine at Max’s proximity, I hadn’t forgotten that interaction. Not at all.
“Max, um, how exactly did you know that tick was on me in the first place? You just went all stiff and started looking out the window—”
“I sensed it,” he answered without turning.
“Really? You can sense magical ticks from half way across the room—”
“No, Chi,” his tone was low, quiet, “I could sense it feeding off your magic. I am attuned to you, you know.”
… There was something about that answer. Something that simultaneously made me sick and yet sent my heart pounding into outer space.
It took every skill I’d ever developed as a crappy fortune teller to control my expression when Max turned around. He wiped his soapy hands on his jeans, then leaned backward against the bench. He did not, however, cross his arms. For some reason, he wasn’t doing that so much these days. Maybe Max was opening up to me. Literally.
“Believe it or not, I get hurt when you get hurt,” he continued in
