Rafael frowned, then brightened as though some brilliant idea had just occurred to him. I wasn’t sure what exactly could be so wonderful about losing your magic, but he still wore a dazed expression so his thinking probably wasn’t totally rational right now. “You’re applying Nefesh logic to my magic. My powers were bestowed upon me by Asherah, as yours were. You can’t destroy my magic. You simply used it as a remedy. At my instigation. There was no lasting damage. I feel it already replenishing itself.” He stretched languidly, a content smile playing at his lips.
Fuck. Was this part of the bond between Attendants and Jezebels? A way to create intimacy between two people otherwise stuck in a relatively isolated bubble? Because that was messed up.
“Is this how Jezebels control their urges? We feed off our Attendant’s magic?” Start my day with a healthy breakfast and thirty seconds of Rafael. I dropped my head into my hands with a strangled groan.
“Not up to this point, but it appears there’s a first time for everything.” He escorted me to one of the high-backed chairs. “Wait here,” he said, and disappeared.
I sat there with my hands clasped between my knees, taking in the quiet of the room. The pillars were once more intact, hiding the Sefer, but I didn’t desire its magic. I gently circled my right ankle in one direction, then the other. I’d been in such a rush that I’d come to the library in sock feet.
With no swelling and no more sharp twinges, I was free to dwell on my upset stomach, the thickness in my throat, and the all-over nausea that I’d somehow betrayed Levi. Which was ridiculous.
If no other Jezebel used their Attendant in that fashion, there was another way to silence the urges and strengthen myself against the Sefer. Good. Not that I’d known any better when I sucked—medicinally ingested—Rafael’s magic. Really, it was no different than say, getting an IV bag of drugs for any other condition. Even if IV bags tended to go limp as you drained them, not—
Rafael appeared with a delicate china teacup on a saucer, steam curling off the top, and I jumped halfway out of my seat. My eyes bounced all over the room desperately looking for somewhere innocuous to land.
Brows furrowed, he pressed the cup into my hands, his fingers folding over mine. “A spot of Darjeeling. I hope you like milk and sugar.”
“What? No scones?” I said. He bit his lip and I shook my head. “A joke, Rafael.”
“Tea is a serious business. I wouldn’t wish to offend.”
I took a sip, the sweet milky liquid scalding my throat but also incredibly soothing. “You’re not going to be impossibly British and avoid this conversation, are you? Because you and I just went further than I did with my first boyfriend.”
Rafael dragged a chair up to mine and dropped into it. He gave me a crooked smile and a knot formed in my gut. “I fear that you are something of a conundrum, Ashira Cohen.”
“Tell me about it. I’m thinking of having buttons made to that effect. But what specifically are you referring to?”
“These cravings of yours.” He toyed with his dark wooden ring, burnished to a high-gleam, that was identical to mine.
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” My smile was easy, but my ribcage constricted. “You Attendants really need to warn us about how bad those get, because man, I have had it up to here with unexpected surprises.”
Rafael jutted his chin towards the myriad of books lining the shelves. “No other Jezebel in our vast and storied history has had them.”
“Gavriella had them. That’s why she took Blank.” Though anything that cost me my magic wasn’t an option.
“Gavriella used the drug to escape many things in her life,” he said, “but this wasn’t one of them. You hold the exciting and somewhat dubious distinction of being the only one addicted to magic.”
I set the teacup down on its saucer with a rattle, tea sloshing over the rim. Each of his matter-of-fact words battered and unmoored me, as if the universe had considered my determination to succeed as a Jezebel no matter the obstacle, smiled maliciously, and said, “good luck.”
Rafael pulled a linen handkerchief out of his vest pocket and mopped up the spilled tea. “While you can sense magic on the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh,” he said, “it shouldn’t have any effect on you. In fact, you shouldn’t even sense it from a distance. Only if you send your magic directly into a scroll should you be able to verify its presence. The ward that suppressed your powers all those years must have interfered with the natural order of things in terms of how you interact with the Sefer’s magic.”
I choked on the sip I’d taken to calm my nerves. I’d been so focused on the “what,” that I hadn’t considered the “how.”
Rafael thumped my back, his hand lingering a moment too long.
I jerked away. That damned tattoo. Another reason to never forgive my father for what he’d done. His actions had hampered my abilities and forced me into a twisted relationship with my Attendant that I saw no way out of.
I exhaled slowly. Find Adam. Get answers. Move forward. That was the plan and I was sticking to it.
“How bad are the cravings?” Rafael said.
Was he worried or hopeful? “Usually, about a two or three out of ten. If I’m midway through destroying someone’s inherent magic and that gets aborted for some reason, it gets worse. A taste of angel-affiliated magic? I’d take crashing a car into a concrete wall again over its awful beauty. Though they’re gone now. Thanks to you.”
“I feared those scrolls were killing you and did the first thing that popped into my mind.”
Pip. Pip. You have cravings. I can calm them. So
