Her brows drew, as though insulted. “I’m fine. Question is, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t seen you in days, Demarco.”
If he didn’t know better, he thought he detected a trace of frustration. But perhaps he was seeking it. Seeking something. He rubbed grains of soil between his fingertips. “I’ve had a lot to think about.”
“Like our little accident?” she posed, casting her gaze to her feet. “You didn’t hurt me, just so you know. It was wrong of me to bait you into using magic. I know you prefer not to.”
He swallowed hard. The way she said it, uncomfortable but apologetic, made his insides turn and tear.
I’m no magician.
I’m nothing.
He should tell her now. Everything.
“Were you still thinking about dropping from the show?” She grew quiet, watching him. Wary. “Have you changed your mind?”
Daron didn’t give himself a chance to be lured by that lilt of hope. He shook his head. “I can’t, Kallia.”
“Why?”
Say it. Say it. The words were there, but he couldn’t let them go. Couldn’t let them make him into nothing before her. “It just … won’t work.”
“Why not?” she fired back. “I thought you believed in me.”
“I do—”
“No, if you did, you wouldn’t be doing this. You wouldn’t be hiding away in this house, thinking no one would notice and hoping the show goes on without you.”
“This show doesn’t need me, but it does need you.”
“Don’t you see? I can’t compete without you.” Kallia’s lips pressed into a thin line. “According to the rules.”
Daron raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll talk to Erasmus and the mayor.”
“I don’t want you to talk to them. I want you to talk to me.”
Her eyes had never looked so defenseless, reaching. Like she knew there was something just within her grasp, if she kept at it. Kept at him.
“I don’t even know why you come here, if you don’t want to do this anymore.” Kallia gestured around at the Ranza Estate, scowling. “What are you even still doing here?”
Daron took an instinctive step back in the direction he’d come. “Nothing.”
“You expect me to believe you sat here for days, doing nothing?” she asked sharply, before giving a curious tilt of her head. “What’s in that section of the house?”
If only she could’ve stayed angry. He took another step back. “It’s just a room I started working on.”
Kallia glanced at the unkempt, dust-ridden corners. “You’re lying.”
“I am not.”
“Are, too.” She chuckled, advancing to the door. When he attempted to block her path, Kallia sidestepped and ran behind him. Triumphant.
He didn’t even try stopping her. Not like he could. The plan he’d crafted carefully in his head would shatter the moment she pulled those doors open.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
And yet Daron just stood back and watched her walk through, mesmerized as her movements slowed entirely.
As she looked up.
And fell completely silent in her own world.
* * *
It was a wonderland of sights and smells, glowing lights and glimmers in the dark.
Glass walls rose high into a crystal domed ceiling, letting the night in. Almost too dark, except for a soft luminescence flooding the room, swirling along vines. Were it not for the glow of petals and the veins of leaves, Kallia would not have been able to tell they were flowers. Some glimmered at a soft constant, while others flickered gently in the way fireflies did in the forest.
The air hit her, warm and humid with a sweetness she knew all too well.
A greenhouse.
Kallia could hardly breathe as she moved from one row to the next, fingers grazing the flowers in full bloom. Her chest tightened, almost painful. “You … you did all of this?”
Demarco leaned against the archway of the door, so shadowed that she couldn’t read his expression. “You’re not the only one with an affinity for this,” he said. “It’s like another type of magic, growing something from the ground up. Watching it thrive.”
Of course he’d see this as one of his practical magic indulgences. Yet whenever she’d spoken of her greenhouse, he rarely reacted. “But…” she stammered, unable to stop. “But you never said anything.”
“I didn’t think you’d care, all things considered.” With an infuriatingly casual shrug, he pushed off the wall to step farther in. “I was going to add some lights, maybe a few hanging lamps or…” He drifted off, looking away. “Most of them aren’t even opened or in full—”
“Those are my favorite.” Her fingers were poised around a sparkling lily nearing bloom, the delicate stem