25
When Even Magic Fails Us
Is it remotely possible that she’s right?” Linden asked, setting down her chopsticks.
I looked at her over the wreckage of Chinese food cartons from Pearl Dragon that littered the coffee table between us, most of which I’d demolished myself, in a frenzy of eating my many conflicting feelings. We were at Linden’s place, so I could fill her in on what Talia and I had come up with for the next challenge; even with things between us in such abject disarray, I was assuming neither of us was willing to give up on the pact.
But we’d covered that part fast, and once Lin realized how supremely not okay I was, the evening had devolved into tears, wine, and an epic comfort food binge.
“About what?” I asked her, still a little tearful, though I was now too full of egg roll to muster up another proper cry. I’d also literally cried myself to sleep the previous night, not to mention having sloppy-sobbed all over Linden earlier, so the well was close to plumb dry anyway. “My apparent affinity for running the fuck away?”
“Not that part,” Lind said, making a sympathetic face. “Sounds to me like she just said that because her feelings were so hurt, and she wanted to hurt you back.”
“You don’t know that. It’s possible she also meant it. Both things could be true, and with my luck, probably are.” I took a slug straight from the bottle of pinot grigio I’d appropriated as my own, wincing at the sour tang of the warm wine. “Shit, maybe she’s even right.”
“No one ever means the nastier stuff they say when their dander’s up, Em,” Lin said gently. “Not even an Avramov. And definitely not Talia.”
“What is it you think she’s right about, then?” I eyed another fortune cookie, an ominous rumble from my guts bringing me up short before I could reach for it. I should have known better than to self-soothe with so much MSG, but dire times called for drastic measures.
Linden worked her jaw from side to side, clearly strategizing the most tactful path toward what she wanted to say.
“Do you really want to go back to Chicago, Em?” she said. “I’ve noticed it, too, how happy you seem to be here whenever your guard’s down. It’s like you have to remind yourself on the regular that you hate Thistle Grove with fiery passion, or else the real truth comes bubbling out—which is that you kind of adore this town. Maybe even more than some of us lifers do.”
“I never said I hated it,” I protested. “I mean, how could I, how could anyone? It’s ridiculously beautiful, the weather’s amazing, the sky is the literal definition of #needsnofilter. Shit, the whole town even smells like a Yankee Candle Halloween special. The other day I flat-out admitted to my nana that I do love and miss it here, pretty much all the time.”
Linden raised her eyebrows. “Is this the game where you make my points for me? If so, I’m into it.”
“But it was never really the town itself that I hated,” I clarified. “It was living inside the suffocating little box that Thistle Grove Harlows get stuck with. You know that, Lins.”
“So do you still think it’s worth it, now that you have a bigger, Chicago-shaped box?” she persisted. Leave it to Lin to （lovingly） chisel away at inconvenient truths. “Has it been worth giving up magic and this town and all your people in it, for getting to be the person that being there lets you be?”
I suppressed the reflexive urge to leap in defense of my chosen life, and took a minute to genuinely consider the question instead.
“Well, there’s a lot about the city that I love,” I said slowly. “The Riverwalk, the museums, the endless restaurants. The random pop-ups and breweries, the fancy bars and the best kind of shithole dives. Jackson Park and the 606 and the lakefront walkways. So many choices, for everything. You could live there forever, and still never feel like you’ve seen and done it all.”
“I wasn’t asking you to channel the Chicago bureau of tourism, Em. Though you should consider hooking them up with your résumé.”
“But those things matter,” I argued. “They’re what make up a life. I like being surrounded by all that potential. And more meaningfully, I really like my job—plus, I’m extremely good at it, which I know you’ll recognize as something that’s always been important to me.”
All this was true. Silly as the Enchantify boxes were when compared to the visceral intensity of real Thistle Grove magic, I cared about scoring the coolest stuff for them every month, cultivating relationships with the vendors I’d found worthwhile. There was even satisfaction to be found in watching the beautiful unboxing videos made by the representatives we partnered with. As distracted as I’d been by the Gauntlet and Talia, and even with all the work stuff I’d managed to get done on the sly, I’d still missed having my job be the biggest part of my day.