Would’ve been nice if she could’ve erased his memory just as easily, but even in her sad and vodka-soaked state, Vivi knew better than to mess around with that kind of magic. And a couple of those little pieces of her heart didn’t want to forget the past three months, wanted to hold on to the memory of that night they’d met, the musical way he’d said her name, always Vivienne, never Vivi, how that first night he’d asked, May I kiss you? and she’d said, Now? and he’d smiled that slow smile and said, Now is preferable, but I’m open to whatever your schedule allows, and how was any woman supposed to resist that? Especially a nineteen-year-old one at her first Solstice Revel? Especially when the man saying those words was tall and ridiculously handsome, and Welsh?
It was illegal, was what it was, and she was going to lodge some kind of complaint with the Witches Council as soon as she—
“Vivi!” Gwyn yelled from the bedroom. “You’re making the lights flicker.”
Oops.
Sitting up, Vivi pulled the plug in Gwyn’s tub, hoping some of her misery was swirling down the drain with the water.
She carefully stepped over the candles, and pulled the robe Gwyn had lent her off the hook on the wall, feeling a little bit better as she tightened the black silk belt around her waist. This was why she’d come to Elaine and Gwyn’s cabin in the woods high up in the mountains above Graves Glen instead of back to her dorm room at the college. Up here in this cozy little space with its candles and cats, every room smelling like woodsmoke and herbs, Vivi was home.
Maybe she and Gwyn could do face masks or something. Have another drink or five. Listen to Taylor Swift.
Or, Vivi amended as she walked out of the bathroom to see Gwyn pouring a salt circle on the floor, they could do . . . whatever this was.
“What are you doing?” she asked, waving a hand toward the bathroom. After a second, her glass floated out, crazy straw bobbing, and Vivi closed her fingers around it before heading to Gwyn’s desk to pour herself another drink.
“We’re cursing this dickbag,” Gwyn replied with a grin.
“He wasn’t a dickbag,” Vivi said, chewing on the end of her straw and studying the circle. “Not at first. And to be fair, I was the one who called it off, not him.”
Snorting, Gwyn began gathering her hair up in a ponytail. “You called it off because he was a dickbag. He came to Graves Glen, seduced you, and all the while, his dad was back in Wales, arranging his marriage to some fancy witch. And he knew! And didn’t bother to tell you! No, dickbag ruling stands, so say we all.”
“‘We all’ meaning just you.”
“Me and Sir Purrcival,” Gwyn said, gesturing to the tiny black kitten currently curled up on her bed. At his name, he lifted his little head, blinking bright green-yellow eyes at Vivi before giving a tiny mew that did kind of sound like agreement.
And Rhys had been engaged. Well, almost engaged. He hadn’t used that word. He’d said “betrothed.” Just dropped it on her this morning while they’d been snuggled up in the warmth of his bed, him kissing her shoulder, and murmuring that he had to go back home for a week or so, get some things sorted.
“Some things” apparently meaning, “Tell my dad to call off my actual wedding to a stranger,” and then he’d had the nerve to be shocked that she was shocked, and actually, yes, they should definitely curse this dickbag.
“Fair enough,” Vivi said, folding her arms over her chest. “What do we do?”
“Open the windows,” Gwyn said, moving to her desk and picking up a candle in a glass holder that Vivi had somehow overlooked for her ritual bath.
Vivi did as she was told, the late September air cool and smelling like pine trees as it rushed in the room. Over the top of the nearest mountain, the moon shone full and white, and Vivi gave it a little drunken wave before sticking her head out the window to look up Elaine’s mountain.