Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) (12 page)

“Poor kid,” Miguel said after the door was closed, but very quietly.

“
¡
Pobre niño! Apuesto que es mayor que nosotros. Y tu de seguro fuiste una gran ayuda
. And
you
were sure a big help,” Natividad said tartly. “All that about Keziah and everything!”

Miguel shrugged. He said, following Natividad into Spanish,
“Si tratas demasiado de tranquilizale, vas a asustar a la gente. Si alguien te está vacilando contigo, que eslo peor que puede pasar? Alguie va a hacer commentarios sobre él y Keziah; más vale que lo haya oido como broma, primero.”

Natividad rolled her eyes. “Right, because
I
always feel better when someone teases me.
Sure
.”

“You do, though. You know it’s true: if someone’s teasing, how bad can it be? Somebody’s going to make comments about him and Keziah. He’d better have heard it as a joke first, and you know it,
gemela
.”

Natividad caught her brother’s hand and dragged him across the hall and into her own room. There she flung herself down on her bed and waved Miguel toward the window seat. She said in English, “Him and Keziah! I don’t think so!”

“Well, I hope not,” Miguel said, pressing his hand to his heart and miming being prostrated for love. “It’d break my heart.”

“Hah. Stop clowning. Everyone knows about you and Cassie.”

Her twin grinned at her. “Every man dreams of a harem—”

Natividad threw a pillow at him.

Miguel caught it and tossed it back. He said more seriously, “You can bet it’s the first thing everyone will think of—including Keziah. I think maybe you’d better suggest to Grayson he warn her to be nice, or she might, you know, go out of her way to . . . not be nice.”

Natividad could easily picture this. She grimaced.

“Justin’s very good looking, isn’t he?” said Miguel. “Plus he’s got that Pure thing going for him. Plus weird geometry magic! I wonder what kind of kid he’d have with a Pure girl?”

Her brother was always too perceptive. Especially when Natividad really didn’t want him to be. She would have thrown the other pillow at him, but she was leaning on it herself. She just made a face.

Though it would be . . . different, to think of being with someone who wasn’t always riding the edge of violence. She’d always known she’d be expected to choose one black dog or another—and then Ezekiel had made it very clear that he wouldn’t let her choose any black dog but him. Except Grayson. And Grayson, well. She admired him so much, but.

But now there was Justin, who was Pure and her own age, more or less, and whom Ezekiel couldn’t touch, no matter what.

She wasn’t going to think about this. A new source of tension wasn’t what Justin needed, it wasn’t what
she
needed, it definitely wasn’t what
Dimilioc
needed, not until Ezekiel found a different Pure girl and forgot about Natividad. That would take so much of the pressure off . . . all of them, really. She should look forward to that. She
did
look forward to that. Because it was just stupid to think of Ezekiel’s flowing-water way of moving and pale winter-sky eyes and so-careful courtship, and wish he really cared about her.

It was just stupid to think about how scared she’d been in Boston and how much she’d wished Ezekiel was there,
or how she hadn’t really felt completely safe until he stepped through the door into Grayson’s study and met her eyes.

“I wonder …” Miguel began, his tone speculative.

“Shut up,” Natividad told him. “I’m tired! If you want to play Machiavelli, fine, but it’s
four in the morning
, Miguel! Go play somewhere else! You can tell me what we should all do
later
.”

“Right,” her twin agreed meekly, suspiciously like the tone he’d use to a black dog in a temper. But he also slid off her window seat and sauntered toward his own room, which connected with hers. He paused, though, his hand on the knob of his door, to look at her, serious. Concerned. “You’ll be sixteen pretty soon now.”

Natividad shrugged, pretending she didn’t care and never thought about it and had totally lost track of passing time. “
Si, lo que sea
.”

“I just don’t want you pressured into anything you don’t want,” Miguel said. “Justin gives you options, that’s all. But that won’t last, you know. When Grayson decides it’s time to talk to Justin about Keziah,
he
won’t be joking. If you—”

“Oh, go
away
,” said Natividad.

“
Lo siento
,” Miguel said, not very sincerely, and vanished through his door.

Natividad ran her hands through her hair, shook her head, and laughed. Not that it was funny. It really wasn’t.
Options
! Her twin was crazy if he thought that Justin’s arrival was going to do anything but complicate everything for everybody.

She was
really
too tired to think about any of this now.

Ezekiel had looked tired, too. She doubted Grayson had let him go, yet, even though he must have been up all night. Probably Grayson had dismissed everyone else by this time and he and Ezekiel would be working out what everyone was going to do next about that stuff in Boston. Miguel thought he was so clever—well, he
was
so clever, but for Machiavelli, he couldn’t compete with Grayson Lanning. Especially because when Grayson said
jump
, everyone really did leap for the clouds before asking
how high
. And a big part of the reason everyone jumped so fast was because Ezekiel would be standing behind Grayson, counting the seconds it took them all to get airborne.

Though Natividad undressed and put on her nightgown and got into her bed, she knew she would never be able to go to sleep with Ezekiel’s ice-blue eyes staring into hers in her dreams. She closed her eyes, and lay there for a little while, but it was hopeless. Then she stared at the ceiling for a while, but that didn’t help either. Finally she gave up and put on her favorite fluffy pink robe and went to sit by her window, gazing out at the chilly starlit night. The moon was nothing like full. That was good. It wasn’t just the
cambiadors
, the vicious moon-bound shifters; every black dog had worse control during the full moon. Except Ezekiel.

Although even Ezekiel could be driven beyond the limits of his control. As Natividad knew better than just about anyone. Though that hadn’t been about
her
, really. More about everything else and then her on top of it all.

He had looked a little bit tired tonight. Probably that meant he was exhausted. And now there was that thing in Boston. He had to be tired and worried, even if he didn’t let it show. Probably he could really use a new pentagram drawn on
his
window. But he would never ask.

It was really late. Or really early. But even if Grayson had let him go, he wouldn’t be asleep. She thought he wouldn’t be. Anyway, if she knocked very quietly and he didn’t answer, she could just go away again.

Ezekiel wasn’t asleep. His low voice answered her tap at his door immediately, so she knew he had been in the main room and not his bedroom. Natividad opened the door cautiously, aware she was intruding on a fiercely guarded privacy, but Ezekiel, standing by the farthest table, gave her a faint smile and a welcoming little tip of his head.

Though still up, he had clearly been meaning to go to bed soon. His
mantaquilla
-yellow hair was damp and he was wearing a robe belted over black pajama bottoms. The robe was beautiful, probably silk. It was mostly black and gray, but the gray was swirled with ashy pink, like sunrise through storm clouds. Natividad happened to know that this wasn’t his only beautiful robe. She really wanted to make one into a dress, but she had never had the nerve to ask if she could. She was also suddenly aware that
she
was wearing a robe, too, a silly fluffy robe, and that maybe she should have gotten dressed again before deciding to visit. She said, embarrassed, “I shouldn’t—”

“No, you definitely should,” Ezekiel interrupted her smoothly. “I’m glad you came. I did want to see you once more tonight, if only to reassure myself. Traps and attempted kidnapping! The world has become more dangerous than ever for the Pure, I fear. All these damned black dogs that aren’t quite strays but certainly aren’t civilized.”

There was a trace of mockery in his voice, but he didn’t look as supercilious as he sounded. He looked fine-drawn and tired. That might have been an illusion from the dim light of his one lamp falling across the hollows of his face. But Natividad didn’t think so.

She came forward a step, leaving the door open behind her. She wasn’t sure what to say. She wanted to offer to draw a pentagram, bring peace into his rooms, but now she hesitated. The offer seemed almost intimate, even though things like that were what the Pure
did
.

She had rarely ventured to intrude on Ezekiel’s private suite, but though at first she had been surprised by its simplicity and quiet serenity, now she thought it fit him perfectly. The main room had soft gray carpeting and black leather couches and black-painted tables, but not very much furniture at all. The tranquility of the room was deepened by the single painting that dominated one wall. At first the painting seemed abstract, all random washes of black and charcoal and pale gray, but if you kept looking, eventually you thought maybe there was a mountain, and an angular tree, and possibly water below the tree, with perhaps a boat and maybe even one or two people.

The painting drew the eye, but Ezekiel had his back turned to it at the moment. He had been studying a city map spread out across the largest table. Three of the map’s corners were weighted down with smooth, shiny black pebbles that seemed more like polished metal than like stone. The fourth corner was held in place by a thin-necked vase of clear glass that looked like it had once been partially melted and then cooled. It was the kind of vase that ought to hold a single orchid, something expensive and unusual, something with a lot of petals and a strange fragrance. But Natividad had never seen a flower in it.

She said, “Grayson’s sending you to Boston, I expect?” And, at Ezekiel’s small gesture of assent, “I know you think traps and kidnappings and things are scary for the Pure, but you—you aren’t invulnerable either, you know. I think those people wanted you especially, not just me. I think at first they thought Keziah was you.”

“We’re much the same size in our other form,” Ezekiel allowed. “And it’s true few of Dimilioc’s enemies would know that. Though any experienced black dog would be able to tell that Keziah is female.”

Natividad nodded. “I think they figured that out, and that’s when they started trying harder to capture . . . well, me.” She shivered at the memory.

“But Keziah can take care of herself,” said Ezekiel. “Any black dog can take care of himself, or herself. You can’t.”

Natividad shivered again. That was hard to argue with.

“I don’t want you leaving Dimilioc again,” Ezekiel said. His tone was brisk, matter-of-fact, decisive—exactly as though he had the right to make that kind of decision. He went on, “I don’t deny you’re useful out there—” he opened a hand, a minimal gesture meant to indicate the whole outside world. “But it wouldn’t be useful at all for you to allow yourself to be captured by our enemies, and so I told Grayson.”

It wasn’t exactly fair to be angry, because she had already decided she never wanted to go on one of those horrible missions again
ever
. But somehow Natividad was angry anyway. “It’s all about
you
, isn’t it?
You
want to keep me locked up safe because
you
don’t want to worry! You don’t want to have to go to the trouble of finding another Pure girl, I suppose!” Then she stopped. She hadn’t meant to say that part, only Ezekiel had said she was
useful
and she had gotten angry.

Ezekiel was standing very still, looking at her. Natividad was suddenly aware of how close he was—of his sheer physical presence, of the heat which seemed to radiate out from him and fill the room. His room. His personal home within Dimilioc. That he let her enter. She knew he didn’t allow anyone else to break his privacy. But he had said he was glad to see her. It was suddenly hard to remember to be angry. Confused, she stared at him.

Though she had been speaking loudly, he didn’t shout back. He said after a moment, quietly, “Is that what you think?” Then, when Natividad didn’t answer, didn’t find herself
able
to answer, he said, “I’m not very . . . I don’t always do well with . . . relationships. I know that.” He stopped, hesitating, then went on, “I know how to be Dimilioc’s terrifying executioner. That’s what Thos trained me to be, and that’s what Grayson needs me to be, so that’s what I am. Frightening people isn’t difficult. But courting a girl . . .” his mouth twisted slightly. “I don’t actually have a very good track record with that.”

Natividad blinked. It had never once crossed her mind that Ezekiel might have . . . what? Loved and lost? He seemed so . . . untouchable. So contained. So
self-sufficient
. She asked tentatively, “You lost someone? In the war?” That actually made sense. In a way. Except not really, because if Ezekiel was mourning some other girl, why would he be so determined to have
her
?