Drawn to You

Chapter 4

Liv had started the evening dreading her trip to The Fathoms with Rhea and ended up falling in love with both all over again. Adoring The Fathoms wasn't hard to do: the supernatural markets tended to pop up in every city, sometimes in the most unusual places and other times in the most bold. Every aisle held a wonder; each stall buzzed with its own energy that added to its neighbours' without overwhelming it. It reminded Liv of the utter glory of being unabashedly alive and completely herself, and given her break-up and subsequent dark moods, it was a welcome nudge.

Falling for Rhea again, though, was something she could have done without. It was painful enough the first time. She initially worried that her feelings wouldn't be requited at all, especially since she hadn't known if Rhea was even attracted to women. She knew she had been engaged to a male wrestler when she was in NXT, but she had also heard all sorts of rumours about locker room liaisons—and lacked the courage to ask anyone about them. Eventually her feelings had been too strong to ignore and she asked Rhea out anyway, hoping the worst that would happen was that she would be turned down. To her surprise, Rhea had agreed—not only agreed, but eagerly. The unexpected bliss of those early days had blinded Liv to some of the obvious weak spots in their relationship, but she kept telling herself that it was an experience and she learned from it and she would never regret it.

Now, though, she wasn't so sure. Liv always tried to learn from her mistakes, but how did you learn from something that never felt wrong in the first place but ended badly anyway? She kept thinking about that as she sat on her hotel bed, her Fathoms purchases spread out around her. She had already changed into her pyjamas—literal pyjamas, to the amusement of most of the women's locker room, not just a boyfriend's old t-shirt—and had her hair up in a messy bun, but little wisps kept flopping down into her face. "I should have got a padded bag when I was there," she muttered as she looked at everything she had bought to make Finn's new sigil. She was always leery of packing too many glass bottles because she was worried they would break, but most of the vendors at The Fathoms preferred glass. "If any of this breaks, my gear is going to smell like a freakin' forest."

Liv glanced at her phone, silent and dark beside her. She wasn't expecting a fervent declaration of love from Rhea or anything like that, but a simple Had fun tonight would have been nice. Once Rhea had gotten over her initial hesitance, she had loved The Fathoms, browsing at stalls that held nothing she needed simply to see what they were selling and admiring everything from jewellery to clothes to parchment. When it came to the inkers, Rhea had been in her element: what she lacked in supernatural knowledge, she more than made up for in tattoo experience. Liv almost had to pry her away from the tattoo stalls, reminding her that she had a series of matches coming up and wouldn't have the time to let a new tattoo heal properly. She had hoped Rhea would be bubbling over with questions about ink magic on the way back to the hotel, but she had gone curiously silent instead, barely waiting for Liv to get her gear bag from the back before locking the car and heading inside.

On impulse, Liv grabbed her phone, but she stopped just short of sending a message to Rhea. Instead she scrolled to her thread with Finn and started a new message. Can I drop off your card? I don't want to lose it.

Liv wasn't exactly counting the seconds, but it felt like it had taken several minutes for Finn to reply. You might as well keep it for future sigils. I'll keep it active for you.

"Fuck," Liv swore. She wanted an excuse to get out of her room, to move, to talk to someone so she didn't feel like she was about to burst. If Finn didn't want his card back, she didn't have many other excuses to give. She could tell him that Rhea was on her best behaviour for the most part, but he would say that report could have waited until tomorrow. He trusted her to make his sigils, so she wouldn't get far if she feigned needing his approval for certain ingredients. If you have time, she replied, I wouldn't mind talking for a bit. It probably sounded needy, but it was simple and it was honest. Sometimes that was the strongest magic of all.