Magic and Thorns

ch 10

❤❤❤ This chapter is dedicated to @JussyDC for being the first person to comment on the story I appreciate you ❤❤❤

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I was taken aback, but not in a bad way. Sage, who I only saw in overalls or long shorts, was wearing a dress. It was flower-patterned and stopped short of her knees; she had thin straps on her shoulders so I could see her farmer's tan. Her brown hair was free from its braid and was wild around her shoulders. I wondered what it would feel like to run my hands through her hair or over her exposed skin. It bubbled out of me as a laugh. She frowned and looked away, and I instantly realized my mistake. I grabbed her arm and made her look at me in one fluid motion. Her brown eyes caught mine; I initially thought they looked like dirt. Now I would say it was more layers in a rock face, all of the different hues that held knowledge if you chose to look.

"Sage," I said when she looked down again. "I didn't know you owned a dress. What flowers are on it?"

"Forget-me-knots." She visibly relaxed when we talked about plants; the blue-purple flower on her dress against the black background looked good.

"I love the tan line," I said jokingly, and she punched my arm.

"I hadn't fixed that yet." She punched me again for good measure. I saw she was about to fix it with magic, but I stopped her.

"You look fine; that shows all your hard work, so leave it." My hands slid to her shoulders. She opened her mouth to talk when my phone rang. Jeremy was calling. I jumped away from Sage, and she put on sandals as I answered.

"Reed, where are you? I'm here to pick you up?" Jeremy said through the phone. I forgot to tell him.

"Oh, I meant to call you. I'm helping Sage drop off some wood to donate to help people heat their homes. It is all very altruistic of me, don't you think? Very gentlemanly action."

"And how long will this take?"

"A while, depending on traffic, but the house is close to the garden, so I can walk."

"I will trust you against my better judgment, but keep in mind that anything you do with Sage will go into her trials. So think before you act. And anything you do could lose you your magic" Jeremy hung up after that, and Sage watched me from the truck driver's seat.

"No, I have seen you drive the golf cart, and I never want to see you behind the wheel of a real vehicle. I don't want to die today." I plucked the keys from her hand and pulled her out of the seat.

"Okay, can you plug the address in?" I asked after she got settled in the passenger seat. It had been a while since I drove a car, and I only needed to take one step to be at my destination. "Why did you get the truck?"

"I figured if we were doing some rule-breaking, we would need a get-a-way vehicle." She set my phone in the holder and started fiddling with the music on my phone.

"You do know what shadowstepping is, right?" I asked as I pulled onto the main road.

"Oh, I should have thought of that. I guess you can shadowstep?" She was very intently going through my music now.

"I guess you can't."

"Is this classical music?" She started playing orchestra music. She managed to evade my question and make me feel embarrassed about the music on my phone in one sentence.

"My dad had me download it for parties. It was an evil plan, so he had a reason to take my phone away, saying he needed it for the music." The laughter that came out of her was from somewhere deep.