Almost

Chapter 54: Waine

They landed with a thud, Shep's legs nearly giving out from under him. Katherine's breath wouldn't come fast enough through her nose, knocked out of her by magic that wasn't really strong enough to take both of them that far. She could almost feel it in her limbs, in the way they felt like they'd been pulled too tight.

It had been midday in Iowa—she assumed they were in England based on the dark sky out the small window to her right.

The room was simple, bright even. It looked like any typical hotel room that Katherine might have walked into in Iowa. After so many months living in homes and buildings imbued with magic, it felt oddly stagnant.

It took only a few seconds from their landing for Katherine's magic to come back, and as Shep righted himself, she broke the spell on her mouth. She breathed heavily, bent at the waist, as if she'd been drowning.

"Sorry about that," Shep said. "He warned me it might not work from that far, but that bloke was coming and I didn't know how long this magic would hold and I just... sorry."

She looked up at him, her eyes flaring back with magic.

"Don't look at me like that," he said. "I said I was sorry. Don't tell me you've gotten your mother's bloody temper."

"My temper?" Katherine scoffed. "You just took me against my will—"

"Oh, you lot take things against people's wills all the time, you just call it magic." Shep looked out the window, peering around the curtains. Katherine recognized the streetlamps, the church standing across the way, that they were in Ottery St. Catchpole. "Until we need something, that is, and then magic is suddenly useless."

Katherine's skin lit around her, and she desperately wanted to scratch it all off, but she tried her best to keep her face even. To not let on that something was wrong.

"That's just the way of wizards, though, it seems. Take what you need, everyone else be damned."

"With such a charming picture painted of me," Katherine retorted, "why bring me here at all? I thought I had another month."

"He gave you until the wedding to decide. I just thought you should have all the information before then. Devil knows they won't give it to you. At least you don't have that bloody red hair, I don't think I could stand it."

Katherine almost changed her hair color out of spite, but she just narrowed her eyes and hissed out her response.

"That's my family you're talking about."

"Your family?" Shep laughed, drawing the curtains and turning back from the window. "Maybe there's still some of that magic in my head, but I don't remember them being the ones who fed you. Or changed your nappies. Slept in the room next door and heard you cry all night. I could have sworn that your last name was Waine."

She could have punched him for twisting her name like that. For even associating this with her mother.

"No, they didn't do any of that. Cut themselves out of your lives, and us in the process as well."

He turned back to the window, one hand on his hips while the other rubbed at his eyelids. His hair wasn't quite as dark as her and her mother's, but she could see it had the same weight, the same inability to decide if it would curl or lie flat.

"It wasn't going to go this way. This wasn't the plan."

"And what was your plan?" she bit back.

"I was going to wait for you at your mother's grave. I was going to introduce myself, properly. Just talk to you. Kevin said you'd just gaped at him, but you looked at me like I was the villain, and then you were going to get him involved, and I couldn't take you both."