A warmth spread through me. Everything outside of that room fell away. I felt something welcome and wanted wrap around me, tying me in place. I felt like a fly trapped in a spider’s web, but it was a very pleasant web to be stuck in, and I was a fly who really didn’t mind the spider. I noticed things about him I never had before: the thickness of his eyelashes, long and lush and dark, and the way his lips were thin and full at the same time. It is all a haze now, but I think I might have touched him, reached for him. It was all very surreal. He was himself and not himself at the same time. “Sorcha?”

“Yeah.” He wrapped his arms around my bare neck and came so close I could taste his breath. He ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah, it’s me,” he said. And then he kissed me. It was a deep kiss, a slow and unhurried kiss. If I am being honest, and I might as well be honest, it was likely a series of kisses. I have no idea how long he kissed me. Or how long I kissed him back. Eventually, Sorcha dropped the razor. It fell with a heavy thud to the floor, and the noise of it was enough to wake me from the haze. Whatever the case, when I snapped back into my right mind, he was shirtless, and I had a hand on his thigh. I let out some terrible wordless noise. I tumbled out of the chair and skittered back to the opposite wall, putting as much distance between us as I could.

Sorcha stood next to the chair. He looked confused, adrift, a little lost. “Hey, you all right?”

“What just happened?” The words came out hoarse, coated in fear.

“Well, I thought…hell, Ariah, I thought we were making it finally.”

“What?”

Sorcha sat heavily in the chair. A bitterness settled over him. “Ah, shit. Ah, for fuck’s sake. Look, we been circling each other for weeks, right, I figured you as shy. Look, if you didn’t want to you could’ve broke the charms.”

“You charmed me?” It came out horrified, but actually I was relieved. It wasn’t me, I kept thinking. I wouldn’t have done it if there hadn’t been magic involved. It was all him.

“Yeah. Don’t be like that. You’re a quarter. Could’ve broke them easy.”

“I don’t know anything about charms!”

“What? You’re a quarter!”

“I’m Semadran!”

He stared at me for a long moment. He softened slightly. “I guess that explains why you didn’t charm me back.”

“Yeah, it explains it! You charmed me? What the fuck, Sorcha?”