We step out of my room and walk side by side until we come to a white door with a gleaming gold handle in the shape of a roaring lion’s head. Its open teeth nip at my hand as I grasp it and turn, leading us into a hallway of white marble and golden walls etched with redwood trees. It might be the prettiest hallway yet. If I weren’t on a mission, I’d sit and stare at the pictures carved into the walls in such delicate detail, but a matching white door sits at the end, and we step into another hallway. This one’s painted plain cream, with a wood floor and a runner made entirely of soft pink rose petals stitched together with golden thread. Each step crushes the petals, and I turn back just long enough to watch them heal as soon as I lift my foot. But I’m not here to marvel at the magic, and another door sits at the end of our flowered path.

“Are you thinking about what I want?” I ask Roman.

I’m starting to think the magic here is lonely, that it’s desperate to take a walk with you before it will let you go. Or maybe only one of us is doing the work.

Roman glances at his feet. “I was thinking of you.”

I don’t like the way his words make my skin tingle the way the magic does.

“Focus,” I say.

“Sorry.”

I reach out and grab his hand, linking his cold fingers between mine. Cold, like a vampire who hasn’t had blood recently and not like the magician he’s pretending to be. He is hungry, then.

He stares down at our clasped hands in shock. “What are you doing?”

“There. Now you have what you want. You can stop thinking about it.”

He clears his throat. “Now I want other things.”

My hand feels impossibly hot in his cold one. I look up at him. The longing in his eyes makes my breath catch, and I can’t find the words to order him to stop. I shake my head and have to force myself to focus.

He nods like he doesn’t need me to say it, and we walk to a simple wooden door that could be in any old house. It opens into a hallway of all-black marble from ceiling to floor. It’s twice as wide as the other one. This one feels different. The magic in me zings like my GPS telling me I’ve found my destination.