Page 4 of Fallacies

I look at Lucina. Reading. Assessing. Searching for any explanation in her determined stare. There’s something on her face that I so badly want to understand, but maybe I don’t need to understand it right now.

I trust her. Implicitly. The same way she’s trusted me. Not when it was involuntary, but when it was a choice. She’d made that choice.

So I will too.

“Callan,” Delia’s voice is sharp, slicing through my thoughts. “Having her in your coven would be entirely inappropriate and⁠—”

“Breaking tradition?” I ask Lucina, meeting those fiery eyes head-on. They flicker, a burst of fire that settles my decision. We might as well be the only two people in the room. The only two people in the world. I exhale a swift breath. “Are you ready for that, Chaos?”

She shrugs, as if it’s that casual—what she’s asking of me. “It sounds refreshing.”

I feel Delia’s stare, hot on the side of my face. I feel Laverna’s too, and Ceres. Never has anyone come into their space and told them how it was going to be.

But there’s a first for everything, I suppose.

“It does, doesn’t it?” I ponder the word—refreshing. It isn’t exactly how I’d describe the feeling. There’s a lot of uncertainty, confusion, and a wild kind of thrill behind it.

She’s brilliant, strong, and a force to be reckon with. It sure as shit isn’t what I’d planned for, but somehow…it works.

Before I can talk myself out it, I roll back my shoulders and nod. “I think it’s a great idea.”

The Dame chokes, and Ceres stares off, unblinking.

A slow smile spreads across Lucina’s face. “Does that mean I’m done with these meetings, Captain?” she asks, and my heart thumps wildly against my ribcage, an attempt to break free and run to her.

I pull my hands out of my pockets. “As far as I’m concerned.”

“Great.” Lucina turns to face Delia, bowing the lowest she ever has. “Your Grace.” She straightens, dusting off her hands as if she’d gotten them dirty, and I give up on fighting my own grin as I follow her to the door.

The second we’re out into the mid-afternoon sun, I grab her wrist, spinning her back to face me.

“I’m sorry—” she starts.

I take her face in my hands and kiss her, the taste of static and smoke warm on my lips. Lucina presses her palms into my chest, pulses of heat seeping through the fabric of my clothes, straight to my skin.

It takes effort to pull away but I keep my face close to hers. “Why?” I brush hair out of her face. “Where did any of that come from?”

She forces down a deep breath, bright eyes darting between my own. “Are you mad?” she asks. “I know I put you on the spot in there. I’m sorry. I just⁠—”

“I’m not mad, Lucina.” She releases a breath. “I’m just trying to understand. You never mentioned wanting to be in my coven before?”

Something like hesitance flashes across her sun-drenched features, and I instantly regret what I said. She’s been through it. Who am I to fault her for being hard to read? I doubt she’s even able to gather her own thoughts right now, much less put them into words.

It’s not important right now.

“You’re okay,” I remind her, planting a kiss on her temple. “That’s all that matters.”

We’d talk about whatever’s going on in that head of hers later. Not now.

“I know I asked you inside,” I shift the subject, “but are you sure about this? You are without a doubt more than capable of being in my coven, but I don’t want to throw you into anything you aren’t ready for.”

She shakes her head, and for a moment it looks like her eyes are watering, streams of golden honey swimming brighter through her irises. Then she blinks, and the glassy sheen is gone.

“I know what I asked for,” Lucina assures me. “I want to help.”

Of course she does. She said she wanted to be on the right side of history. She wants to help us get our people back, to save the Sol trapped in Streatham, and if anyone can make that sort of impact, it would be her.

Lucina Van Reenan is going to be the first woman to ever join the Ajax coven. She’s going to be bound to us all for life, and it suits her—this kind of upheaval.