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I don’t understand," Eric said pitifully as Thea towed him toward the bleachers
"Well, that’s reasonable"
"Blaise wants to talk to me alone and you want ht" Thea hadn’t realized it was possible to sound bright and bleak at the sao after you-"
"And you told ly"
"I know It’s just" Thea searched for an explanation that wouldn’t be too much of a lie and clutched her bottle of Evian water She didn’t need to ask him if he had the protective charm with him- she could smell New Hampshire pine needles
"It’s just that I think it’s better to get things settled," she said finally "One way or the other So maybe if you talk to her face-to-face well, you can decide what you want, and we can get this over with"
"Thea" Eric stopped, forcing Thea to stop, too He looked completely bewildered "Thea-I don’t knohat you’re thinking, but I don’t need to talk to Blaise to knohat I want" He put his hands gently on her upper ar she can say could make any difference"
Thea looked at hiood features and his expressive eyes He thought things were so simple
"Then you can just tell her that," she said, trying to sound opti will be resolved"
Eric shook his head, but allowed her to guide hiainst a concrete dugout by the baseball diamond When they were about ten feet away, Thea stopped and nodded at Eric to keep going
He walked to Blaise, who slowly straightened with the leisurely grace of a snake uncoiling
Thea put her thuently
"Thea said you wanted to talk toHe looked back at Thea after he said it
"I did," Blaise said in her liquid, persuasive voice But to Thea’s surprise, she addressed the ground, as if she felt aard "But noell, I feel so e to say so there"
"Well" Eric glanced back at Thea again "It’s okay," he added, his voice softer "I mean, it’s better to say whatever it is in front of her than behind her back"
"Yes Yes, that’s true" Blaise took a deep breath as if steeling herself and then lifted her head to ? Thea stared at her cousin Where did this scene come from?
"Eric I don’t kno to say this, but I care about you I kno that sounds You’re thinking that I have dozens of guys, and the way I treat them I can’t possibly care about any of theht noithout even listening to any more" Blaise fiddled with the zipper at her throat
"Oh, look, I’ to walk away I wouldn’t do that to you," Eric said, and his voice was evenso nice-much nicer than I deserve"
Absently, as if it were the estures, Blaise reached for the zipper at her throat and pulled it down
The necklace was revealed
Don’t look directly at it, Thea told herself She stared instead at the back of Eric’s sandy head-which suddenly went very still
"And you know, this is going to sound strange, but most of those boys don’t really like me" Blaise’s voice was soft now-seductive but vulnerable "They just-want me They look at the surface, and never even try to see any deeper And that makes me feel so lonely soold stars andYemonja root and other delicious scents wafted toward her She hadn’t even noticed that the first time; she’d been too deep in the necklace’s spell to analyze it And a faint, high resonance hung in the air-two or three notes that see
Singing crystals Of course Blaise was assaulting every sense, weaving an inescapable golden web and the whole thing was tuned to Eric’s blood
"All I’ve ever wanted is a guy who cares enough about me to look deeper than the surface" Blaise’s voice had a slight catch now "And-well, before I knew Thea liked you, I guess I thought you uy Eric, please tell ive up hope? Because if you say so, I will"
Eric was standing oddly now, as if he were crippled Thea could see his breath co faster She didn’t want to see his face-she knehat it would be like Like Luke’s Blank wonder changing into slow adulation for Blaise
"Just tell esture full of pathos "And if you say no, I’ll go away forever But if if you think you could care about azed at hi eyes
"I" Eric’s voice was thick and hesitant "I Blaise" He couldn’t seeet started on a sentence
And no wonder He’s lost already
Certainty hit Thea, and she stopped shaking her plastic bottle Her little Elixir of Abhorrence didn’t stand a chance against Blaise’shim in
And it wasn’t his fault Nobody could be expected to hold out against the kind of enchanty so beautifullyBlaise’s story
But she had to try anyway She couldn’t let Eric go without a fight
With one final, violent shake, Thea took her thumb out of the bottle neck Colorless liquid skyrocketed, spraying up and then raining down on Eric A geyser of loathing
Only one thing rong As soon as the mysterious downpour hit Eric, he turned to see where it was co at Blaise when the elixir soaked into his skin, he was looking at Thea
She stared back into his gray-flecked eyes with a kind of horror
Twice He’d been twice enchanted now, once to love Blaise and once to hate her
Oh, Eileithyia, it’s over
It was a crisis, and Thea responded instinctively She reached for Eric, to save hiht the way she’d fling out a hand to so over a cliff
Eric
A connection
Like dosing a circuit-and that was all it took Thea felt a wave of soical than Blaise’s , ed that she felt as though her skin was being brushed with velvet It was like being at the intersection of cosmic force lines
And it was all okay Eric’s face was his ordinary face Alive, alert, full of warmth-for her Not zombie worship for Blaise
Thea
It can’t be this si at each other in the quivering air and the universe was just one big singing crystal
We’re right together
A yell shattered the silent coout and saw that Blaise the vulnerable had disappeared
"I’m wet," Blaise shrieked "Are you crazy? Do you have any idea ater drops do to silk?"
Thea opened her iddy with the sweetness of relief She had no idea if Blaise really thought the elixir was only water-but one thing was clear However strong Blaise’s spell had been, it was broken now And Blaise knew it
Blaise jerked the zipper up and stalked off
"She’s mad," Eric said
"Well" Thea was still dizzy "I told you she likes getting ently, and partly to steady herself "Let’s go"
They’d only gone a few steps when Eric said, "Thank God you hit me with that water"
"Yes" Even if the elixir hadn’t worked it had somehow broken Eric’s concentration or distracted Blaise or soure out what had happened to disrupt a spell as potent as the one Blaise had created
"Yeah, because, you know, it was getting really aard," Eric went on "I kept trying to think of a polite way to tell her there wasn’t a chance, but I couldn’t And just when I realized I was going to have to say it and hurt her feelings-well, you soaked us"
Thea stopped dead She stared at him He was serious
"I s anyway Or she wouldn’t have gone away mad Uh, are you ain "Are you saying you didn’t even want to be with her? Not even just a little?"
He stopped "How could I want to be with her when I want to be with you? I told you that before this whole thing started"
Maybe it’s because we’re soulmates Maybe it’s because he’s so stubborn But, whatever, I’d better never tell Blaise She’ll have a whole new reason for killing
him if she finds out her spell bounced off like water off a duck
"Well, anyway, it’s resolved now," she murmured-and at that moment she really believed it She was too happy to think about anything dreadful
"Is it? Does that o out? Like on a date?"
He sounded so wistful that Thea laughed She felt light and free and full of energy "Yeah We could go right now Or we could go in Your house, I ain"
Eric made an "ouch" face "Well, Madame Curie would probably like that But Roz lost her case- the court ruled that the Boy Trekkers are a private organization And she is not-pardon the pun-a happy cao see her Poor kid"
Eric looked at her quizzically "You’re serious? You have a choice of anywhere in Las Vegas and you’d like to go to my house?"