Page 63 of The Witch They Crave

"An informed expectation."

"Based on what?"

"Based on things I know and you don't yet." He says it gently, which is worse than if he'd said it cruelly. "Humor me. Try."

"And when nothing happens?"

"Then nothing happens, and we go home, and I've cost you ten minutes." He gestures at the door, unhurried, like we have all night. Like the answer's already decided and he's just waiting for me to catch up to it. "But something will happen. Try."

I shake my head–scoff. He’s joking right? "And if I say no?"

He turns. The warmth is still there, but something behind it has gone still. "Your sponsorship terms include reasonable requests from the house," he says, shrugging. "Opening a door is reasonable."

"That's a stretch and you know it."

"Perhaps." Another pause, easy. "Take the coven. The women you've been spending your time with here."

"They're my friends. Since when is that a problem?"

"Friends, no. But three witches working in concert, pooling their craft?" He says it lightly, almost apologetic. "That constitutes a coven, and forming one without registering it is against Academy policy. A small violation. The kind that sits ignored until it’s officially a filed complaint." A beat. "Until someone has a reason to pull the file."

My chest goes tight and hot. He’s reaching, but he sounds just crazy enough to fuck with my friends and I can’t have that happen. "Don't."

"And there's your wild little pet, Kage. His little unannounced visit to this property last week." He tips his head. "I've been so patient about that. I'd like to keep being patient."

Quiet and neat, each one dressed in the same voice he used at dinner to say you'll learn to tell my meanings apart. Yeah, well I think I’m starting to understand him better.

“You’re insane,” I say.

He shrugs.

"You're threatening my friends…” I trail off. “To open a fucking door."

"I'm describing what might happen. You're the one calling it a threat." He lets that sit. "And of course, there's Aamon."

Everything in me goes cold.

"Section nine of his reassignment terms," Leopold continues, mild as milk, "allows me to report conduct detrimental to house stability. He's been so careful. So good." He tips his head. "I'd hate to create a paper trail."

Three. My friends, Kage, Aamon—laid out on the table between us, neat as place settings.

So those are my choices. Open a door I'm almost certain I can't open, or refuse and watch him make three separate phone calls that ruin the only people I've got.

Except…

Here's the thing he hasn't accounted for, because he's spent the whole night so sure of me. A few weeks ago I almost brought a whole chapel down. I can barely contain my magic once I truly let it go. If I reach for something this old and this dense and it goes wrong—if my magic slips its leash the way it slipped at the chapel—it won't be a locked door that pays for it. It'll be this building. This basement. Everyone standing in it.

There's nobody standing in it but us.

No innocents. No Nellie, nobody caught in the crosshairs. Just me and the man who's spent an evening reminding me I'm his property, and an old dead house that would come down on both our heads.

I could live with that trade. I find, standing here, that I could live with it easily.

I face the door, my decision made. "Fine," I say. "You want to see what I can do? Watch."

The magic in the door isn't hostile—it's just dense. Like on top of the massive, unopening door is another barrier with thousands of pounds behind it. I press my hand against the door and let the signature of the door seep into me, hoping that maybe some instinct in me will tell me what to do.

I’m a little out of my element…