Scary Cool (The Spellspinners) Read Online Free Page B

came upstairs for any reason and found me gone, my life would get even more complicated than it already is. It was nearly midnight when I slip ped into jeans and a sweater to skatch downtown.
    ‘ Downtown ’ is a pretty laughable way to descri be the Cherry Glen town square—it’s just a literal square , a one-block park with a gazebo band-shell-thing in the center— but that’s how we think of it. Not having anything better to designate ‘downtown . ’
    I stood on the rag rug beside my bed. Closed my eyes. Pictured the path leading to the gazebo. And skatched .
    Cool air surrounded me. I breathed in the fresh, green dampness of the summer night and opened my eyes. Lance was waiting for me on the gazebo steps. He stood up when I appeared on the path before him. He’s so polite, if I didn’t know better I’d think he was well brought-up.
    And he’s so hot, I wish he had been. Well brought-up, that is. He was wearing some sort of motorcycle jacket that made him scary gorgeous.
    It was hard to read his expression in the shadows, but I don’t need to see Lance’s expression to know what it is .
    His smile was warm this time. I didn’t return it.
    “I can’t keep doing this. Tell me whatever it is you need to tell me, and let me go.”
    He sighed . “ You’re still pissed at me. Would it help if I apologized?”
    I shrugged. “ I doubt it. But why don’t you try? ”
    I was just being flip, as I usually am with him—but he took the offer . Lance’s remorse immediately wash ed over me in waves of regret. Regret tinged with embarrassment. He was genuinely sorry for trying to break me . And even sorri er that I’d made a fool of him.
    He was sorry he scared me. He was s orry he lost his temper.
    Sorry he roughed me up . Sorry he tried to come between me and Meg.
    Sorry for a lot of stuff.
    But there were qualifications in there, too. He wasn’t showing me everyt hing he thought or felt . And in my opinion, he wasn’t sorry enough—especially for trying to come between me and Meg. His methods in that attempt had been way ugly.
    I frowned. “ See, here’s the thing. It’s always just half-way with you. You’re sorry , but only for some of what you did . You’re here to help me, but only if I do what you want . You’re on my side, yeah, to a point, but n ot entirely. ” I took a deep breath. “Apology not accepted.”
    He felt me getting ready to skatch home and jumped off the steps. “Don’t go.” He automatic ally reached out his hand to stop me.
    And an interesting thing happened.
    Tiny purple spark s fizzed in the darkness between us.
    They were like sparks of static electricity, so faint that they would have been invisible in daylight . I felt nothing. Lance, however, flinched. His hand jerked back as if it had been stung.
    He stared at me and swore.
    “What was that?” I asked , intrigued . “A nd I can feel you searching for a good lie to tell me, so knock it off. Give me the truth . ”
    He sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. Looked off into the middle distance. Shrugged. And decided to tell the truth —I felt it.
    “ After you banished me, I couldn’t skatch back to Cherry Glen. I told you about that. Rune brought me here. Physically brought me, in a car. W e had no trouble coming into town, so I thought I was home free. I mean, I t hought we’d done an end run around my banishment by traveling here like a couple of sticks . Guess not.” He looked a t me. “ I can’t touch you.”
    I felt my eyes widen. “Sweet.”
    “Hey, thanks.”
    “No, really. This is great. You don’t get it—why would you? But all my life, when I use the Power, whatever I’ve done unravels eventually. So it’s cool to find out that this spell still holds. At some level, anyhow.”
    The mos t important level, bab e . Lance was pi ssed. Or disappointed. Or both.
    He must have had plans that involved touching me.
    I had to hide the flash of pleasure that realization gave me. Because I didn’t