“Not to Mike?”

He held back a small laugh. “Especially not to Mike.”

Chapter Eight

“You wanted to see me?” I said, popping my head around Jason’s door.

“Yeah, come in.” His arm rose in a wave from his huddle over the spread of papers in front of him.

I stopped a second to look back at Falcon. “Coming, Fal?”

“It’s okay.” He gave a small nod of approval. “I can hear everything from out here.”

I flashed him a grin and closed Jason’s door behind me, shutting us into his room, alone. “What’s up, Jase?”

“I know why the stone melted. But that wasn’t why I asked you here.” He leaned his butt against the table and folded his arms. “You were thinking about something at breakfast.”

“I’m always thinking about something.”

“Yes, but this thought involved me.”

“Okay.” I wondered over and sat on the blanket box at the foot of his bed. “What thought was it?”

“You have something you want me to translate into English.”

My fingertips slowly moved to my hip pocket. “Yes.”

He held his hand out. “Show me.”

“I have no idea what kind of spell it is—or if it even is a spell,” I said, passing him the page I found last night.

He considered it for a second. “It’s a junction fabricator.”

“What’s that?”

“It creates pathways over the dead.” He turned around and laid it on the desk, grabbing another sheet of paper and a pen.

“The dead? Do you mean, like—”

“Like brings dead things back to life, if the body isn’t damaged. But it’s not black magic,” he added quickly. “It’s simply a kind of highway, you might say, that guides a soul from one realm to another and puts it where you want it.”

“Realm?”

“Yes. Think of it as if we live in layers.” He laid one hand over the other in the air. “Up top, we have the spirit realm, and below, we have the mortal realm.”

“And this spell makes a path for a person to cross sides?”

“To cross back, yeah. Unless its body had no head, or something like that.” He leaned over the page again and started taking notes. I watched the symbols on one page turn to English on the other under his pen tip, picturing the actions of the spell in my head. “There’s something else,” Jason said without looking up, and I stared at him, waiting, but he didn’t elaborate.

“What’s something else?”

He stopped writing with a rather expressive full stop and dumped his pen down. “This rash.”

“What about it?”

“Show it to me.” He looked at my waist.

“Why?”

“Because it’s not what you think it is, and I want to see how much it’s changed.”

I reluctantly inched my shirt up my ribs and drew my tummy in a bit as his warm hands cupped my waist. He knelt down in front of me, his tepid breath calling the tiny hairs above my jeans to attention, and spun me this way and that, frowning, tracing lines over the black rash.

“I know you’ve already decided it’s a Mark of Betrayal, but it’s not because you’ve done anything wrong, Ara.”

“Then what’s it from?” I pulled my top down as Jason stood up again.

He propped his shoulder on the tall bedpost, his legs leaned out long, arms folded, making me feel small under his penetrating gaze. “It’s betrayal of the heart.”

“Of the heart?” I touched my chest absently. “In what way?”

He just shrugged, lowering his face to hide that sheepish grin.

“Oh, right. You think I love you, huh?” I said jokingly.

But he just shrugged again. “Maybe.”

“Jase—”

“Look. Just don’t, okay.” He raised both palms. “I didn’t bring you here to argue about your feelings, Ara. I just wanted you to stop trying to figure out what you did wrong.” His arms fell to his sides. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

I walked a little closer, my eyes narrowing with curiosity, and stopped right in front of him. “I think I know what it is.”

“What?” he asked, his eyes a little wider than normal.

“I. . .” I had to tell him. I had to tell someone what happened between Arthur and I in the training room that night—the night I fell of the lighthouse. Or jumped.

“I already know, Ara. And that has nothing to do with the Mark.”

“You already know what?”

“I know about my uncle and the training hall, and the . . . turkey baster plan you came up with after.”

Invisible lava coated my cheeks. “How?”

He glanced back at his bed and reversed a few steps to sit on it. “I found you that night. You were . . . Mike was there, too. He was towering over you, yelling at you, and I—”

“You what?”

“I punched him in the face and took you up to bed.”

“What! Why?”

“He went down there to drop some cuffs off, and he found you half naked on the floor, wearing only Arthur’s shirt.”

“Oh my God.” I covered my mouth. “So he’s known? This entire time, he knew what I planned to do with—”

“No.” He looked up from the floor. “I erased everything about Arthur from his mind the next day. And then I erased yours, took everything from the moment he walked into the training hall that night.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons.”

“One?” I prompted.

“One: you were distressed about it all—about Mike knowing. And, two: he would have told David about this plan you and Arthur had.”

“So you stopped him?”

“Yes, but not just because David would freak out.”

“Then, why?”

“Because Mike. . .”

“Mike?”

“He was irate, Ara. He got scared. He thought you’d actually slept with Arthur—that David would hate you now. And all he could think about was the pieces of you he had to pick up last time David left. He just didn’t want to see you like that again. And. . .” His lips folded into a thin line. “He overreacted. He slapped you.”

“Slapped me?” My neck jutted outward like a jumper on a skyscraper.

“Yeah. It was just a shitty situation, Ara. I was mad with him at first but . . . I understand what he was going through then.”

“Delusions of grandeur?”

Jase laughed. “Probably. All that aside, though, he was packing his bag the next morning, about to quit and go back to Australia.”

“Oh my God.”

“I knew you still needed him, so. . .” he continued. “I erased it from his mind.”

“And then I jumped off the lighthouse?”

He looked up at me curiously. “What makes you think you jumped?”

I shrugged. “Just a hunch.”

“Hunch, huh?” He sighed, both hands going to his head as he flopped back on his bed.

“You know why I jumped, don’t you?”

“I may.”

“Then. . .” I walked over and sat down beside his leg. “Tell me.”

He opened one eye and looked out from behind his hands. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s better left buried, Ara. Believe me.”

“Why?”

He sat up again, coming to stop with my hand in his. “You trust me, right?”

I nodded.

“And you know that—” He squeezed my hand. “I always have your best interests at heart?”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded again.

“Then, can you wait? Please. Ask me to tell you another time, maybe when David’s gone.”

“Why? Is it because of what happened with Arthur?”

He tensed, wincing. “Kind of. But not really.”

“Jase.” I laid my other hand over his. “You know I can’t just let this go. You’d be better off telling me the truth now—save me all the investigation and worry.”

He laughed, his lovely white teeth making me a little hungry for the bite. “I want what’s best for you, Ara. We all do. But if I tell you what happened that night, it’ll make you hate yourself.”

“Well, if I want to berate myself for something I did, that’s my prerogative, Jase. Not yours.”

“You’re right.” He nodded, his distracted gaze moving toward his window. “And I will tell you. But not today.”

“Hmpf!” I mashed my features together in a scowl. “You’re starting to sound like David.”

“I’m sorry. That’s the last thing I want to say to you, Ara, but I have to protect you. And you know I always tell you the truth, but this time, I—”

“You’re between a rock and hard place.”

“Yeah.” He exhaled through a smile. “I just need your understanding on this one, just for now.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “Fine. But you’ve got two weeks, and that’s it. Then, you better tell me what the hell happened that night. Fair?”

“Very fair.”

“Pinkie promise.”

He laid his pinkie over mine and shook once. “I promise.”

“Good. Now, what was this conclusion you drew about my melting stone problem?”

“Ah.” He stood up quickly. “So, I was right about the lightning theory—the fulgurite.”

“You were.” I stood beside him at the table.

“Yes. You really didn’t wanna kiss me, did you?” He turned to me, smiling.

“Um. Kinda not really.”

“It’s okay.” He lifted my chin, green eyes meeting blue in a world of acceptance. “But, that fear—for whatever reason you didn’t want to kiss me, ignited your fight instinct in the method of which you've been practicing most, but when your hand heated up, the temperature acted to reverse the process of making rock, you might say, by turning it back to its original state.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow. And . . . did you get a headache when you used your light?” he asked, wearing a huge I-know-what-I’m-talking-about grin.

“Um. Now I think of it.” I touched my head. “No.”

“Right.” He grabbed a stack of papers and started writing. “That just confirms my theory.”

“What does?”

“You got scared, focused your concerns too much on the rock. You made it the problem, so, your electric energy rose up to protect you. Your skin melted, you felt the pain, thought I was causing it, and broke my arm to stop me.”

“Well, I gathered that much.”