Sympathetic Magic(19)

“Any wine preferences?” he asked.

“Not really,” she replied. “I’m afraid I’m not much of an expert. I do prefer reds, though.”

“So do I,” he said. His gaze seemed to linger on her mouth, and she wondered if she would’ve done better to have chosen a lighter shade of lipstick, rather than the warm brick color she wore. Then he returned his attention to the wine list. “Well, it’s hard to go wrong with a Bordeaux…unless you’re ordering fish.”

She shook her head. “I don’t really care for fish all that much. I was thinking of the antelope, just because I’ve never had it.”

“It’s excellent. And the Bordeaux will work well with that.”

The waiter appeared then, and Lucas requested the wine, then waited while she placed her order. He went with steak, and they both asked for salad, and the waiter headed off to the kitchen, leaving them alone together.

Why she should feel so intimidated now, when they’d already spent the greater part of two hours together, Margot wasn’t sure. Maybe it was simply that they were facing one another in a more formal setting. The gallery walk was one thing, but no one could call having dinner in this restaurant anything other than a date.

Even as she began casting about in her mind for something innocuous they could talk about, Lucas said, “You know, I’m really curious how you came to be an elder.”

Oh, Goddess. That was the last thing she wanted to discuss. Maybe she could deflect him somehow. “What, don’t you think I’m a strong enough witch to be an elder?”

“That’s not it at all,” he began, then stopped abruptly when the waiter approached their table with the wine. A brief interval while the cork was removed, and Lucas did the ritual tasting of the small amount the waiter poured into his glass. Custom satisfied, the man tipped a more substantial amount into both their glasses before saying their salads would be out soon and then departing.

Any hopes she’d had of Lucas abandoning the topic disappeared when he sipped some wine, and said, “It just seems a little strange to an outsider, is all. Angela mentioned once that you’d been an elder for almost ten years. What, were you still in college when they asked you?”

She allowed herself a small, if albeit bitter, smile. “Hardly. I was twenty-seven.”

His eyebrows went up at that. “So you weren’t really an elder in any sense of the word.”

“That’s not how it works, Lucas.” Really, she shouldn’t be discussing her clan’s inner workings with a Wilcox, no matter what Angela might say about putting the past aside and working together for a better future for both families. But he kept gazing at her, clearly expecting her to answer, and she found herself saying, “It’s not about age. Not really. True, most of the time an elder is asked to serve when he or she is older, in the prime of his or her power, but I’d always been very strong.” She told him this simply, as it wasn’t boasting. Her power was part of her, like the color of her eyes. She hadn’t chosen it — perhaps the Goddess had chosen it for her, but the strength of her gift wasn’t something Margot had precisely achieved on her own.

“So that’s why? Just because you were the strongest witch?”

“One of them.” Damn it, she’d tried so hard not to think about that time in her life, what the consequences of her elevation to elder had actually been. She picked up her wine and drank, attempting to focus on the dark, rich sweep of it over her tongue, and not the day all those years ago when Bryce and Allegra had come to her and said, It is your time to serve. Her voice hardened. “But since Allegra Moss and Bryce McAllister were already appointed elder, there really wasn’t anyone else.”

“Seems kind of rough, giving you that responsibility when you were so young.” His tone was obviously sympathetic, but she didn’t want to acknowledge that. Feeling sorry for herself, for what had happened, wouldn’t change anything.

She shrugged. “It was what it was.”

The waiter came back with their salads, so once again they fell silent until he was safely away. Funny how, despite their being from two such very different clans, they both followed the same unspoken rule, which was never to discuss witch business when a civilian was around. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so odd. All the various clans had survived to this day because they’d learned how to be discreet.

Margot decided maybe it was time to go on the attack. “And what about the Wilcoxes? I find it kind of strange that you don’t even have clan elders.”

“No need, with the way the primuses always ran things.” He speared a few pieces of radicchio with his fork but didn’t lift them to his mouth. “We were more of a monarchy, I guess.” His tone was almost amused, but Margot thought that note of amusement didn’t ring entirely true.