Chapter 24 An Element of Chaos

24

An Element of Chaos

IN A STRANGE and entirely unexpected turn of events, the twenty-fourth moon of October ended with her second glowing grimoire page.

Bonnie had finally decided that she needed to return home. Since there had been no further signs of danger, and now that she was back to full health, her little house filled with charmed treasures and trinkets was calling to her (although she confessed that Artorius's apple crumble and velvety custard may have been enough for her to move in permanently).

Having reluctantly said goodbye to her mother and Wolfie as they vanished into the night, Belle took a quick snack break with Artorius, each armed with a bowl of chocolate cereal. Belle had almost choked at the sight when the grimoire page lit up before them, mid-mouthful. Evidently, the batch of flourish potion that she had spent the previous night bringing to a perfect simmer, along with a concoction of simple infatuation and the healing potion she had crafted for Bonnie, had scraped through the boundaries of acceptable as a trio of benevolent Alchemy work. The grimoire radiated the welcome warm light that she'd forgotten she was even waiting for. She and Artorius seized each other in a ridiculous hug, throwing cereal across the kitchen, and jumped up and down on the spot in a circle, clutching each other and whooping.

Artorius had sent Belle home a little early, deciding that a few precious hours off were well earned. A late evening at home, the rarest of treats, was so welcome that she almost cried when she shut the front door on the world and spent the hours with only Jinx and an enormous bowl of pasta for company. The one bittersweet note was the lack of Ariadne, who had packed her social calendar to stay busy. They were still avoiding spending their usual time together, each side overtly aware that things hadn't fixed themselves just yet. Thinking of the current gulf between them sparked a deep-seated pang of sadness in her chest that Belle tried to squash down.

There was a knock at the front door. In her last resort Christmas-print pyjamas, Belle shuffled to answer it in her slippers, with the cat balanced on her shoulder like a parrot.

"I went to Artorius's place, but he said you…Oh wow. Truly your best look yet."

Belle felt her face heat and the not-unwelcome pull of something at the pit of her stomach as Rune's dark eyes took her in from head to toe. She placed Jinx on the ground. The cat collected her head scratch dutifully from Rune and went on her way.

"Yeah, well, I felt festive."

"As is your right," he said with his usual tone of faint amusement.

"It's not like you to knock and wait patiently on a doorstep. Are you sure you don't want to launch through my window in the dead of night or appear at the foot of my bed without announcing yourself?"

"If that's what you've been waiting for, you should have only said."

She rolled her eyes, hand still gripping the door handle. "What do you want, Rune?"

"Well, I was going to give you these." A quick snap of his thumb and forefinger, and he pulled a bouquet of enormous butter yellow sunflowers from nowhere, a trail of golden sparks hanging at their stems like a ribbon. "Heard you passed your Alchemy challenge and wanted to congratulate the EquiWitch. But with a welcome like that, a man should probably take his congratulations elsewhere."

"Oh…" That was not the answer she was expecting.

"It was a stupid idea. Forget about it. I'll just see you—"

"Do you want to come in?"

Rune turned back, eyebrows raised, as surprised as she was that she'd blurted out the invitation. "Do you want me to come in?"

The silence crackled between them for a moment. Belle gave a quick nod, which earned a subtle but definite ghost of a smile as he headed inside. He offered the flowers to Belle.

"They're beautiful. Thank you. Wow, they smell like…"

He shrugged casually, returning his hands to his pockets as he followed her into the living room. "Toffee apples. It's nothing. Just a little incantation while I was on my way over. Not sure why I did that." He scratched at the back of his head awkwardly, letting out an uncharacteristically self-conscious laugh. "Where's Ariadne?"

"She's not home. We…had a weird argument."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Yeah. We'll fix it. It's next on my list of destruction to mend."

"So…" He looked everywhere but at Belle, then found her eyes. "It's only us."

"Well, apart from the cat. Yes. It's only us."

With the confirmation hovering in the air, Belle was acutely aware of the fragile inches of space between them. It would be easy to close the gap.

She couldn't.

"Can I get you a drink? I think we have wine or beer or tea or…A glass of…cold milk? Or warm, I guess." She swallowed hard, cursing herself for being entirely the most embarrassing person who'd probably ever existed. Catching sight of the embroidered elves on her sleeves didn't help. She tugged at the fabric, wondering why on earth she'd chosen to make today of all days laundry day.

Rune wandered towards the coffee table and picked up the small bottle of the palest pink liquid that Belle had set down when she arrived back from Quill Lane. A film of tiny iridescent bubbles coated the surface and fizzed expectantly.

"You're home-brewing now?"

"Oh, I should have put that away. It's nothing, it's from the trio of benevolent potions that finally led to some more grimoire success."

Rune held it up to examine closer, and it sparkled in an inviting way against the candlelight. "Looks like quality stuff. Where are the others?"

"Mum finished off the healing potion before she left, and the flourish potion is over there. I'm saving that for a rainy day," Belle said, her heart feeling a little jittery at the sight of him in her living room for the first time, like he belonged there. As though it could be so easy for both elements of her life to blend together like that.

She distracted herself by heading into the kitchen and making a cafetière, placing two cups on a tray. She hesitated, then topped up a little glass bottle with milk, pushed in the mini cork stopper and chucked some sugar into a bowl. Maybe an artfully draped tea towel for sophistication? Too much. Did he want a biscuit? She added three to a plate. At what point exactly she'd turned into her mother, she wasn't sure.

"Thanks," Rune said, giving her a half-smile. He was standing by the fireplace, examining the collection of photos in mismatched frames of Belle, Ariadne and their wider group of friends.

"Do you want to…sit?" Belle asked clumsily, gesturing to the sofa as she placed the drinks on the table.

They took a strangely formal, rather rigid seat next to one another.

"Coffee. Sorry. We didn't actually have any wine. Or beer. Or tea. But we always have coffee." Belle laughed breathily.

"No, no. Coffee is good." Rune nodded over-enthusiastically, the pair of them pretending that this was an entirely normal situation to have found themselves in. The cosy air of the room, lit warmly by the candles that Belle had been burning, seemed to crackle between them. "It's a nice place you guys have. I like the…furnishings."

Belle reached for the cups, pressed the coffee, and distractedly added half the milk to each. "Right. Who doesn't love furnishings? We're big on blankets," she mumbled.

Their eye contact caught, an almost magnetic feeling locking into place. Rune tore his gaze away, immediately looking anywhere and everywhere else in the room. They sipped politely, Belle desperately ensuring that no silence fell between them by rambling about the sandwich she'd had for lunch in extraneous detail.

"God, that tastes good. Ridiculously good. What is that?" Rune asked, after draining the last dregs of his mug.

"Just coffee. But you're right. It was ridiculously good. I didn't do anything different, I just…"

She glanced at their two empty mugs together, trying not to enjoy how normal and domestic the scene was, the two of them sharing cups of coffee. The sugar she'd brought through for them and the leftover biscuit. The little bottle of milk just to the right.

But she'd used the milk a minute ago, she'd emptied it into their cups. So why…? Her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh no."

While the milk bottle remained full to the brim, she realised with abject horror that another little bottle just to the left of the mugs stood empty. Only droplets of candyfloss-coloured liquid, barely distinguishable from white in the low light, still clung inside the glass vial.

"What is it?" Rune paused, then swallowed, noticing the twin bottles for himself. "Oh no."

Belle swallowed. "Infatuation."

Rune's dark eyes widened comically. He glanced at the empty bottle, then back to Belle. "You have got to be…Why are you brewing infatuation?" He sprung to his feet, and she mirrored his move at the other end of the couch.

"Artorius said it was one of the easiest recipes for my challenge! Anyone can make infatuation for themselves, you can conjure it practically from nothing."

"I thought it was just light-heartedness or a good luck charm!"

She flared back. "Oh, forgive me for not baby-proofing the place. If you couldn't tell from the outfit, I wasn't expecting visitors!"

"Do you know how powerful infatuation is? And you just place it next to the bloody chocolate biscuits?"

"I was distracted! You being all large and overwhelming in my living room, turning up unannounced with big yellow flowers that smell all…nice. Maybe if you—"

"You're telling me we've both just sunk an infatuation potion?"

"Looks that way!"

"For someone who overthinks every possible element of life into oblivion—"

"You don't know anything about me!"

"I know enough!"

They had been taking unconscious steps towards each other. Their shoulders rose and fell in unison, both breathing heavily. The fire in the hearth crackled and popped against the silence, the energy between them echoing the sound. Suddenly, Rune's hand found Belle's waist, closing the already shrinking space between them. He tugged her sharply towards him as though it were instinct, as though he had to, as though he couldn't possibly contemplate her body not being pressed against him for a second longer.

His lips found hers, and Belle felt as though she would melt as her stomach flipped in an intense, tugging somersault. The kiss was all-consuming, the frenzied feeling of a forest fire ravaging everything in its wake. His hips fit perfectly flush against hers, he rolled against her as though to prove it, and a throaty, gravelly sound came from the base of his throat.

"It's the potion…" she whispered. She knew it, grappling for an ounce of reason or control but only finding need when his arms wrapped around her and his hands followed the base of her back.

"Just go with it. Do you want to go with it?"

"Yes. Definitely yes. Do you?"

"I've never wanted anything more."

Belle's hands moved to tangle in his hair as the kiss slipped deeper, Rune taking stumbling steps backwards towards the sofa as they collapsed onto it together without separating.

"I was wrong, by the way."

"About what?" Belle said breathily, leaning in against him as her fingers fumbled at the hem of his T-shirt, tugging it over his head as quickly as humanly possible.

"I don't know enough," he breathed back. "I could never know enough about you," he said, leaving behind slow, hungry kisses on her throat to linger and burn on her skin. "You're fascinating. And a wonder. And weird. And beautiful. And impossible. In the best ways I've ever known anybody to be. I want to know all of you. Everything."

His words buoyed her confidence beyond its usual remit. She threw a leg across his lap and his body responded, hitching her to sit just right as she straddled the thighs of his jeans. Belle felt out of control in her own body, like her instinct had been heightened to a level she'd never found before.

"Look at you."

The words caught in his throat in a growl as his gaze flipped between exquisitely soft admiration and a liquid, languid desire that she thought might just kill her. He held her steady on his lap, a burning friction palpable between them, thumbs brushing over the curves of her as his grip just below her ribs tightened possessively. Whatever magic was passing between them was a force to be reckoned with.

The tinkle of glass snapped their senses like an elastic band. As a cushion toppled from the couch, the small vial that had held the infatuation potion was knocked off the coffee table and smashed into an array of tiny pieces on the wooden floor. They both turned their heads to look at it, and it was as though they had awoken from a dream, reality barging into the scene. A spell broken.

What was she doing? If this was going to happen, she didn't want it to be because of a spell. She swung herself off his lap. Rune gave a sniffed half-laugh.

"That was some potion," Belle said, her voice sounding hoarse as her shoulders heaved and she caught her breath.

"Right. The potion," he said quietly.

"Amazing what some blood orange, rose quartz, ginger and vanilla extract can do together…Smelled like cake mix by the time it finished brewing. Good to know it works. I can't…I can't believe that just happened. Can you believe that? That's the worst possible thing we could have let happen." She gave a strained fake laugh and chanced a glance over at him still sprawled on the sofa.

His smile had fallen, the usual look of composure returned as he stared fixedly into the flames of the fireplace. He tugged his T-shirt back over his head. "The worst possible thing," he agreed quietly.

"Not our finest hour," she rambled, replacing the sofa cushions that had tumbled to the floor.

Rune studied her face for a moment. He shook his head, as though clearing his thoughts. "Totally. My bad. I shouldn't have…"

"No, I should have paid more attention. Whatever, let's not let this make things awkward, right? We're adults, it's fine. Let's just go back to—"

"Like it was before. You got it."

Neither of them moved, Belle standing with her hands on the hips of her Christmas pyjamas, Rune decidedly focused on spinning the ring on his thumb. He went to speak. "Belle, I…"

The house phone rang. "I'll get that," Belle said, overly shrill and smiley. "Hello? Belle and Ariadne." She shot a polite, strained smile over to Rune as he rose to gather his jacket.

"Belle, my dear. Glad I caught you before bed. I was just tidying up the ingredients that we'd left lying around the attic. Nothing to worry about, but I thought I had better let you know."

"What is it, Arty?"

"The vanilla that you included in the recipe for your infatuation potion. Please do pardon my mistake, but it transpires that the blasted stuff expired a good eighteen years ago. Luckily, the grimoire doesn't seem to have noted our error and your challenge remains successful, I suspect because it's no fault of your own, merely the supplies. But it would render the potion entirely a dud, with no effect whatsoever. Not that you'll necessarily be using it, but I just thought I'd better warn you. I'd stick to sampling your flourish potion, which will remain effective still."

Belle's face blanched as she shot a covert glance at Rune. She caught his eye and he immediately looked away, thumbing the side of his jaw. "Great, thanks for letting me know, Artorius. Good night." She hung up the phone.

"What was that about?" Rune asked dryly, hands buried back in his pockets.

She remembered where they'd been, how they'd travelled across her body. So it wasn't the potion. There was no spell at play, no magic to blame for the way they'd just collided—not that kind of magic, anyway. The feeling of being drawn to someone so acutely, so undeniably, was something that she had forgotten could exist. She had been purposefully pretending, convincing herself she was mad to think there could be something between them, but only because she had been afraid that she was wrong. Their connection had been something else that she was afraid of ruining, making imperfect.

She hadn't been imagining it.

That meant there was a conversation to face, one that she wasn't sure she was ready for, with everything else currently fighting for space in her brain. Worse still, what if he'd changed his mind now that she'd dropped the curtain, let herself be vulnerable enough to let him in a little more. He'd just admitted it, he didn't tell her she was wrong. The worst thing possible, he'd agreed.

Best to drop it, best to forget about it. She had to protect herself.

"Oh. Crossword answer," she replied.