All Aboard

Claude

Sonny was due to leave in—I checked my watch—seventy-two hours. Fuck, three days.

Three days and he’d be back in Remy, being all amazing and Sonny-like a thousand miles away from me. Even if I wanted to go with him, I couldn’t. I needed to stay here and save this fucking house before I did anything else.

I was so close to cracking this whole lightning thing. I’d been able to create a storm cloud and make electricity leap from my hands, but after that, it sort of fizzled into nothingness. Never made it back down to the tablet.

I knew if I hadn’t figured this glamour out in seventy-two hours, Sonny wouldn’t hesitate to stay behind and help me during the solstice. We’d done the magic together before so we both knew it was obtainable.

But I couldn’t be the person responsible for his missed career opportunity. One he’d been working towards for decades. I wasn’t that guy.

I also couldn’t bear him hanging around while I practiced. For one, it was raining. The earth at Stinkhorn Manor and beyond had become so parched and dry recently the rain was welcomed, but standing outside as I failed yet again to conjure a lightning strike while it pissed down was about as shitty and miserable as it got.

Besides, I needed to know I could do the magic by myself, without him nearby.

So, I’d bid Sonny farewell and sent him to his lab or the library, and I headed to the paddock alone. The field itself had become dry as a dust bowl, and the rain seemed to do little to reinvigorate the soil. It ran off the surface like water off a siren’s back, and collected in the chasm-like cracks that sliced open the ground.

I planted my feet shoulder width apart and held my palms up, ready to start the magic. Raindrops pattered my shoulders, turning my shirt see-through, and dripped from the brim of my hat.

And I concentrated. With all my might.

It took six hours.

I tried not to think about Sonny the entire time. I really did. But I couldn’t wipe him from my thoughts. When I closed my eyes, I saw him lying beneath me on my bed, his mouth open, eyes fixed on mine, the sheets pulled over our heads. And when I opened them and tried to focus on the distant flora, I saw us beside the pool—watching the sunset, holding each other, growing chillier by the second, but there for each other.

Warmth blossomed in my chest. That bittersweet, happy feeling I always got when I thought about Sonny, but somehow... more. The tiny fissures of electricity on my hands I’d conjured earlier grew bigger. Now they were balls of plasma, balancing like puffball mushrooms a few inches above my palms.

But as quickly as they’d appeared, they vanished. I’d gotten too excited.

I puffed out a breath... clapped my hands together.

Right, start again.

Only this time, I allowed myself to think about Sonny. Maybe that was the secret. After all, hadn’t the compass pointed to him when I’d asked it to solve the ritual? Maybe thinking about Sonny was the key to unlocking the glamour.

I thought about the moment I first saw him—on platform three of South Waterside U-Rail station. The previous train had terminated there twenty minutes before and the train’s staff—the driver, the security officer, two onboard cafe assistants, and me, the train’s conductor—were returning from our breaks. Sonny had taken ownership of an entire bench on the platform. He had a laptop open on his knees and paperwork spread across the vacant seat.

Magpie fae. The first words that had floated through my mind.

I’d instinctively patted down my pockets to remind myself my wallet and keys were still there, and that my radio was still attached to my belt should I need to call for security.

They were an unsavoury bunch of fae. Tricksters, and thieves, and charlatans. At least, that was what my mother had told me growing up. Being the kid who’d taken everything at face value, I’d never questioned her. So, when I spotted Sonny sitting there, typing away on his keyboard, my instinct was to protect myself, my belongings, and my passengers.

Still, it didn’t account for the weird bubbling feeling he gave me. Mummy never warned me just how beautiful magpie fae would be. And he was.

Breathtaking.

He lifted his head, and we made eye contact. My stomach flipped, and for a few seconds, we’d simply stared at each other.

That was, until a whistle blew, signalling the idle train at the platform would begin boarding. At which point, Sonny leapt to his feet, collecting his scattered paperwork and snapping his laptop shut.

And I had tickets that needed stamping.

But he’d followed me, from the first carriage all the way to the caboose, grinning like a weirdo and laughing. I’d thought he was trying to rob me, or was taking the piss out of me. Another gorgeous schoolyard bully. Looking back with the information I knew now, that wasn’t the case.

Sonny always got like that when he was overexcited. His words tumbled unfiltered from his mouth. He giggled. His overlong limbs got twitchy.

Oh, my gods! That morning three years ago, Sonny had been nervous.

And excited. To meet me. And I’d only just realised.

I was so disgustingly in love with him.

The fireball of warmth in my chest exploded. There was no time for floating plasma balls. Instead, a jolt shot from the palms of my hands directly into the sky. A fraction of a second later, it snapped down to the stone tablet at my feet.

The soil around the tablet glowed red for a moment and then returned to its normal non-porous, watery brown dust soup.

I’d done it.

I’d conjured a lightning strike on my own.

Admittedly, still with Sonny’s help, but he wasn’t here. Which meant I could do it again without him present. He was free to go back to Remy and live his dream.

I had to tell him.

“Jenny, where’s Sonny? Is he in the library or the lab?”

Nothing.

Right, I’d forgotten Jenny had stopped responding.

Regardless, I ran towards the house. I tried the library first because it was closer. And there he was, sitting at the table in the centre, almost entirely hidden by a city of book skyscrapers. His head bent low, a pen scratched furiously across a notepad while he absorbed as much knowledge as possible in his last few days.

He lifted his head, just like the very first time we’d met at South Waterside, and my heart threw itself against my windpipe.

I had two thoughts. Gods, I love him . And, whatever you do, Claude, do not tell him you love him.

I did not need to lay that guilt on those perfect shoulders.

“Claude!” He was on his feet, racing towards me. “You’re soaked.”

“I did it,” I said, breathless. “I did it. The lightning. I did it.”

The next second, his mouth was on mine.

He knocked my hat off my head, his hands curled around my neck, thumbs brushed my cheeks.

“I knew you could do it. I knew you always had it in you.”

I’ll miss you. That was what I wanted to say to him. I’ll miss you, and I love you. Please don’t go.

I bit my tongue.

Instead, I began unbuttoning my shirt. “Get me out of these wet clothes.”

“Right away,” he replied, his fingers already unfastening my trousers.