Chapter 41

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

FRANKIE

"All right, one of us has to break this silence."

I jumped and looked over to my left to where Cooper Bishop stood a few feet away. He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at the little wooden shack in front of us. Well, not a shack. More like a small wooden cabin-like building that sat nestled between some massive oak trees that made the building look tiny. I'd been staring at it, too, though I hadn't really seen it at all yet.

My thoughts were spiraling around the fact that Cooper Bishop was my soulmate.

Soulmate.

I was struggling to wrap my head around this. A soulmate was not something I was mentally prepared for. Sure, I'd thought they were amazing, but now I doubted it. A perfect stranger was now marked as my other half . . . my meant to be . . . my eternity and destiny . . . all before we'd spoken a single word to each other.

It wasn't that I disliked this guy, I just didn't know him. At all. Sure, he was handsome, but was I supposed to feel some intense emotions already? I wasn't sure. I hadn't actually asked any of the soulmate pairings how this went down for them, and now I desperately wished I had. But Cooper was handsome. Very much so. He was tall, probably about six-foot-two, with muscles cut in all the right places, especially in that gray long-sleeved shirt he wore. His profile was beautiful too. I wanted to like him, I wanted to have that instant crush feeling, but it hadn't happened. But he smelled like Irish Spring soap, and to my surprise I liked it.

"See, this is the part where you say something out loud so I don't feel as crazy as I do right now." Cooper chuckled and looked down to meet my stare with bright-green eyes. "A sound effect could work too?"

I closed my eyes and sighed. "Sorry, Cooper. Was I silent this whole time?"

"Yeah, but in your defense, I think I was too." When he laughed, I opened my eyes again and stared up at him. He had a warm, gorgeous smile with perfect teeth. "I don't even know how long we've been standing here silently staring at the shack."

"Why are we here again?" I grimaced. "I may not have been processing words when we left."

"That's fair." He gestured to the wooden shack. "This is where all Sword students come to get their talisman. I think . . . I think this was Tenn and Tegan's way of giving us a moment alone while also knowing we'd need something to do with our hands because we'd be too awkward to sit still."

That did it. I snort-laughed.

He chuckled.

"So, no big deal. Just going to pick out my one super special weapon with the soulmate I just met a few minutes ago." I nodded. "No big deal at all."

"It is, though, isn't it?" He cursed, then pointed to a picnic table under the oak tree. "Let's sit over here for a second?"

I let him lead the way to the table, then we both sat on the same side with our backs pressed against the tabletop. We continued to stare at the building.

"We should probably start by actually looking at each other."

I snort-laughed again. "I think that's how we got into this."

He threw his back and laughed. "Fucking fair."

"You're funnier than I expected," I said before I could stop myself.

He looked over to me with a sparkle in his green eyes. "You mean when I'm not basically the parent of The Coven despite both my parents being in The Coven."

I snickered. "Does anything get your dad ruffled?"

"No, and honestly, thank Goddess, because Tegan would've been a lot more of a menace."

"Tenn called her a chaos demon?—"

"Tenn did? When?" He sighed and threw his hands up. "He finally admits it out loud and I missed it."

"You two seem close."

He nodded and his cheeks flushed a soft pink. "We were raised together, it's a whole long story, but he's always been like a brother to me."

"And now he's shagging your sister over lunch."

He sighed. "That's unsanitary."

I threw my head back and laughed.

He smirked. "You should probably know that I have this long running joke where I pretend that their relationship bothers me and I make a big deal about their PDA. It'll probably come back to bite me in the ass here."

"Let me guess, you freaked out when it first happened, and no one lets you live it down?"

"I could have handled it better." He hung his head. "I'm just glad it wasn't me who caught them in Lookout Tower?—"

I gasped. "That's right! He told me about that. Well, Archie did."

"You know, I'm sorry you've been through everything you have since Halloween but . . . but I'm glad he got to be Archie for a week or so. I think he needed that."

"Oh? He seems to handle stress pretty well."

"He does, but when your whole existence has been stress, you learn how to manage early on. He's been real tense these last few months."

"Does Tegan help or make it worse?"

"Both, definitely both." He grinned. "My sister is a force to be reckoned with, and you put Bettina with her? Chaos. Poor Tenn, soulmate and sister are bat shit crazy evil villains."

"What about Bentley?"

"I try to avoid eye contact most days."

I snort-laughed. Again. "Stop it. He's your brother?—"

"And I love him. But dude just stares at you and these orange crescents flash inside his eyes, and you know he's seeing your future, but like you don't want to know and yet you can't help but dissect his facial expressions."

"So we need to buy him some mirrored sunglasses."

He laughed and his shoulders bounced. "We should. Yes. Bentley is great, but he was nine years old in January?—"

"Excuse me, what? "

"You heard me. He was nine. He was kidnapped by the Seelies and thrown into the Wild Night . . . four days later he emerged as a sixteen-year-old."

I whistled and shook my head. "Let me guess, another long story?"

"Oh, and none of our long stories are happy, feel-good. They're all horrible and sad and traumatic."

"So I'll fit in." I rubbed my hand over my chest. "This whole soulmate thing is a bit crazy to me. You don't seem as freaked out."

"Bentley has been warning me my soulmate was coming for months. Hard to be surprised when it then does." He wrung his hands together. "I've also been in The Coven since before my memories stuck, so my normal is a little skewed."

"I just feel like . . . I don't even know you and you're my soulmate. That's wild. Couldn't we get a second? I didn't even get to introduce myself first."

"That's how it works for arcana. It's at first sight." He turned to look at me and held his left hand out. "But it's nice to meet you. I'm Cooper Bishop."

"Frankie Proctor." I smiled and took his hand. "Enchanté."

His skin was warm and surprisingly soft, but there was no electricity, no buzz. My thoughts went immediately to Everest, so I had to look away from Cooper. Every moment with Everest was intense and electric, a moth to a flame. But maybe that wasn't how soulmates were supposed to feel. Maybe him feeling like a warm cozy blanket to cuddle up with on the couch was the right feeling, not the I've just been struck by lightning feelings I got from Everest.

"I know what you're feeling right now . . ." he said suddenly, very softly.

I sighed. "I don't know about that."

He nodded. "You feel like this can't possibly be right when your heart lies elsewhere. Like being near me may be comfortable and peaceful, but it's not that all-consuming, cannot breathe without me kind of feeling."

I blinked up at him with my heart in my throat. I nodded.

"And I want you to know I get that. You're not alone in that feeling." He scrubbed his face with his hands. "We can't help the circumstances under which we met. We can only be a part of them now that we have. Whatever we . . . experienced before this?—"

"Oh my God. Did you have a girlfriend?"

His face fell. "No. I knew better. The saying never date a Bishop is a real thing in our world."

"What, why?"

"Because every single Bishop on record has had a soulmate. Or died young before they could meet them. So dating is just asking for heartbreak." He stared at the ground with eyes that seemed far away. "It's a blessing and a curse."

"So, no matter what our hearts might feel for someone else, we are each other's fated destiny?"

"Soulmates are one soul that was split into two, then sent out into the world to find its literal other half?—"

I cursed.

"You Proctors all have such pirate mouths." He chuckled, then to my surprise, he stood up and faced me. "Look, why don't we just focus on being friends right now? Give our hearts a chance to mend."

"Okay. Friends. I can do that." I smiled even though I wasn't sure how I was supposed to get over Everest quickly. It was properly unfair that I didn't just suddenly have that instant-love with my own soulmate. "Why did we stand?"

"We're going inside to get your talisman." He walked backwards toward the door. "C'mon, this is the fun part."

When I got inside, I froze. My jaw dropped. It had to be three stories high. Each of the four walls was lined with swords of every size and shape. The bronze color of the metal glistened in the sunlight pouring through the glass ceiling. On each wall, there were two ladders that slid up and down so people could climb to the weapons higher up.

It was a library of swords.

It took my breath away.

I took a few steps farther in, then spun in a circle. I shook my head. There was a serene energy floating around us that I didn't want to disturb.Then I noticed the pedestal in the center. It was beautiful, sitting in the brightest ray of sunlight. On top, the pedestal was a bowl, holding inside it the deepest, darkest royal blue I'd ever seen. I walked over to get a closer look but stopped short. There was a ring of what looked like salt surrounding the pedestal. Over to my left, the little circle was open, though I got the distinct impression we weren't supposed to step inside until told to do so.

I cleared my throat and backed up until I stood beside him. "What now?"

"This talisman you're about to make should be your most sacred possession. It will be a sword to use in combat, but it will have specific qualities made only for you. This weapon will aid you in more ways than one. You'll find every single type of sword imaginable." He smirked. "That's the spiel we're all taught to give."

"Cool. So I just pick one?" I looked around. "How? And then what?"

"Think of them like blank keys. You're going to walk around, hold them, and swing them around until you find one that calls to you."

Walk around. Got it. I just needed to try some weapons on until one clicked. I moved down the right wall, but all of the weapons there were types of daggers. But I had a dagger courtesy of my aunt and uncle— and my cellphone. I moved on to the next wall but found the opposite problem. These were all ridiculously long for my short body. There were also curved swords and serrated blades.

"Try closing your eyes." He squeezed his shut, then held his hands out. "That helped some of us focus in on where our magic was leading us."

I shrugged and closed my eyes. I had nothing to lose. Okay, magic. Let's do our thing here? At first I saw nothing, but then I lifted my hands and my neon-blue flames shot out of me. They swirled around the entire room without landing on one specific thing. Little pink flames dripped down like raindrops on my blue sea. But then my waves merged into one at the back wall. I opened my eyes and hurried over there.

And then I just stared.

My pink flames were dancing around a pair of sais.

They were silver and about the length of my forearm. With a shaky hand, I reached out and grabbed the hilts. I gasped. The second my skin touched the metal, warmth rushed up my arm. It tingled a little, but not uncomfortably. Something in the air around me shimmered. I felt light on my feet. I smiled and gave the sword a test swing. When I pulled it back, my eyes widened. Pink mist wrapped around my hands and around the three-pronged sai in my hand.

I felt like Raphael the Ninja Turtle.

"Holy shit! I didn't know there were sais in here." Cooper reached out and ran his finger along the long middle prong. "Your cousins are gonna be so jealous."

I snort-laughed. "You have a knack for making me laugh."

"Well, then, we're off to a better start than Em and D, where Em basically hated him for existing." Cooper chuckled, then turned and waved for me to follow. "Bring those over here, Raphael."

I grinned. I'd just called myself the same name. Perhaps the universe knew something we didn't. I was so caught up in my own head about soulmates and what we are supposed to feel and show that I didn't realize we'd stopped in front of that pedestal. Or that Cooper was chanting something in the ancient language, which I now recognized the sound of. When he was done, light flashed above the water. Six lines of words in perfect, elegant script were written in the air, glowing a bright white. I couldn't read them from my angle, but something told me I'd be able to once I got up there.

"When you're ready, step inside the circle, recite the spell, then place your sais in the holy water." Cooper moved to stand by the opening of the circle. "You go in here."

"Got it." I took a deep breath, then stepped inside the circle. The words of the spell glittered in front of me. I licked my lips, then read them out loud, " I call thee Goddess for this sacred bond, Blessings of power from the ancient beyond. With magic and valor, honor and creed, Transform this blade to what I need. Dipped in the water of thy holy well, See sword and soul in parallel. "

The air shimmered, and a little white arrow appeared, pointing down to the pedestal. With my heart in my throat and my breath trapped in my lungs, I gently laid the blades of my sais inside the holy water. That royal blue water rolled like waves crashing on a beach, like waves in a riptide splashing and crashing into each other.Pink flames moved around the edge of the bowl, then slid over the water. My eyes widened. The hilts warmed in my hand.

When my magic settled and the water went back to normal, I lifted my sais up off the pedestal and gasped. They were red. Every single inch of them were bloodred. They were gorgeous. For a few moments all I could do was stare at them.

Cooper stepped up beside me. "And to think, some people have that reaction to meeting their soulmates."

The evil cackle that came out of me might've embarrassed me in front of other people. But Cooper Bishop was actually, surprisingly, one of the easiest people to be around. So maybe the universe hadn't quite lost its mind . . . Maybe him being my soulmate made perfect sense.

Or maybe that was what I was telling myself.