Preview: The College of Locks & Keys 2

Just a quick glimpse of what I'm working on. I decided to jump into a sequel right away. This scene is from Ruby's perspective. As part of their make-up midterm project (and with Miranda's help, of course), Nathan has put a spell on Ruby to make her automatically do whatever he says, unless she makes a conscious effort not to. She can break the spell whenever she wants, but right now she's having fun seeing where he's taking her.

***

You have about ten minutes until she’s expected back, Nathan tells me, just as I’m considering fiddling with my phone to find out. How are you feeling?

“Terrified,” I whisper. “And… warm?”

Let’s take your mind off of it, he suggests.

“How?”

Want to stress test the spell a bit?

It’s a fun little ritual for when you learn to do something new. You get together with friends and test the limits, the edge cases, and see how the magic responds. I’m used to helping with experiments in the quad or the pods, not so much while hiding under my own bed, waiting to catch my roommate stealing from me.

“Okay,” I say. “But I’m not sure it’ll make me less scared.”

I’ll try to pick soothing things to try, he says. What’s your favorite food?

“Hmm. It’s hard to pick just one.”

Do it anyway, he tells me, and though I’m not at all sure it’s the perfect one for all occasions, my mind instantly zeroes in on a single candidate.

“Strawberries.”

Strawberries are good, says Nathan. Hold the first two fingers of your right hand in front of you, and believe that they taste like a perfect strawberry popsicle.

“Uh, okay…”

I stare at my fingers and think about how it feels to be this close to a sweet, melting, urgently beckoning treat. It’s easier to summon up than I would have expected.

Believe it, Nathan repeats, and the thought sharpens. I can almost smell the favorite popsicle I used to live on in summer. Are you believing it?

“Yes,” I answer.

…Go ahead, he says, after an agonizing pause. Take a lick.

I can’t believe how much I’m looking forward to touching the tip of my tongue to the side of my own index finger.

Translucently layered over the real texture of my skin, I make contact with the cool of ice in summer, the stickiness of corn syrup, and the bright, fruity sweetness I’m hoping for.

I wrap my tongue as far around the sides of my finger as it can reach, searching for as much of the flavor as I can get as I drag my way up to the tip.

My neck lifts upward, pulling my tongue away before I can start from my first knuckle again, and I remember that he just said a lick.

How does it taste? Nathan asks.

“Like strawberries,” I answer. “And summer. And… can I?”

Nathan laughs in my head. Have at it, it’s yours. Just don’t hurt yourself. And be ready to stop when I say so.

I’m already licking again, before he finishes speaking. I probe my tongue along the crease between my fingers, looking for channels of melting sweetness gathered there. I pull both fingers into my mouth and suck hard, imagining sugar and color draining out of ice crystals and leaving them plain, but there’s just as much sweetness left after that first suck as there was before it.

The flavor is inexhaustible, and it has that lightness and trailing finish that make me instantly and desperately want more as soon as each swallow is finished.

I’m going to be very clear for the record, here, says Nathan. I’m not telling you to pretend that your fingers are a popsicle. I’m telling you experience them like one, genuinely. And now I’m telling you to tell me, honestly, whether you’ve been able to comply with that instruction.

“I have,” I say, with my fingers still halfway in my mouth. “I am. They taste just like one.”

Cool! he says, with excitement. Seems like I have control over more of you than you’d normally have yourself. I wonder if I could order you not to feel pain, if you were hurt and waiting for help.

“Mmhmm,” I agree as well as I can with my mouth full.

Or… would you like me to order you not to be afraid?

I think for a moment, with my own strawberry-flavored saliva running down my throat. That would be a useful application for a possession spell, and yet, somehow losing my fear is so much scarier than keeping it. What if it’s the only thing that can save me from some threat that no one else will see coming? Even more importantly, though….

“No,” I answer. “I think being scared is kinda part of the experience.”

I’m afraid getting rid of it would also get rid of the tingling excitement pulsing through these invisible puppet strings.

Well, if you change your mind… says Nathan.

I continue devouring the invisible, invincible popsicle coating around my fingers.

“I wish…” I start between licks, but then realize that what I want to ask him for is easier for me to do myself.

I pull my phone out of its holster and point the camera at myself.

You want me to watch you? he gets the hint out loud.

I smile and show him how deep I can go (all the way to the crook of my thumb), and then pull back and give some special, loving attention to the very tips of my fingers.

I could tell you to imagine it’s something else, Nathan tells me. I could make it taste just as realistic.