The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (great books to read .txt) 📕

looked like stars, the universe blooming underneath my feet in the form of New Haven, America’s first witch integrated town. Beneath me, cars and people moved through it like blood pumping through veins, moving forward without a second thought as to the world around them. They were unaware that just feet above, on the edge of the city, sat a young witch contemplating mortality. A single slip, one wrong move, and I would plummet down to the city street.

I’d been there before, so many times that I could never hope to count them. When younger and far less cautious, this was the area that I spent many of my nights. The same thoughts crossed through my head as did back then, though they now carried the heavy weight of experience. I felt, though I hate to admit it, superior to those who walked along the sidewalks below me. They looked down on me, but at the end of the day I was the one who was capable of climbing so high and seeing them for what they were. Rightful shame now filled my veins, I wished that I was anyone but that girl.

And yet I echoed her, also waiting on the rooftops for the same young man, hoping that he could whisk all of my problems away. The funny thing was that now, I saw him far more transparently, I knew that he wasn’t a hero. And yet I waited all the same, acting as if he would be. I’d watched the worst of his actions, and yet through my presence I acknowledged Leo’s previous statement; Rowan was no danger to me, he never would be. To him, I would always be that girl on the rooftop, I would never grow into the woman I was; one who eyed women smiling from charcoal sketches with an envious gleam, or a troublemaker who galivanted around the town. To Rowan, I would always be the misguided young girl who was bitter that the world was not already hers.

“You know, it’s funny. Even though you’re the one who messaged me, I didn’t think you would come.” A low voice mused from behind me, the quiet hum of a laugh underneath his words as the cement crunched beneath his feet. “After all of the trouble you’ve caused, you still decided to show up. Lyra, you’re not as much of a coward as I thought you were.”

I tore my eyes from the cityscape, unable to stop the pounding of my heart at his voice, the urge to run. Rowan looked just as I remembered him, just as I’d seen him only a few months earlier, before Leo had come into my life. And yet there were small, minuscule differences. He had deeper, darker bags under his eyes now, his blond hair was disheveled, and his sleeves rolled up past his forearms. There were these small details that only grew more profound as I looked at him, forcing me to swallow in spite of my dry mouth.

He made no move. He didn’t walk forward or sit beside me, he only stood there, watching me. His eyes spoke of interest, but his body language kept me at a distance that I suppose I deserved. But if my situation was one of danger, I’m certain I would have known by then. He regarded my interest with a sort of pride, a sly grin sliding across his features as he took in my face.

“Are you just as surprised that I’m here, Lyra?”

Was I? “No.”

Apparently, that wasn’t the right answer.

“I need something from you, Rowan,” I admitted, the slightest edge to my voice.

“What you need is some common sense and a new set of friends,” Rowan spat back, moving forward. It was ominous, the way the cement crunched under his feet as he moved towards me. Annoyed by my lack of reaction, he informed me, “What you’ve been doing isn’t smart. I don’t care what your human friend told you, you stop digging around before you get hurt, or worse, end up hurting someone else.”

“I’m not the person who is hurting people!” I responded, my voice too loud and my body moving far too suddenly. I’d tried to get up but stumbled backward in the process. Automatically, in a way that reminded me of only a year prior, Rowan’s hand shot to my arm, steadying me before anything could happen.

“Lyra, you listen to me--”

“Listen, I don’t care what you’re doing,” that was a lie, I actually cared too much. If anything, I was terrified of what he was doing, terrified of what happened to Landon. Far more than that, I was scared of what could happen to Autumn, or worse yet to Leo. “I didn’t ask you to come here so I could get lectured.”

“Then why are you here?” He asked, a suggestive glint in his eyes. He loomed close, far too close for comfort. Suddenly his hand on my shoulder felt too heavy, too excessive for my current state of being. I shrugged it off, it didn’t phase him. “First you run off on me, then suddenly you turn up again six months later galavanting around with a human and start causing trouble. I would have thought that a few years in town would have taught you better.”

“It’s… complicated.”

“Things aren’t that complicated, Lyra,” Rowan said, the look on his face telling me he already knew what was going on. It took only a second for him to confirm it, “So somehow you let that kid con you into helping him, huh? Lyra, you should have called me.”

“He didn’t con me!” I snapped.

“Then what did he do, Lyra?” There was malice in Rowan’s voice, paired with a flash of jealousy. I knew, as he likely did, that the truth was not one he would swallow. “Because a few months ago I couldn’t even get you to pick up a wand, or even poke your head into Magictown. You told me that you didn’t want this, I respected that and gave