[Southern Arcana 2.0] Crossroads by Moira Rogers Page A

into her small home office to handle the call. She knew she shouldn’t resent the intrusion—the bar was her business, her livelihood, and Phillip needed her guidance. But, for the first time in forever, she had the chance to spend time alone with Derek. It was the sort of thing she’d sacrifice for her sister or Aaron, but she was loath to do it for anything else.

    ***
    Life had settled into the most surreal mimicry of normal Derek had ever experienced, and it was driving him more than a little crazy.
    Alec and Jackson maintained their insistence that they avoid any unnecessary travel between New Orleans and the safe house. Jackson was the only one who could be completely sure he’d shaken any followers—magically, Derek assumed, though no one had come right out and said as much. Nick had been reduced to endless phone calls with her sister and long, hushed conversations with Mahalia, whose continued presence in New York was starting to make sense.
    Derek couldn’t concentrate on work. He had no damn idea how Nick kept dealing with the bar. Every time the phone rang they both tensed, but after three days of waiting, he was starting to realize they hadn’t been kidding when they talked about how slowly the Conclave moved. Aaron and Michelle could have fled to New Orleans on a tricycle and still gotten there before anyone made a move.
    Talking. Sitting and talking and waiting, and the only thing that made the days tolerable was the fact that Nick had hardly left his side. They’d skirted the issue, as if she was as unprepared to acknowledge the insanity of it as he was. But not discussing it didn’t change it.
    Instinct had taken over, and they were along for the ride.
    They ended up at his house on the second night, and Derek dragged Nick out of bed in the morning before the phone could ring and shatter the illusion that the world held just the two of them. “Coffee,” he said, pushing a steaming mug into her hand. “Drink it and don’t be grumpy. I need my sous-chef on top of her game.”
    “I’m not a morning person.” She gulped the coffee. “Are you a morning person? This could pose a problem.”
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    Crossroads
    “I never used to be.” He moved across the kitchen and retrieved his battered old cookbook from the cupboard above the stove. “Something about the heightened senses I have now. The damn birds wake me up. You can hear them a half mile away.”
    Nick yawned and slid onto a barstool by the counter. “I’ve never known anything else, I guess. It doesn’t bother me.”
    “Maybe someday I’ll get used to it.” He carried the book to the island and set it down in front of her.
    “This is something very special. Don’t tell Kat I’m letting you look at it, because she’s not allowed to touch it thanks to page fourteen.”
    Nick arched an eyebrow and flipped to the page. “What the hell?” The dark text was illegible, obscured by smeared ink and formulas scrawled in bright purple, but Derek knew the recipe underneath by heart. Hot chocolate, the rich, decadent kind his mother had made when someone needed cheering up.
    He ran a finger along the edge of the crinkled page and smiled. “I was already away at college, and Kat was living with my parents for a few months while her mom had one of her episodes. She must have been about twelve and, with me gone, my mom was looking for someone else to cook with, I guess.”
    “And Kat had a problem with the…” she laughed and peered down at the page, “…hot chocolate recipe?”
    “Uh-huh. She decided to try the recipe for herself one day…after she made some adjustments to the proportions. Apparently was better at math than cooking. The way I hear it something blew up and from then on bonding was restricted to talking about books.”
    “How exactly does one make chocolate explode?”
    “Got me.” He flipped a few pages, looking for another familiar recipe. “She splattered milk and chocolate all over the