Re: Zania and Reagan
Reagan's lips twitched, her gaze roaming the painting again. She couldn't paint either but she couple splatter a bunch of red over the damn thing to look like blood. That was Point Pleasant in a nutshell, if you asked her. The hint of a smile faded and Reagan's gaze snapped back to Zania. It would be easier to just say she was fine and to tell Zania to mind her own business, but why bother with such a blatant lie? Witches could feel each other's elements and that's just how things were. "A bit of a side effect from helping Caius," she said, bringing her wine glass back to her lips. "I'll be all right. You know how backlash can be." She forced a quick smile. "Is that the animal whisperer you brought?"
“So it worked?” Zania asked, surprise flickering in her eyes, then annoyance, an expression half hidden by a large sip of wine. She’d not heard a word from either of them since that night and had come to believe it was just another rabbit hole they’d run down and come out empty handed. To hear it had worked, yet they’d not followed through on their promise to return the spell to her burned her up. This was the thanks she got for helping, to be forgotten or ignored. Used. Again. Maybe Reagan deserved the backlash then, if that’s what it was. Hopefully it would take a while to wear off. It was a cruel thought that she almost felt bad for when Reagan asked about Gabriel. Her smile back was genuine. “Yeah, that’s him,” she said, looking over at Gabriel. “I wasn’t sure how he’d do with this crowd, but he’s holding his own.”
Reagan didn't want to talk about Caius at the moment, or what had happened. A part of her felt like Caius ought to be the one to tell Zania, but she wasn't overly concerned about the pages being returned to Zania. They hadn't belonged to her in the first place and they should go back into Brianna's family grimoire, although Reagan felt like the pages should be completely destroyed so no one else had the kind of power in their hands that Abigail Baron had. Her gaze followed Zania's to where Gabriel was talking with someone nearby. "He looks like he could handle these people and then some," Reagan said. "And Nic...? I don't recognize his date."
Reagan was right, Gabriel could probably handle just about anyone, and Zania realized that at least some of her worry was rooted in her own insecurities. The people of this town talked, and judged, and shut people out for the stupidest reasons sometimes. She never knew if she still fit in at a party like this, if she was accepted due to her own merits or if it was just a holdover from growing up an Overlook kid. It felt like a gamble. At Halloween she blended in, but tonight it almost felt like she was playing dress-up. She didn’t want to fit in, but she didn’t want to be outcast either. “Nic’s here with Lem,” she grinned. “She’s his— I dunno. I’d say girlfriend, but I’ve never heard him use that word. She’s new in town, too. Lives next door to us.”
"Lem." That was a strange name and made Reagan think of lemmings. Her lips twitched. "Good for him. She's uh, interesting." To say the least. "You've definitely given people something to talk about. Have they met your parents yet?" She could only imagine what the Castells thought of Nic and Zania's dates. But hell, they were probably used to all of this. It wasn't like Nic and Zania ever followed the norm. Reagan had to admit sometimes she was envious of their freedom from the expectations that came from being raised in the Overlook, but she knew it probably wasn't always easy either.