Jaak sighs. “You lack self–preservation skills and instinct.”
“You think I don’t know that big guy? I like to think of it as altruism. Being a good friend and taking care of the people I love is important to me.” I look down at my hands and hold them out for him to see. “I have magic now.” I wiggle my fingers for emphasis. “I’ll devote it to the same thing, or at least I’m going to try to once I can do more than just leak silver everywhere. I really wish I’d knock that off, it’s kind of messy.”
“I can teach you some things. At the very least we can stop your leaks.”
I brighten and sit up. “You can?”
“I can but what I can teach you is limited. Your magic is not like mine. I won’t be able to show you how to be a capable witch. You’ll have to find a teacher for that.”
“I know a witch,” I tell him. Sunday. I think Sunday will teach me. Except Sunday isn’t here, she’s back in Sweet Tooth with the rest of my friends and I don’t know how they are. “But I guessit’ll be a little bit till I get to see her with what we’re trying to do.” I want to tell him that I wish I could go home right now and see if everyone is okay but I know I can’t, so I don’t.
“You worry for them.”
I slump down and drop my forehead down to my knees with a heavy sigh. “Of course, I’m scared for them. You said Lethos, the big bad god, who until recently I thought was the biggest and the baddest thing around was only defeated because Wrath did it, and that was only possible after Charlie made him a god, was small potatoes. And you also said Wrath was young.Young.He’s over five hundred years old and-”
“I am several thousand years old, Meadow. Possibly more. It’s difficult to remember.”
I blink and for a second I say nothing. “I didn’t…I mean, I know you were old but not that old.” I almost blurt out the part where I thought I had a thing for older guys. I was always interested in everyone but Roy, who was a few years older than us. There were more than a few lookers in the Outsiders that came to visit town but the oldest those men had been was maybe a decade older than me. Compared to them, Jaak is positively ancient.
Jaak laughs. “Age is necessary to become an archdemon. Your friend Wrath will not be in such a position until he’s at least a thousand. From the looks of it he’s well on his way with the deification he was gifted. With those powers he might not even care to become one.”
“So it’s a choice? Becoming an archdemon.”
“In a way. There must be special circumstances, feats accomplished to prove yourself before the Fates take note and grant you the change.”
The Fates made him into an archdemon?
“Hold up. Didn’t the Fates put you in rock jail?” I ask as I try to figure out just how Jaak came to be in that rock. “If you’reso powerful and it takes so much to make an archdemon, why would they lock you away?”
He sighs and shrugs. “The Fates have a mind of their own. They see time as fleeting, all one and the same, even if their decisions are extreme they see no harm in them. Not when it doesn’t affect the flow of time. Imprisoning me was minor to them.”
“The Fates sound like jerks.”
“You are not wrong. They are probably the worst jerks to ever exist. I hope to never have their shadow darken my sight again.” Jaak rises then and stretches. The question I’m about to ask dries up on my tongue at the sight of him. Like always, I’m struck dumb by his beauty. He pulls off his shirt and hangs it over the back of the chair.
“I found clothes in one of the rooms,” he says, misinterpreting the way I’m looking at him as interest in his clothes. “There were some things there that you might like but if not I’ll see to clothing in the morning once my magic has regenerated. I would do it now but I’m wary of not having enough magic at the ready to defend you should the mages find us.”
“You’re big on keeping me safe,” I tell him. It’s true. Not even counting tonight with the monster head he ripped off for me or the field of mages he exploded, Jaak has looked out for me for years. I don’t remember when it first happened. The first time he spoke to me and the red light that promised safety was just there one day. Everything around me, the horrors I was trying to escape, vanished in the blink of an eye. I’d fallen asleep in my dream that night. Who sleeps in a nightmare? Apparently me and it was one of the best nights of sleep I’d ever gotten. I hadn’t worried about the monsters or the weird world that didn’t make sense swirling around outside of the red light. Everything hadslowed, gotten quiet when the crimson halo fell down around me.
Peace was the only word to describe it. I’d never felt that kind of bone deep release. It had been easy to sink right into it. Nothing could touch me, nothing would come near me until I woke up and reality came crashing back down on my head in the form of a brainwashing cult and terrifying parents who blamed me for every misstep in our family.
“Of course I am. Someone must be,” Jaak says, like it’s a widely known rule. He looks like he’s about to sit back down on the chair but I don’t want him to do that. I want him with me.
“Can you sleep here?” I ask him and put a hand down on the mattress.
“I don’t need sleep or rest. I will keep watch through the night while you rest.”
“Oh, yeah, that sounds about right for an archdemon,” I say and then switch tactics to get Jaak closer while I sleep. I choose truth as the tool for the task. “Even if you don’t need sleep, would you lay down with me for a while? I-I mean, I would feel safer with you closer. You don’t have to stay for long if you don’t want to and it could just be for a few minutes too.” My words come out in a rush. It feels strange asking for someone to come closer. Before I wasn’t allowed to show weakness like this, if I did it was framed as a failing on my part.
“If you were stronger in your faith, you wouldn’t feel like that.”
“All you have to do is follow his word and you will be made whole, Meadow.”
“When you’re afraid, all you do is give voice to what lacks in you. I think you should pray more.”
I’d hear it all over the years. Anything to shift the blame squarely onto my shoulders and like the dutiful daughter and disciple I was, I accepted it. That shame had burned itself intome, dug under my skin and set up shop in my bones. There was no getting rid of it without breaking myself apart. Still, I was trying.
I practically hold my breath for the second that it takes for Jaak to reply before he answers me with a warm smile.
