Only then did he notice Gretchen. She sat cross-legged in the center of his kitchen table, arms folded. Her sour expression spoke volumes.
“Good night?”
He snorted. It was almost funny. She thought he was hungover. “I wish.”
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Gretchen said. “No, actually, I’m not.
Know why? I’m stillstuckhere.”
Briar closed his eyes. He hadn’t forgotten. Things had just piled up. “I’ve been a bit busy.”
“Yeah. I noticed. Busy sucking Rowan’s beard off. How very nice for you! Do you know what I’ve been doing?”
The mention of Rowan made him flinch. “I—”
“Nothing! Surprise, I’ve been doing nothing, because the only person who can let me out of ghost prison is too busy flirting his way up the class ladder.”
Briar felt sorry, but the longer she railed, the more his sympathy curdled. He’d gotten the ghost orchid pollen, finally. He’d planned to tell her, well… today. Christmas Day. “I’m trying.”
“You haven’t tried anything new! You’ve used all your money on fancy things for Linden’s project instead of calling Niamh. And then there’s all those potions you’re taking, and that seizure you had—”
Briar stiffened. He hadn’t realized Gretchen saw that.
“It’s as if I don’t even exist! You didn’t even tell me you had a bloody curse.”
The guilt in Briar went flinty and sharp. He kept thinking,I’m dying, I’m dying, I don’t have time.“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” Gretchen’s specter crackled like the sparks of a roaring bonfire when the kindling finally broke apart in blazing heat. “You don’t sound very sorry, but you don’t sound like anything much anymore because younevertalk to me!”
“I am sorry!” The volume of his shout surprised her into silence. “I’m sorry I haven’t figured out what’s tethered you here, and I’m sorry I haven’t had time to look, but I’ve had my hands fairly full with—”
“With Rowan’s dick?!”
“With staying alive!”
She gave him an incredulous look.
“I’m dying.” He said it as much to her as to stop the cycle of it repeating in his head. “The curse is killing me fast, and there’s little I can do to stop it, but I’m going to do what I can, and I’m sorry if that means your imprisonment is lower priority, but I can’t—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t know how.
For a moment, he thought it had gotten through to her. She sat stock still, mouth half-open.
Then she said, “I keep telling you, death is no big deal. Figure out how to get me out of here, and we can just be dead together.”
Briar stared in mute disbelief. The news of his impending doom was a grievous wound. Splitting up with Rowan had left it open and raw. Now Gretchen was throwing salt on it, sounding delighted that his life would end soon.
It took all his energy, but he stood. His legs wobbled, so he used the furniture to support himself.
“Where are you going?” Gretchen demanded.
He made his painstaking way to the kitchen and grabbed the salt shaker.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
He unscrewed the cap and started distributing salt. On the floor, on the counters. It scattered in a hissing stream.
Gretchen’s image flickered worse than when she’d been angry. “What—Briar? You can’t be serious!”
Exhausted as he was, fury made for potent fuel. He poured salt into his open palm and threw it over the kitchen table where Gretchen stood. It dissolved her apparition like an acidic rain, passing through her in tiny holes that grew and stretched. Her betrayed expression and garbled shout of alarm were the last he saw or heard of her before she vanished altogether.
