I took a bite and tested it on my tongue. “I could eat this every meal.”
“That’s good.” Her face lit up and a true grin pulled at her lips. “I think Ziggy plans to serve it for every meal.”
I looked away when Calista took another helping, but I could see her curiosity in my peripheral as she watched every bite I took. I didn’t find it unnerving in the least. Having her undivided attention excited me.
As we neared the end of our meal, she asked quietly, “Who was the man in my house?”
I discarded the hardened edge of my pizza on the platter and grabbed another. Before I took a bite, I said, “I do not know.”
“How do you not know? He came through a portal, same as you.”
“He did not come through mine, though.”
“What if he comes after my brother or my friend?”
“He won’t.” I took another bite and avoided her hardening gaze.
Calista slammed her hand on the table. “How can you be sure?”
My eyes dropped to her chest where the pendant lay beneath her shirt before returning to hers. “What he wants is now here.”
A blast of anger swept over me when my words registered. “Why would you send me,a child, home with this if someone would kill for it?”
“Not a day passed without me observing you.” Except when she hid the stone away. Those years were dark without the sunshine of her smile to brighten my days. “You were safe.”
“Safe?” The pizza drooped in her trembling hand. Bits rolled off the top onto the table. “My father died a horrible, painful death because of it. Where were you then?”
“With you.”
I wanted to hold her when she dropped her face into her sleeve-covered hands and cried. Instead, I sat on the ground next to her chair and allowed her sorrow to wash over me, settling in my chest and constricting it. Her grief wasn’t new to me, but this level would’ve knocked me off my feet had Ibeen standing. I considered it an honor and a duty to sit with her beneath its crushing weight, so she didn’t bear it on her exhausted shoulders alone.
Those cries became gasping sobs that rattled me. I rested my temple against her leg and wondered what it would be like to love someone so deeply they became a part of you. As highly as I regarded Calista, I now understood the love I had for her was but a sapling of what would yet grow. I never wanted to see her hurt like this again, especially from my doing, but I knew it was inevitable and would happen eventually. I could, however, ease the intensity of her grief.
She didn’t fight me as I scooped her from the chair and carried her to the bed. What little energy she had left fled with her tears. Her blue eyes floated within their watery wells and trained on me as I knelt on the bed and laid her in front of me. When I pushed off the bed to leave, her fingers brushed my knee and stayed there.
“Stay,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
I did as she commanded of me. Stretched out on the bed, I leaned against the headboard and looked down at her curled in a tight ball on her side. The realm’s unease tickled my senses while Calista cried and left me perplexed by the sudden shift in energy. Her return had put changes into motion that even I didn’t foresee. I opened myself to the realm and allowed a sliver of magic to settle around us. Inch by excruciating inch, she slowly worked herself closer to me while we sat in the silence, only her ragged breaths and random sobs filled the room, until finally her forehead rested against my leg. Only then did she relax and her breaths even out.
This I savored. The closeness. Her wanting me—if only for her base need and comfort to soothe her woes. Calista would berate herself later for it, though. I couldn’t help myself and reached down to tuck the loose strands on her head behind her ear.
“What did you do to your hair?”
“I colored it,” she said while yawning.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I like the mermaid look.”
I hated to ruin her fantasy, but mermaids didn’t look like that.
“It looks bad now, but will grow out eventually,” she mumbled.
She snuggled closer, and I waited until she fell asleep to play with the ends of her hair. Magic dripped from my fingertips through the silky strands and her hair reverted to its natural golden hue. I stayed with her until my eyes grew heavier and sought sleep in my own bed.
