I don’t ask for help. I’ve never asked for help. My mother taught me that lesson early and often—if you can’t handle it yourself, you don’t deserve to have it. Needing people is weakness. Depending on others is setting yourself up for disappointment.
But the water is rising, and my hands won’t stop shaking, and I don’t know what else to do. I press call.
It rings once. Twice. Then?—
“Isadora?” His voice is sleep-rough but immediately alert. “What’s wrong?”
“I—” The words stick in my throat. “There’s a problem at the studio. A pipe burst. I can’t—the main valve won’t turn and there’s water everywhere and I don’t know what to?—”
“I’m on my way.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I’m already dressed.” I hear movement, a door closing. “Stay where you are. Don’t try to fix anything else. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Mal—”
“Ten minutes, Isadora.”
He hangs up. I stand on the cold basement floor, surrounded by cobwebs and water damage, and try to remember how to breathe.
He’s there in eight.
I hear the car pulling into the parking lot way too fast, tires crunching on gravel. Then footsteps, the door opening, and Mal’s voice cutting through the chaos.
“Isadora? Where are you?”
“Basement.”
He appears at the top of the stairs moments later. He’s dressed in what I can only assume is his version of “emergency casual”—dark jeans, a henley, his hair sticking up in about twelve different directions. He looks rumpled and half-awake and absolutely perfect.
“Show me the valve.”
I point to the corner. He’s past me in seconds, crouching down to examine the corroded metal.
“This thing is older than I am,” he mutters. “And that’s saying something.”
“Can you?—”
“Hold this.”
He shoves his phone at me, flashlight already on, and I aim the beam at the valve while he braces himself. His hands wrap around the metal, muscles tensing beneath his shirt, and for a moment nothing happens.
Then, with a groan of protesting metal, the valve turns. The sound of running water from upstairs stops, and a huge sigh of relief escapes my lips.
“That’s the immediate crisis handled.” Mal straightens, wiping rust from his hands. “Now let’s see the damage.”
We climb back upstairs together. In the growing dawn light, the studio looks even worse than I feared. Water has spread across nearly half the main floor although only the edges of the main studio floor are wet. The baseboards are warped. Several of the floor panels are already buckling.
“The bathroom wall will need to be torn out,” Mal says, examining the crack. “The pipes behind it are completely shot. This wasn’t a sudden failure—it’s been building for a while.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve lived in a lot of old buildings.” He doesn’t elaborate. “Do you have a restoration company you work with? Water damage specialists?”
“No. I’ve never needed?—”
“I know someone.” He’s already pulling out his phone. “They handle supernatural-adjacent disasters, but they do regular plumbing too. Very discreet. Very fast.”
