“Is that clear?” he insists, mistaking my silence for submission.
I can’t resist poking dear brother-bear, even though Max wouldn’t approve.
“Before you accuse me of being a threat to Max, you should look in a mirror,” I quip.
He scoffs. “You crack me up, Casper.EverythingI do is for Max, for us to have a real chance at life.”
Bullshit.
“How is avenging your mother’s death supposed to help Max? She told me you’re all about revenge,” I taunt him, unable to keep the mockery from my voice while he stands there radiating moral superiority. “Is she right?”
He balls his fists, and for a second, I think he actually might swing at empty air. “I bet you’re a good listener,” he seethes. “Polite and sly enough to drink in her confessions without arousing her suspicion. Tell me, Casper. Does Max know you’re ready to blab her secrets away to win an argument?”
I falter at that, and a flash of shame cuts through me. He got me there. Max told me that in confidence, and I used it to strike at her brother. Even if it felt good, it wasn’t smart.
“I don’t trust you one bit… A friendly ghost who only remembers things when it suits him? Or when it gives him an advantage?” He huffs again, the sound grating my temper. “Try my patience, Casper, and I might withdraw my invitation altogether.”
“Who says you get the final word?”
A sharp exhale grates through his throat, and his voice drops. “I see right through you. Ghost or not, you want my sister—and she deserves more than a dead soul. Lust after her all you want if that’s what motivates your phantom prick, but she’s not for you. Deal?”
The accusation cuts deeper than if he’d managed to shiv me in the gut. Max deserves the world, and here I am, fighting with her brother as though we’re two teenagers with too many hormones and not enough brains.
“What she needs out there is protection, and I can give her that,” I say quietly. “I’d die for her. Or rather,die again,” I add before he can correct me. “Whatever it takes.”
He tilts his head to the side. Then, unexpectedly, he nods. “I think I believe you. I’m ready to fight for what’s right. And what’s right is giving Max, myself, and every witch still breathing a chance at a life without fear. At freedom. So Max can actuallyliveinstead of constantly being stalked by death—and that includes you. You get that, don’t you?”
“I do.”
I chew on that truth, not liking the way it tastes. Max deserves a future with a living, breathing man, someone who can stand beside her in daylight and hold her through the night. Someone with a body. A name.
Instead, she got a dead thing clinging to her with greedy hands despite having nothing to offer in return. A ghost with a black hole for a past and just enough selfishness not to give her up.
Nick and I part on that fragile truce, and I’m left stewing in my unease. Max and Nick were born in Faerie—as I probably was too, and I understand that they don’t have many options besides returning, but I’m nervous.
The thought of Faerie doesn’t bring specific memories to the surface of my amnesia, no faces or names, just the sensation of going home—if home were made of longing and regret instead of walls.
Nostalgia without context, the kind you get when you return somewhere too late.
Does anyone there still mourn me? I wonder if my name is still spoken at all, or if perhaps I was easy to forget. I wasn’t easy to love, I’m sure. My gut tells me I’m the sort of man who left more enemies than friends behind, the kind of soul that burned too bright and scorched whatever got too close. I suspect whatever life I had in Faerie was complicated and unfinished, much like Max’s King of Wands.
I fear the answers to these questions could drive a wedge between us, but a tiny, secret part of me longs for them anyway. As though my soul remembers paths my mind cannot. As though grief itself is a landmark on the horizon.
Maybe that’s what home is, in the end. Not comfort or belonging—just the place where your absence still matters.
Chapter 25
Fallen Leaves
MAX
“Ithink we have everything,” Nick says, fastening his backpack and lifting it from the attic floor.
I’m carrying a similar one, stuffed to the brim with spell supplies, camping gear, and the like, but Nick stops cold when he sees the extra black satchel slung across my chest.
I adjust the strap, Lady’s weight curled against my ribs. The carrier shifts, and a deeply unimpressedmrrprises from inside.
“Are you fucking with me?” he asks. “You’re bringing the cat?”
