"I'm okay, Gabe," I say, closing my eyes. I can picture him: older, grizzled, the only family I have left who isn't a ghost. "I'm with... people. I'm staying at a shop for a while. It's safer here."
"Safer?" Gabriel snorts. "You're with that vampire, aren't you? The one who looks like he's never done a day's work in his life? And the witch with the orange hair who talks to his plants?"
I look over at the kitchen. Soren is currently insulting a piece of toast because it didn't brown evenly. Cain is pretending to read but I can see his ears twitching, catching every word. Ira is silently moving a steak knife out of Soren's reach, his face a mask of tactical patience.
"It's debatable," I say, and a small, genuine smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. "But they're... they're okay, Gabe. They know what they're doing. Mostly."
"Text me every day," Gabriel commands. "If I don't hear from you by noon, I'm coming over there with a shotgun and a priest, and I don't care how many wards that kid has on the door."
"I'll text," I promise, feeling a lump in my throat. "I promise."
I set the phone down and let out a breath I feel like I've been holding for a decade. The silence in the library is different now, not the oppressive, forced quiet Cain provides, but a natural lull. The spirits are still there, hovering in the edges of my vision, but they aren't screaming. They're just... waiting.
I pull up my messages. Ezra's name is at the top, a string of unread texts that vary fromThinking of youtoPlease call me, I'm worried.
He's my friend. He's the one who held my hand when the visions got too bad in the Seminary. He's the one who told me that my blood wasn't a curse, just a responsibility. Old comfort is a hard thing to distrust, even when your mother's journals are screaming at you from a box under the bed.
I'm taking some time off, I type, my fingers trembling slightly.Away from the city. I'm fine. I'll explain later.
The response is almost instantaneous. The little bubbles appear and vanish, then the text pops up.
Aven, thank God. I've been so worried. Let's get coffee soon, okay? I want to make sure you're really all right. I'm here if you need anything. Always.
I look at the screen. The concern is warm, familiar, and tight enough that I mistake it for comfort. I put the phone on the coffee table, face down, and lean my head back against the chair.
Cain doesn't say anything, but I feel the shift in the air as he stands and crosses the small distance between us. He sits on the edge of the couch, close enough that I can feel the radiating heat of his body, but he doesn't touch me. He just sits there, an ancient predator offering the only thing he has left: his presence.
"You're shaking," he says softly.
"It's the coffee," I lie. "Soren's brew is basically liquid adrenaline and spite."
"Aven." Cain's voice is a low vibration that bypasses my ears and goes straight to my jawbone. He reaches out, his hand hovering over mine for a long, agonizing second.
I turn my hand over, my palm meeting his. His skin is cool, not cold like a corpse, but the temperature of a stone that's been sitting in the shade. I lean toward him, my shoulder meeting his, and the silence in my head deepens until it's a physical weight, pinning me to the moment.
"I'm staying," I whisper, the admission feels like the heaviest thing I've ever said.
15
Aven
Thenextmorning,Ifind myself standing behind the counter at Soren’s shop, trying to look like I belong here and not like a man who recently traded his entire theological education for a room in the back of a boutique that sells cursed candles. I've decided to be useful. Useful is a safe category. Useful people don't get asked existential questions about their celestial bloodlines or their mother's cryptic journals.
"If you touch that shelf again, I will turn your fingers into actual carrots," Soren snaps, not looking up from a ledger that he's currently treating like a personal enemy. He's wearing a loose black sweater that keeps sliding off one shoulder like it has better places to be, and his reddish-orange hair is standing up in peaks that suggest he's been vibrating at a high frequency since dawn. He's currently locked in a silent war with a fountain pen that seems to be leaking essence rather than ink.
"I'm just organizing by utility," I say, ignoring the way my palm tingles when I move a jar of what looks like pickledeyeballs. The jar is cold, but the liquid inside is swirling with a faint, rhythmic pulse. "Currently, you have the 'protection from spite' salts next to the 'attract a minor demon' incense. That's a workplace safety hazard, Soren. It's like putting bleach next to the orange juice. One wrong grab and your customer goes from warding off an ex-boyfriend to hosting a tea party for a Duke of Hell."
Soren finally looks at me, his green eyes narrowed and bloodshot from a lack of sleep. "The shop has its own logic, Aven. It's an ecosystem. The shelves move when I'm not looking. The objects develop seniority. You don't organize an ecosystem; you survive it."
"Well, your ecosystem has the people skills of a feral raccoon with inherited trauma," I mutter, sliding a stack of leather-bound notebooks into a straight line. They're made of a skin that feels too much like vellum and too little like paper, humming a low, discordant C-sharp. "I'm the least qualified haunted cashier in the city, and even I know that customers shouldn't have to dodge a biting plant just to buy a smudge stick."
As if on cue, the semi-sentient fern on the corner of the counter snaps its leaves at my sleeve, its serrated edges catching on the silk of my cuff. I swat it away with a rolled-up flyer for a missing cat. It's the third time this hour the greenery has tried to taste me. I'm beginning to think the shop doesn't want to be organized; it wants to be left in a state of beautiful, expensive chaos that only Soren understands.
Ira emerges from the back room looking like a military solution to a domestic problem. He's carrying a toolbox and a gallon of water, which he sets down next to me with a thud that vibrates through the floorboards. He doesn't say anything—Ira treats words like a finite resource he's saving for a national emergency—but he checks the wards on the doorframe with a practiced, clinical focus. He's a massive, judgmental survivalinstinct with tattoos, and every time he passes me, he adjusts his trajectory just enough to make sure I'm still within arm's reach. His presence is a physical weight, grounded and silent, a sharp contrast to Soren's frantic electricity.
"Eat," Ira says, sliding a protein bar across the counter. It's not a suggestion. It's a command disguised as a syllable. He lingers for a second, his eyes tracing the line of my jaw as if checking for signs of spectral exhaustion.
"I'm fine, Ira. I had toast. Or what Soren called toast before he threatened the toaster with generational violence," I say, but I take the bar anyway. The way Ira watches me eat is both comforting and deeply weird, like being monitored by a very large, very protective grizzly bear who's concerned about my caloric intake. He waits until I've taken a bite before he moves to the back to repair a sagging shelf that looks suspiciously like it's trying to melt into the wall.
