“In the middle.”
I roll the carpet back down over the floorboards. Then Bunny manoeuvres the futon into position. The chalk runes disappear from view, swallowed under thin carpet and worn fabric. They’re still there. Still working. The magic doesn’t care that you can’t see it anymore, it just hums quietly under the surface, invisible and patient.
We fold the futon into its sofa position and step back to assess.
“Nice,” Bunny says approvingly, adjusting his bunny ears.
Dis is watching his circle be transformed, standing out of the way, hands clasped behind his back. Those blue eyes tracking the whole process with an expression that’s difficult to read.
I clear my throat. “It’s just something someone was throwing out,” I say, to nobody in particular. “Seemed wasteful not to take it. You’ve been sitting on the floor for days.”
Dis looks at the futon. Then at me.
“You have my gratitude,” he says, with a careful dip of his head that might be a bow.
Not thanks, or cheers, or any of the casual acknowledgements a normal person might offer. Grateful. Formal and deliberate, like he’s making an official declaration. Like gratitude is something weighty that deserves to be delivered properly.
Bunny, who has been watching this exchange with his head tilted slightly and his bunny ears flopped to one side, beams at Dis with the full force of his considerable sunshine. “You’re welcome!” he says cheerfully, apparently deciding to accept the gratitude on both our behalves.
Dis blinks at him. At the bunny ears. Back at Bunny’s enormous smile.
“You have my gratitude also, cheerful human,” Dis says, with great dignity, to a man wearing pink fluffy bunny ears.
“Anytime!” Bunny says. He’s completely sincere. It’s terrifying.
I stare at the scene in front of me. My ancient, proud, furious shadow king, formally thanking my relentlessly cheerful assistant, who is wearing Easter costume ears in the middle of the working day, in my living room, next to a secondhand futon I collected from the pavement because I felt bad about someone sitting on bare floorboards.
This is my life now.
“Okay,” I say. “Back to work, Bunny.”
Bunny gives me a thumbs up, gives Dis a little wave, and bounces out of the living room. I hear him clatter cheerfully down the stairs and the distant sound of the coffee shop door.
I stand in the middle of my living room.
I bought someone bunny ears. I collected a futon off the street so that my prisoner would have somewhere comfortable to sit. Even though that prisoner is more than probably perfectly capable of floating very comfortably. I bought nice biscuits that are definitely going to be shared with said prisoner at some point, if I’m being honest with myself, which I’m trying not to be.
I gave people things today. I was nice.
This is deeply alarming.
I have a reputation. A carefully cultivated, years-in-the-making reputation as someone who does not do soft and sweet and thoughtful. Someone who is sharp and sarcastic and keeps people at arm’s length for very good reasons. Someone who makes the goth aesthetic work and who has never once in his life bought novelty Easter accessories for another human being.
My goth credentials are going to be absolutely revoked.
“I’m going to my room,” I announce to nobody in particular.
Dis, who has settled himself onto the futon with his usual unsettling grace, doesn’t look up. He’s already reaching for the remote.
“Mm,” he says.
I have a vague, uncomfortable feeling that the television thing is going to become a whole conversation very soon. He’s been watching it for the better part of three days now. That can’t be healthy. That can’t be normal, even for a shadow king experiencing human entertainment for the first time. There are surely limits.
I retreat to my bedroom and close the door firmly behind me.
I sit on the edge of my bed and take several deep breaths.
I have a reputation to uphold. I have an image to maintain. I am Felix, small, terrifying goth witch, revenge-seeker, summoner of shadow kings, a person who definitely does not go around collecting secondhand furniture and buying people fluffy ears because something in their smile makes it impossible to do otherwise.
