I absolutely need to pull myself together before I do something else catastrophically wholesome.
I stare at the wall.
On the other side of it, an ancient shadow king is sitting on a second-hand futon watching daytime television, and somehow that is the most unsettling thing that has happened to me all week.
Which is really saying something, given the week I’ve had.
Chapter 15
Secrets and Scrabble
Icomehomefrommyshift to find Dis watching a documentary about meerkats with the focused intensity of an addict.
I stand in the doorway and observe him watching it for a moment. He’s leaning forward on the futon, elbows on his knees, those burning blue eyes fixed on the screen like the meerkats might do something astonishing at any moment. On screen, a meerkat stands sentinel on a rock, scanning the horizon. Dis nods slightly, like he approves of its vigilance.
Right. Okay.
Summoning someone for revenge is perfectly acceptable. Rotting their mind beyond repair with far too much screen time, is not. It’s not even remotely ethical.
I should have known better. I let Hex play with my phone, and the shadow man became worryingly obsessed with social media. It’s time I started learning from my past mistakes.
I walk to the television and turn it off.
The silence is immediate and absolute.
Dis turns to look at me with an expression that could strip paint.
“That was informative,” he says, with the careful enunciation of someone exercising enormous self-control.
“You’ve been watching television non-stop for four and a half days,” I say. “You need a break.”
“I am learning about your realm.”
“You were watching meerkats.”
“Meerkats are part of your realm.”
I cross my arms. He crosses his. We stare at each other across the living room. The television sits dark and silent beside me like an unwilling hostage.
“It’s not good for you,” I say. “Staring at a screen for over one hundred and eight hours straight.”
“I don’t experience fatigue the way you do. And I was not watching TV when I feasted on your pleasure. Your one hundred and eight hours assertion is incorrect.”
I grind my teeth and fight the blush that’s threatening to rise at his casual reference to the intimacy we shared. “That’s not the point. It’s become an obsession. You were practically inside the screen when I came home yesterday.”
A pause. “I was simply engaged with the content.”
“Disney. You were watching Loose Women.”
“The discourse was complex.”
“It really wasn’t.” I pick up the remote and put it on the windowsill, far out of reach of the circle, which feels deeply parental and slightly absurd but also entirely necessary. “No more TV today. We’re doing something else.”
Dis stares at the blank television screen. Then he leans back on the futon with the slow, deliberate dignity of someone making it very clear that while they are complying, they are not happy about it. He arrangeshimself with his arms folded and his gaze fixed on the middle distance, radiating displeasure like a very beautiful, very ancient radiator.
He’s sulking. An immortal shadow king is sitting on my second-hand futon, sulking.
The responsibility of this hits me somewhere in the chest. This is what I’ve created. This is my life. I’m like a parent who’s just confiscated the iPad from a very powerful toddler.
