“You stop fighting on ground that can’t give you victory,” Dis says. “And you find the thing you actually need somewhere else.” Something in his voice shifts, almost imperceptibly. “Somewhere it might actually exist.”
I look at him. He looks back at me. The blue of his eyes in the low light of the flat is something I’ve stopped being able to look at neutrally, which is a problem I’m filing under things I’ll deal with later.
“That’s very wise,” I say finally. “From my captive shadow being.”
“I have had a great deal of time to observe the mistakes of others.”
“And have you? Stopped fighting on the old ground?”
He’s quiet for a beat longer than usual. “I am working on it,” he says.
I nod slowly. I pull myself up off the hallway floor, which is less dignified than I’d like, and I roll my shoulders back and I think about Morgana’s formal processes and coven votes and the particular thing that Dave’s face looked like when he was delivering the news, which was not unkind. He came because he wanted me to stay. That’s actually worth something.
“I’ll go to the Esbat,” I say, mostly to myself.
“Good,” says Dis.
I look at him. He’s watching me with that steady, attentive look that I have completely failed to get used to, the one that makes me feel seen in a way I don’t entirely know how to handle.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Don’t,” he says, and his voice has a slight edge to it that means he’s uncomfortable with gratitude, which I understand more than I probably should. “Go and make yourself some tea. You look terrible.”
“You really know how to make a person feel better.”
“You look terrible, and you should drink something warm and then go back to work,” he says, with the deliberate precision of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing and is pretending they don’t. “That is all I said.”
I go and make myself some tea.
I stand in my kitchen while the kettle boils and I think about old battlefields and things that aren’t waiting there anymore, and I think about the fact that somehow, without my consent or my planning or any part of my careful revenge-motivated agenda, I have ended up with someone in my life who tells me hard true things and then tells me to drink something warm.
I hadn’t known I was missing that.
I think the problem is that I’m starting to know it now.
Chapter 17
Captor and Captive with Benefits
“You’relate,”Dis'swordsrumble through the flat.
I haven’t even pulled my key out of the lock, and Dis is complaining. This must be what being married is like.
“Bunny wasn’t feeling well, so I helped him close up.” I explain, even though there is no reason to justify myself, to anyone ever.
“You said you’d feed me when you got home. You said you’d be home at seven p.m.”
I stomp into the living room. Dis is sitting on the futon, watching Murder She Wrote. He doesn’t look up at me, and his arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s clearly huffy.
“You have kept me waiting and hungry.”
“Fucking hell, can I take my boots off first? Shower? Maybe grab something to eat?”
“If you are swift, I will permit it.” He intones regally.
The sheer audacity of this pompous jerk. As if he has a choice. As if he could do a single thing if I chose not to feed him.
“I wasn’t actually asking…” I begin, then stop. It’s been a long day and I really don’t have the energy to explain sarcasm to an eldritch horror.
