The morning has come fully in through the broken window and the plastic covering it, pale Bristol light doing its best. Somewhere downstairs the coffee shop needs opening. The world is carrying on, as it does.
We had last night. That kiss. Whatever last night was, whatever that kiss was. Whatever it meant, we had it. Andit was something I don’t have proper words for, something I’m going to be turning over in my hands for a long time.
But then morning came. And Fiend came with it, breezing in with his politics and his hair and his peace-brokering, and the world came crashing back in with him. The unknown enemy. The next attack. The amulet. All of it still out there, still real, still pressing against the small bubble of warmth we’d made.
And Dis saying, we are not, immediately and without hesitation, because of course he did. Because what else would he say. Because this is what it is, and neither of us gets to want it to be something else.
I stand up. I find my boxers and hop into them. I pick up the blanket from the futon and fold it, which gives my hands something else to do.
“Tea,” I say, to nobody in particular.
“Yes, you should have tea,” says Dis. He’s watching me with those blue eyes, and I can’t read his expression and I’m not going to try.
I go to the kitchen. I fill the kettle. I stand there while it boils and I think about last night and I think about this morning and I think about the specific weight of we-are-not, and how much heavier it landed than it should have, and I tell myself, very firmly, that I’m fine.
Chapter 25
Daddy Issues
Theradiatorismakingthat clicking sound it always makes, and Bunny has just said good morning to the coffee shop as a whole, for the fourth time today, which it apparently deserves. And Dark is in his corner with a cup of tea that Bunny brought him without being asked, and everything smells like espresso, and it’s all perfectly fine.
Dark is holding the tea in both hands and looking at it with the careful attention he brings to everything Bunny does. It’s a new thing, the tea. Bunny started it yesterday, just walked over to the corner table and set it down and said, there you go, and went back to work, and Dark has accepted it every morning since with the solemnity of someone receiving something important.
Shadow beings don’t need to eat or drink. I know this. I’ve known it for as long as I’ve known Hex, and it’s been confirmed thoroughly by weeks of living with one. Dis doesn’t eat. He feeds on emotional energy. He doesn’t need tea or biscuits or pasta, though he watches me eat allof those things with a focused interest that I’ve chosen not to examine too closely.
Dark doesn’t need Bunny’s tea either.
I don’t have the heart to tell Bunny that. And honestly, watching Dark hold the mug in both hands and look at it like it’s something worth holding, I’m not sure it would matter if I did.
Bunny has gone back to the counter and is singing something quietly to himself, adjusting his bunny ears, completely unbothered by the enormous shadow being in the corner who cannot take his eyes off him. I am making someone’s flat white and pretending I’m not watching any of this because it’s grating in a way I’m not examining. It’s fine. Everything is fine, and I’m fine, and I’m moving on.
The morning rush comes and goes. A difficult customer. Bunny handles it. I make coffee. Dark watches Bunny from his corner with those amber eyes. I watch the clock. Ordinary.
At eleven forty-three, the wards start screaming.
I feel it through the entire building, through the magic channels I’ve kept running since I moved in. The prickling alarm is different this time, bigger, and whatever has come into my flat upstairs is not the same Wraith we faced before. He has been building toward this, preparing and gathering force.
Dark doesn’t hesitate. He goes straight up through the ceiling.
Not through a door. Through the ceiling. One moment he’s in the corner booth and then he’s simply gone upward, shadows dissolving through plaster and wood with the ease of something that has never had much respect for physical barriers. I hearit above me immediately, the impact, the sound of something enormous meeting something else enormous, the particular resonance of a fight between beings who don’t operate by human physics.
“Everyone out,” I say. Clearly. Firmly. “Gas leak, everybody needs to leave right now please.”
There are nine customers sitting at tables, and they do deserve to be saved, despite being customers. They move, because most people aren’t dumb when it comes to gas leaks, even customers. Bunny holds the door, warm and efficient, shepherding them out with that particular quality he has of making people feel looked after without knowing why. I make a shooing gesture at him when he looks at me. He immediately understands what I mean.
He doesn’t leave.
Of course he doesn’t. Bunny would never take the sensible option. It’s one of his most infuriating qualities, but I don’t have time to be infuriated by it right now.
I grab Bunny’s arm and pull him next to me.
The fight above us is moving. I can track it through the ceiling, through the vibrations and the surges of magic that pulse down through the floor under my feet. Dark is formidable. I knew that. I could sense it. Watching him in the corner booth drinking tea, I’d almost forgotten it, almost let the domesticity of it obscure what he actually is.
I remember now.
But Wraith is stronger than before. Much stronger. Something has been done to him since the last attack, something that has made him larger and denser and more deliberate, and even Dark is being pushed back.
The ceiling undulates. A blur of shadows falls through it. Too busy fighting to care about the laws of this realm.
