I’d been packed for an hour, but she was still going back and forth on what to bring. I tried to remind her that if we forgot anything, I could just come back and grab it but she wasn’t hearing it, muttering something about me being a superpowered busybody. So I sat on the bed, waiting an hour and a half for her to finally be satisfied with her packing job.
Then I brought us to the cottage.
She told everyone that she was staying home for some much neededme time. Amber wasn’t pleased Violet was taking three weeks off and locking herself inside, but she promised to go out with everyone once she was back to work.
Which meant we were shadow traveling so no one would wonder where her car went. Only Whisper knew we were leaving town. He managed to get everyone on board with two daily check-ins: first thing in the morning and right before bed. He convinced them that there hadn’t been attempt to kidnap her since my made-up one and now that she was in the public eye so much, no one would be dumb enough to attack her. He wasn’t able to convince everyone that the calls could stop all together, that would involve outing me. But two was better than four.
We arrived at the cottage late afternoon. I spent most of the evening chasing her through the woods. She laid out a no powers rule, which I had to admitdidmake it more fun. I still gave her a five-minute head start, considering how bad she was at running, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t take long to catch her.
But she did a hell of a job hiding from me. I tried to cheat but my shadows were not having any of it. Fucking traitors went out, found her, and wouldn’t tell me where she was.
But I caught her. I didn’t take as much time as I would have liked—I was worried the three hours we were out here back in December may have contributed to that cold she had. And I definitely didn’t want her in that state ever again.
“You could have picked a different movie,”I said, watching her wipe her eyes and sniffle for the fifth time.
“No, I love this movie.”
Didn’t I know it. She’d made me watch it over five times and she cried like thisevery single time. I sighed.
“For a kid’s movie, they do make it really sad.”
“He just got his mum back, only to lose his dad and his dragon.” She sniffled again. “It wasn’t Toothless’ fault,” she cried at the TV. “I hate this part.”
I wrapped my arms tighter around her and kissed the top of her head. “We could skip it. You know what happens.”
She whipped her head towards me. “Absolutely not! That ruins the whole point of a marathon,Austin.I can’t believe you would say something like that to me while I’m in my current condition.”
“I—”
I cut myself off when one of my shadows broke off and took the shape of a cat to curl up in Violet’s lap. She grinned, reaching down to run her hand over it.
“See, Niko gets it. I just needed a little comfort.”
I shifted back, looking at her with complete disbelief. “Niko? You named my shadows Niko?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I named this shadow Niko.”
She looked back at the cat-shaped shadow and rubbed under its chin. The fucker purred. I didn’t even know they could materialize like that. What the fuck was happening?
“You have seven of them. I gave each of them their own names.”
My mouth fell open. “Seven? No, that can’t be right.”
“Look at your shadows coiling around you. How many do you see?”
Holy shit. There were six, plus the cat. I looked back at her. “But…how…”
They did so many things for me. Acting out past scenes, bringing me conversations, keeping tabs on so many people.How could they do that much when there was only seven of them?
Violet laughed softly. “You look so cute while you have an existential crisis.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. When did you figure this out?”
She shifted cat shadow into her arms and it nuzzled into her neck. “Pretty much right away. They each have their own personalities, so it’s easy to tell them apart. By the end of January, I figured out the jobs they usually do, too.”
“Did you give them all names?”
She nodded with a grin. She pointed to the one hovering over my left shoulder. “Carson and Landon—” she pointed at my right shoulder “—are your spies. They’re always whispering in your ear.” She gestured around my head. “Then there’s Bridget, she’s the one that does the scene replays. Carden and Evie—” the two hovering around my mid-section “—are the ones that engulf you, whether it’s travel or hiding. Last but not least, Niko and Lily are your chameleons. They’ll fill whatever role you need at the time.”
