Page 2 of Little Witch

"You look like hell, Halloway."

I didn't turn around. "Good morning to you too."

"I mean it as a compliment." I heard the grin before I saw it, and when I glanced over my shoulder, there it was — all teeth and trouble, black hair still damp and pushed back off his face. His eyes caught the low light and glowed faint neon, pink bleeding to violet at the edges, the way they always did before he'd properly woken up. The tips of his pointed ears peeked through his hair, sharp enough to nick a finger on if I wasn't careful.

Half a demon didn't leave much room for subtlety.

And my step-brother was... was nothing. At all. Just a person.

"Rough night," I admitted, because lying to him never once worked.

"Pines again?" He said it lightly, but his eyes didn't match his tone.

"Pines again." I admitted.

He came around the counter without asking, stealing a cinnamon roll off the tray with fingers too warm for someone technically part hellspawn.

"You know, most girls just get anxiety dreams about exams. You get personally serenaded by a haunted forest." He snapped a bite and continued talking like a heathen. "You ran out of the house very fast this morning, too."

"I contain multitudes." I huffed. "And I don't run. I just walked quickly."

"You contain a death wish, little witch." He winked at me, like he knew exactly what it did to my pulse and enjoyed doing it anyway. "One of these days that forest's going to get what it wants if you keep letting it in your pretty, little head."

"I'm not a witch." My hazel eyes rolled.

"Not yet. One day though... I think you might decide to stick on a pointed hat and hex me." He said it soft enough I almost missed it, already reaching for a second roll.

I let it go. I always let the odd things he said slide past me, the ones that sounded more like promises than jokes.

He might have been magic, but I was not. He knew that. I knew that. It was just...

Something in my head occasionally liked to listen to unknown voices and sentient trees. That was fine, though. A regular thing that regular women in their twenties did.

"Want me to help out today?" Orias asked, and I shoved aside all other thoughts and nodded.

It was easier, some mornings, having him underfoot instead of the quiet that used to fill this kitchen.

Three years now since our mothers had left us — ice on a back road, the two of them laughing about something stupid right up until they weren't laughing anymore.

Three years since the bakery had gone from hers to just mine, and Orias and his brother had gone from classmates who'd married into my family when I was in college, to the only family I had left standing.

Grief had a strange sense of humor. It had traded me a mother for a half-demon with wandering hands and a mouth that never stopped running, and some mornings I still didn't know whether to laugh about that or cry.

Some mornings, it was easier to think of this version of the half-demon. And not the other one.

The one that had left town and his twin brother, the same way he'd left me.

"Earth to Amber." Orias waved a hand in front of my face, close enough that I caught the low, smoky scent that clung to him no matter how much he showered it off. "You went somewhere. Perhaps with the fairies."

"Just thinking."

"About the festival? Or something more fun like how pretty my hair looks now that I'm using that conditioner you bought me." He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, eyes still doing that thing where they watched me a little too closely.

"Festival." I said. "I don't think about you or your hair."

Liar. Liar. Liar.

He grinned like he could mind read. "It's a big deal this year. Everyone's expecting the best from us."