Page 8 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Sebastián. I know how busy you are,” I said, perching on the edge of the reception desk. Dolly—the life-sized porcelain doll that Rory had apparently installed as our “receptionist” years ago—stared straight ahead with her painted glass eyes, that permanent smile never wavering. When I’d first started at Killigrew Street, I’d thought having a Victorian doll manning reception was deeply weird. Now? Honestly, she was one of the more comforting presences in the building.

“The thing is… I think… I think someone’s been following me. Watching me.”

Dolly’s face remained perfectly composed. Professional, even.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I continued, twisting the drawstring on my hoodie. “Felix, you’re being paranoid. You’ve been working too hard, alone in your lair all the time, without enough actual human contact.”

I paused, waiting for her response. Helpfully, she gave me that look—the one Seb did when he was processing information. Calculating.

“But, like, have you ever just known something is true, without concrete evidence?”

Dolly’s blonde ringlets caught the overhead light. She was definitely considering my argument.

“Look, I’m not asking you to assign a protection detail or anything like that. I just… wanted to let you know. Obviously, I’m the least important member of the team, so if I’m being stalked, then maybe so are the others.”

A gust of wind rattled the old hotel’s windows, and I flinched.

“See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. I’m jumpy as anything, and for what? Because I feel like someone’s—”

A hand landed on my shoulder.

I launched into the air like a rocket, my heart hammering almost painfully as I spun around. Priya, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised, was standing behind me, while Flynn hovered nearby looking like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

“Having a productive strategy meeting, Felix?” Priya’s voice carried that particular blend of amusement and concern that meant I was about to get thoroughly mothered.

“Hey, now!” said Flynn. “There’s nothing wrong with talking to Dolly. I do it myself. We have the best chats.”

“Is everything alright?” Priya asked.

How much had she heard? My mental replay of the last minute was a blur of rambling about stalkers and feelings and being the least important team member.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

These were my colleagues. My friends, if I were being generous with the term. If I couldn’t tell them about feeling watched, about the crawling sensation that followed me home every night, then who could I tell?

But suddenly, the words stuck in my throat like congealed porridge.

“Uh… sure. Just… heading downstairs for the meeting,” I mumbled, then immediately lurched away from them, towards the basement door.

To calm my racing heart, I focused on the corridor wallpaper—great strips of faded Victorian roses curling away from the wall like dead skin—then punched in the code for the thick metal security door as quickly as possible.

I marched downstairs, my trainers echoing on each stone step.

For some reason indecipherable to me, the rest of them had decided that the basement of Killigrew Street Hotel was the perfect place to spend the majority of our time. Which was mental, honestly. The place was freezing, with concrete floors that sucked all the warmth from your body, almost zero natural light, and if you wanted a cup of tea or something to eat, you had to trek all the way back upstairs to the kitchen.

There were numerous other rooms we could have chosen. Hundreds, in fact—we were in a bloody hotel!

But who was I to reason with them all? They were all batshit crazy, after all.

At least they’d made one corner somewhat habitable. A collection of mismatched sofas and armchairs formed a rough circle around a low coffee table, the whole arrangement sitting on a patchwork of rugs that Priya had acquired. Fairy lights were strung between the exposed ceiling beams, casting everything in a warm glow that almost made you forget you were in the basement of a haunted hotel.

The broken coffee machine still sat on the sidebar, that note taped to it reading “OUT OF ORDER (Kit, stop trying to fix it, nobody wants you to)” with several angry faces drawn underneath. Rory’s handiwork. Kit thought the prices at Fat Cat’s cafe were extortionate and kept trying to resurrect the machine rather than accept our daily coffee shop runs. Priya kept threatening to put the whole machine in the garbage, saying it was ruining the basement’s aesthetic.

Priya had a talent for making spaces liveable—one of her few useful gifts, she’d joke. Well, that and her ability to move teaspoons without touching them, though as she was the first to admit, telekinesis wasn’t particularly helpful when it only worked on objects lighter than a biscuit. Being a Gifted practitioner wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, especially when your grandmother could levitate entire tea services and here you were, struggling with cutlery.

Her phone buzzed constantly with WhatsApp messages from her extended family back in Manchester—all begging her to come back home and help run the family’s alternative medicine shop. Or worse, trying to set her up with family friends.

But Priya was too busy here, demanding to read our tea leaves. She’d peer into your empty cup with the intensity of someone decoding nuclear launch codes, then announce stupid things like, “I’m getting strong vibes about someone wearing blue,” or, “Beware of Tuesdays.” It drove us all mental, but try telling Priya that and she’d just give you that look and mutter something in Hindi that definitely wasn’t complimentary.