Page 198 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

What if it’s unnerving? What if he despises me for it?

Is a year longer with him a suitable payment? Is that enough time for what The Stag God is asking me to consent to on Damien’s behalf?

No. A stupid question. Of course it’s not enough. Eternity with Damien wouldn’t be long enough.

But… Let me think about it from his point of view.

That’s a year to do all the travelling he wants to do. A year to write and play more music. A year to spend with me, finally not confined to the prison of my home and the city I’ve lived in my whole life. It’s a year to tie up loose ends, opportunities that he wasn’t afforded when he was ripped away from his life so unceremoniously.

A year of learning magic, if he gets to borrow any from The Stag God.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t at least some selfish motivation to this. Of course, there is. I would take five days—five minutes more with him. But only if it won’t compromise our regard for each other.

But there’s no way to ask him.

I’m just going to have to make the choice and cross my fingers.

“Okay,” I finally say, almost choking on the words. “Bring him back. I accept your bargain.”

I meet the Stag God’s eyes the same time he meets mine. He rewards me with an enigmatic smile and even... a pat on the head? Like he’s some kind of father figure?

“An excellent decision, child,” he says. “I suggest you close your eyes. The next few minutes might be quite disorienting if you don’t.”

Tears well up, then spill over as I shut my eyes.

Somehow, I know when to open them. It’s just a gut feeling. A tickle of intuition.

When I do, we’re back in my house, lying in my bed.

I’m tucked against his chest, just like I was in the void. Only this time, I hear his heart beating. And I feel the rise and fall of his chest as he takes deep, restful breaths.

There are two little raised bumps on his brow—almost too shallow to notice. I only know because I spend every moment I have staring at his face. His beautiful, flushed face. His full lips pinkened with life. His eyes roving beneath his glossy eyelids, still in dreams.

Damien’s alive. And everything feels like it was just a silly, terrible nightmare now.

It wasn’t, of course. And there is an hourglass which has started to slowly bury us within its sand. It will start as an inconvenience, and then it will become an oppressive weight in our lives. The trials ahead of us are so fraught with danger.

But for now? For this moment in time, I can forget the timer counting down—I can forget The Aberrant, and the daunting task of pulling a goddess out of his gullet in the next three-hundred-sixty-five days.

And I can get some much-needed sleep. Tangled up in the arms of the man I love.

ㅤ

Iwipe my sweating palms on my leggings for maybe the forty-seventh time. Damien laughs, snatching one of my hands, and kissing my knuckle.

I cringe and he shakes his head. “What?” he asks me.

“I don’t know. I feel like my hands are gross,” I mumble. “Aren’t airports supposed to be, like, covered in germs or something?”

“Well—ignoring the obvious reason that’s not a concern,” he says, as he rubs one of the lumps on his forehead with his free hand, “I don’t really fucking care. I’m gonna kiss you every chance I get, remember?”

“Right,” I say.

Damien, of course, took the news of his new spiritual roommate in stride, when he finally recovered from the physical toll of dying and being brought back to life. He simply said we’d figure out how to save The Moon Goddess. Like it was an overdue bill and not, I don’t know, the apocalypse?

A week after that, he was playing music with the guys.

And a few days ago, he announced he’d bought us a two-month trip overseas. So we could see everything together, and I could finally get out of the city I grew up in.