Page 42 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Laughing again, Evie admitted, “It is something of an acquired skill.”

“How’s the bakery going?” Max asked.

She spent several minutes telling him all about how her coworker Adam was disgustingly in love with his husband. This was not, at all, what Max had asked. Eventually, he heard about her other coworkers, too—Simon was as sassy as ever, Joseph had had another amicable breakup, Liv was single and happy not to deal with people, and Maggie was still devoting all her time to the bakery—and finally, a little bit about her actual job.

“The catering’s going really well, which is awesome, but I actually have a call in about half an hour, so I’ve got to run. I’m glad everything’s working out. You sound happier.”

“I’m fine.” Max was not getting into a protracted discussion about his state of being.

“Love you,” Evie told him.

“Love you, too.”

Evie had started saying it to him after their parents died, and Max never failed to repeat it. When it suddenly felt like you were nearly alone in the world and so much had been taken away from you, well… Max had been determined to be everything Evie needed, and while he couldn’t remake his entire personality, he could ensure she knew that she was loved.

Staring down at his phone after the call ended, Max wondered if he was happier. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but now that Evie had brought it up, he supposed it was… true.

He hadn’t been expecting either Rory or Alex, and he was pretty sure that under any other circumstances, they wouldn’t have wound up working together like this. But here they all were. And despite the fact that Alex knew nothing about magic, and Rory thought he and Max were mates it was… nice. Truly, genuinely nice to have them both working with him.

It also seemed to fulfill a need for them, and it meant Max had more time for spellreading. The shop was cheerier and more alive. Rory sold more books than Max and Alex combined, and the added time Max had for spellwork meant he was bringing in more from that side of the business. (Alex’s form had also helped a lot, and Max was cursing himself for not having thought to implement something like that himself. He’d just kept going with his mom and dad’s method without really thinking about it. Having less back and forth with clients was awesome.) Somehow, with the two of them here, it wasn’t even alarming when a siren brought Max out of the office, and he found that paramedics were rushing out a customer who was having a heart attack.

“He didn’t look well,” Rory told him quietly, “so I called 911. They think they got to him in time.”

Max wasn’t sure he would have been quite so calm, but Rory seemed to take it in stride, like dealing with the public sometimes meant people having a medical crisis in front of you.

Max stayed up front for another hour, just to make sure that Rory was okay, but the man reassured the other customers who’d been present, directed a couple to the health and exercise section, and seemed his normal self.

Max had never expected anyone like Rory in his life, but he found himself so grateful that he was here. With the extra money from Rory’s people skills and Max’s time to do spellreading, it meant that he could afford to suddenly have two employees.

Rory continued to insist that he didn’t need anything more than room and board, which he said was super generous. He also didn’t have a bank account, as it turned out, and Max had reluctantly agreed to keep his money for him. He wondered now if the normal world thought that Rory had died when he’d turned into a bird ten years ago (or however long ago it had actually been). Rory didn’t seem perturbed by this at all, but Max was certain that at some point, Rory was going to want to reintegrate more with the world, and he was going to need money and the proper documentation to do it.

Max had brought up the idea of getting Rory ID several times—and not using the regular channels. Shifters and witches always knew forgers or someone on the inside who could help them out, because they often needed to shift their birth date or change names, depending on the situation.

But Rory shrugged it off, insisting that he had everything he needed right now, and Max really didn’t have to worry. Max couldn’t help but be concerned. At some point, Rory was going to be off on his own again, and Max wanted to give him all the tools he needed to flourish.

But it wasn’t easy to get on ID made for someone without their knowledge, so Max decided to leave it for now. Rory wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to change his situation. To the contrary, any time that Max brought up something related to the outer world, it seemed to make Rory think that Max had grown tired of him, and then Rory got sad, and Max definitely didn’t want that.

He wasn’t trying to get rid of Rory, he was just trying to give Rory options. Everyone deserved to have options, but Rory seemed to have very firmly decided that his option was “here with Max.” And if Max were being brutally honest, he didn’t want to change that.

If someone had asked him a month ago if he could imagine someone living in his apartment with him, he’d have laughed them out of the room.

But Rory was different.

And yes, Max recognized that the fact that Rory turned into a bird every night probably meant there was something wrong with Max, but Rory never made him feel that way. He insisted it was something he was totally willing to do—and on occasion, he even stayed in his bird form or would suddenly flit into the spellbook room as a cardinal and perch on Max’s shoulder. Max wasn’t sure if it was for him or Rory or both of them, but… it worked weirdly well?

Nōwē didn’t bat an eyelash at having a shifter around, and Alex had thankfully not asked any awkward questions about why Red was only there occasionally. Max might have implied that there was a cage in his apartment, but mostly, he just tried not to talk about it… And tried to remind himself that he couldn’t break the Council’s rules and potentially jeopardize the safety of magical folk just because Alex was awesome.

Max sighed and tried to concentrate on his job. He did his best to get out to the front of the bookshop at least a few times per day. He might not like to deal with people, but it was still his shop, and he didn’t want Rory or Alex to feel like they’d been abandoned. (Yes, Max could spend eight hours with his spellbooks and not even notice. There was a reason he had alarms set on his phone to remind him to complete essential tasks.)

This afternoon, as he emerged, he found Rory on the phone, nodding his head to the caller even as he waved at the couple heading out of the shop.

“Yes, I’m sure we can manage that… Uh huh… I don’t see why not… Yes, I’ll double check and confirm with you. Would that be alright?… Wonderful. Talk soon.”

He hung up the phone and turned to look at Max, practically vibrating with excitement. “Guess what!”

“I cannot even begin to imagine,” Max told him dryly.

“Don’t be mad,” Rory said with a bright smile.