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But he already is. And she’s already translating.

“He says his soul is bound to yours, to protect yours, always.”

“That’s even more deranged than the other thing. This can’t be real.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so. I was worried you’d just swoon.”

“Of course I wouldn’t. There’s probably a really evil reason that he’s saying this. And doing this. And looking at me like that,” I say, because crikey (thanks, Mathilde, for that), his expression is something to behold now. His head is sort of tilted on one side, as he listens to what probably sounds like birds chirping to him. And his eyes are just so full of this sort of … innocent and delighted curiosity.

Even though Halsten has never known delight a day in his life.

I once saw him eat a serial killer’s torn-off arm—his very favorite sort of meal—and he didn’t so much as get a spark in his eyes. So needless to say, it is very unsettling to see. And even more unsettling when he mimics a few of the words we say. Eggs-plan-asian, he murmurs, softly.

Then he reaches out a hand again.

Only this time, he aims it for my fucking face.

His fingertips almost skim my lips.

In fact, I think he only draws back because I jerk away. Like he was hypnotized, until I made him realize how weird touching me would be. And by my mouth, of all things. What was it about my mouth? Does it make weird shapes when I’m speaking?

“He says your lips are like a kiss that has not yet been made,” Phone informs me. But now I’m the one wishing she would have held back.

“Let’s just focus on the problem here,” I tell her.

And she is happy to oblige.

Or happier, anyway. She mostly sounds furious.

“It could be because of the spell. The mad one that you shouldn’t have done.”

“You can call it mad, but there is no reason at all that it should have erased his memory right back to Viking times and then glued him to me like a limpet. Nothing in it remotely allowed for that. He should be in that country where there’s never any sun now, moonbathing, oblivious to me.”

“Well, he’s not. He’s your eternal servant forever, instead.”

“He must be lying. This must be a lie. Or a trick, somehow.”

“If it is one, the half-melted arm is a really nice touch. He’s almost down to the bone and he’s still here pledging his devotion and doing whatever you say and trying to fondle your face in so gentle a way I can’t even look at it directly.”

I make a sound of protest. “So now you’re on his side?”

“No. I just no longer think this is a deception.”

“Then explain exactly what you do think.”

“That we need to undo whatever this magic is before even I swoon,” she says in a way that sounds like she already has. It’s the softest and most awed I have ever heard her be, to the point where it actually frightens me.

So really it makes sense that I panic, and spell him unconscious.

But probably less sense that I drag him inside and strap him to a chair.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I try to get some sleep after fully securing him in a way that reassures even Phone. But of course all this means I can’t sleep at all. I just lie in the semidarkness of my shades-drawn bedroom, staring at the ceiling I can barely see, going over and over it all in my head. The spell, the devil dog, him saving me, him saying all those things, him just letting me tie him to a chair with silver.

He woke up midway through and didn’t even protest.

Despite the fact that it turned him into a man-shaped hashtag.