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While the two felines continued to argue, I carefully slipped the journal we’d found into the waistband of my pants.
“Why was your familiar at my house?” Merlin demanded. He looked so pathetic in that cage of flower petals and stems.
“Why is your familiar in my house? We can do this all day, Fluffy.” She cackled at him, leaving no doubt who was the wicked witch in this scenario.
“His name’s Merlin,” I corrected angrily and grabbed for the white cat. Even though I didn’t have magic, I did have almost one-hundred and fifty pounds on the skinny feline. Surely, I could overpower her.
But no. She escaped my reaching arms and
turned back to hiss at me. “I’ll only tell you this once, so make sure you’re paying attention.” Luna’s back arched and her tail grew extra poofy. “If you ever break into my house again, I won’t be so forgiving a second time.”
I gulped hard, choosing not to point out that we teleported in, that there was no breaking at all.
Luna inched forward with claws extended. “What are you, stupid? Get out of here!”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I picked up Merlin, thorny cage and all, and bolted through the front door. Outside now, I ran toward the street, which I could just barely see in the distance. Luna’s large front yard sat at the intersection of two side streets. I tried to read the signs as I got closer but struggled to make out either very clearly.
Persimmon, I read just as my feet made contact with the pavement. Now that we’d stepped off Luna’s property, the thorns and flowers that held Merlin fell away.
He jumped from my arms, shook off, blinked once, twice… And we were back home.
“All that for nothing,” he mewled, padding toward his water bowl then taking a few long laps to refresh himself.
“Not for nothing,” I revealed, tugging the filched journal from my waistband and bringing it into view.
“Gracie,” my cat exclaimed. “Good girl. Very good girl.”
I basked in his praise despite his dehumanizing tone. “I can see why you don’t much care for Luna,” I added softly. “Or the name Fluffy. I’m sorry.”
“She’d have killed me if you weren’t there,” he said with a casual shrug. “She’s been like that ever since I dumped her to take my place as a full witch.”
I threw my hands up and took a step back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up there.”
Merlin turned away but kept one eye trained on me from the side. “A cat doesn’t become a full witch until he takes a familiar.”
“Not that part. The dumping part?” I clarified, wondering why he hadn’t told me this bit of his history with Luna in advance of our trespassing—and me stealing the journal.
Merlin yawned and stretched his back legs lazily. “Oh, yeah. We used to date. Not a big deal.”
“Actually, it seems like a very big deal,” I corrected, hoping he would tell me more.
“It’s not my fault the rules state that no two witches may live under the same roof. It was fine when I was stray, but things change. There was no way I’d give up my awesome powers in favor of a fling. Nope. Anyway… No need to dredge up the past when we have our futures to worry about. Now show me the book,” Merlin commanded without a second thought about his past love affair.
I tromped over to the couch and set the journal in my lap so we could read through it together. “What is all this?” I asked, squinting at the strange series of symbols interspersed with sketches of various flora and fauna.
“It appears to be a grimoire. Not her primary one, mind you, but something new she’s working on.”
“A spell book? Do you have one of those, too?”
He nodded, continuing to study the page. “I have many, but I would never leave them in plain sight.”
“Where are they?” I wondered aloud.
“That’s privileged information, aka on a need-to-know basis. And you don’t need to know right now.”
“Ouch. Okay.”
Merlin mumbled to himself as he flipped through the pages, completely unbothered by the fact that he’d hurt my feelings.
