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"More like all of the time. They never shut up."
That's actually pretty rude of you to say,Sylik snorted.
If she'd been alone in her apartment, she would have flipped her middle finger up toward the sky. Shelby would probably hate that.
"What are you doing?" She pulled the blanket off, fresh air meeting her exposed skin.
Shelby's eyes fell to her chest before his cheeks heated and he looked back down at his book. He hooked a finger under what looked like a blank page before he cleared his throat. "Grimoire." He gave a good cough. "I'm making your grimoire."
So, he didn't choose to stay. The first person she let in and he was choosing to give her a grimoire and run. She supposed that made sense since she had helped make him one of the most wanted people in Maipeg. She’d run from her too.
"Oh good!" Ace stood from the couch, making her way to the fireplace. With the sun already up and the day heating outside the fire had died out and had not been rekindled. Maipeg was like that, hot by day with an overbearing sun, then chilled enough at night to require some sort of jacket.
Her tank top was folded on the mantle, no longer laid out as it once had been. Pinching the thin material in her hands she lifted the shirt and gave it a once over. The black lookedblacker. There wasn't any dirt or holes made from the material snagging on trees. Wait—was this her tank top?
She brought the material up to her nose catching a strong scent of lavender. That certainly hadn't smelled like anything other than body odor and sweat yesterday.
"Uh, is this mine?" She held it up to her body, covering her bra as she turned to face Shelby.
"Yes. Grandma said she couldn't allow her guests to have dirty laundry so she went ahead and cleaned it. I tried to tell her to leave the holes because they seemed to match your overall ‘crawled-from-the-grave look’ but she insisted."
Well, at least herlookwas accurate.
"That was nice of her. Could she zap my pants clean too?"
Shelby stared down at the book. Is that all it took to make a grimoire? He shook his head, still avoiding looking her way as she slipped her head into the tank top, sniffed the fabric a couple of times, and slipped into her pants. Smoothing her hands through her hair she tried to untangle the knot that had formed at the back of her head from sleeping on her back before she pulled out the chair in front of Shelby and sat herself down.
"The next event is this afternoon."
"I know." He kept staring down at the empty book.
"We should leave soon."
"Here is a funny idea." He finally glanced up and locked his hazel eyes on Ace. "What if I give you a couple spells and you go alone? I think one close encounter with death this week was enough for me."
"You're going," Ace said at the same time his grandma said, "I don't much like the girl but you can't make her go alone."
Perhaps she and his grandma had more in common than Ace and Shelby.
The old woman was silent as a fox. The front door was closed behind her and she held a large basket in front of her piled high with vegetables. Her steps remained quiet as she strolled up to the table where Shelby and Ace sat. She leveled her grandson with one and he stared back at her, expressionless.
"You got into this mess together now you'll get out of this mess together. If she's the key to somehow freeing all those poor enslaved men then protect her. Do you hear me, Shelby Stroud?"
With as tall as Shelby was and how short his grandmother was, she stood there looking him directly in the eye. She didn't need to crouch or stand on her tiptoes.
“I am helping her, Grandma. I'm getting her a grimoire. She's not going to be without magic."
“I need you to put some really good spells in there for me,” Ace reminded him. “Like I need something that could give me a weapon at a moment’s notice. Or some of that really crazy dark stuff. Like I say someone's name the wrong way and all of a sudden they start bleeding out their eyes and go blind. Now that sounds useful.”
His grandmother still scowled as she turned her gaze from the warlock to Ace. "Do not tell my grandson to be working with dark magic. Dark magic will only darken his soul. And I fear working for the queen has done that enough.”
“If you're worried about anyone it should probably be her.”
Even though Ace knew that it was childish of her she stuck her tongue out at Shelby.
"Don't put all your energy into making those spells,” his grandma warned him. “You'll need your energy for this evening.”
Shelby sat back in his chair propping an arm on the back. "If I don't get this grimoire done then I'm stuck with her. I need to find her some other poor soul to torture or complete this book." Ace nodded along because he was correct, she would continue to hover around him until one or both of those things happened.
