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She went on, relentless, severing their ties with words that wounded him surgically, each syllable a fresh slice. “I hope you’ll figure out a plausible excuse for everyone else. I don’t want them hurt.”
He swallowed hard, past the ache that made him want to dive into hawk form and scream to the skies. Because of his own fuckery, he was losing the only home he’d known since his parents died and he realized that Gamma had put her life on hold to raise him. “I’ll take care of it,” he rasped.
It took all his fortitude not to cry in front of her; there was no point since he’d done this to himself, and he understood that well enough.
Everything ends. Always.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The rest of the day,Iris didn’t go downstairs except to use the bathroom.
Somebody, probably Sally, left food outside her door, and apparently, she told their other housemates that Iris had caught a bug. A devastating, heart-destroying bacteria, yep. And while she was wallowing, Eli vanished as quietly as he’d come.
Gone, just like she’d asked. Ordered? Yeah, more like ordered.
Now she had no clue how to pass this inspection, but she had to start somewhere. The next day, she stumbled out of her sad lady lair and found boxes of alarms, detectors, and fire extinguishers piled up at the foot of the attic steps. Eli must have bought them before taking off, before the breakup.
Is that even the right word?
She couldn’t obsess, not now. Gathering her resolve as she gathered the packages, she hauled them to Henry Dale, who was sipping a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. “You said you could install these?”
“I’ll take care of it.” The old man scrutinized her from head to toe. “Did you know that Eli left? He said he had to see hisgrandmother—that it was urgent and he didn’t know when he’d be back.”
She tried to keep her expression neutral. “He told me yesterday. In other news, I can’t afford the major cost associated with such a big spell. And I guess the coven isn’t enthusiastic about a payment plan. We’re back to square one.”
The older man patted her shoulder with a deadpan expression. “If all else fails, I’ll marry you. But we’renotsharing a room or a bed.”
Startled to her soul, Iris cracked up laughing. “You’ve made my day, seriously.”
“I live to entertain,” he said in that same droll tone.
Though she still hurt, at least she wasn’t alone. Eli might be. She recalled what he’d said about wanting to live as a hawk—was any of that even true? Still, part of her hoped that Eli had, indeed, gone to seek comfort with his grandma.No, I won’t waste my mental energy on him. Who is he again?
Iris tuned back in to find Henry Dale was in the middle of an update. “I’m working on the gingerbread issue, but I’ll have to pause to install the alarms. Just so you know.”
“I appreciate everything you do,” she said.
“What about me?” Rowan asked.
“I appreciate you as well,” Iris said.
“Me too,” Henry Dale added.
Rowan had a sketch pad tucked under their arm, and they seemed a bit subdued, likely because of Eli’s sudden departure. But they’d get used to the new dynamic soon enough; everyone would. And Iris would act like she was fine until her heartstopped feeling like somebody had yanked it from her chest and stepped on it.
To avoid further conversation, she smiled and left the kitchen, heading to the foyer. She stopped to grab a jacket, then stepped outside, shivering at the icy touch of the wind.Eli helped fix this porch. He sanded these boards. Applied the weatherproofing and the stain.
OMG, stop, you’re doing it again.
Zipping her hoodie, she went down the steps, now firm and sturdy, thanks to Eli and Henry Dale. As for Violet Gables, the house was like an aging actress with her makeup smeared. Iris could picture what it would look like if it was glorious, riotously purple—no,violet, just gleaming with color—but she didn’t have the magic to make it happen.
Yet that didn’t stop her from focusing all her anger, all her despair on the house. Iris closed her eyes and locked onto the wordviolet. V I O L E T. The letters danced in her head, spinning into flowers. Oh, African violets, how pretty, with their dainty little petals, and she fell into a field of them.
House.
Field.
Violet.
