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Gabi’s mobile buzzed.
She peeled her head off the cold glass to retrieve it.
“Pride,” she answered in a flat voice.
But as she listened to Gus speak, a renewed enthusiasm and determination filled her.
“Thatdoessound suspicious,” Gabi agreed, grabbing her bag off the back of the chair. “I’ll be there in five.”
* * *
Gus’s houseturned out to be a terrace like Gabi’s, only his was at the fringe of Agedale. Furthest from the beach, where the houses were less pristine and split into two flats. Gabi trekked up a bare wooden staircase that looked like it had been cleaned last decade, heading for the top floor. The whole place smelled like mildew.
At least the beige wallpaper wasn’t peeling. And it was quiet, which was more than she could say for her own neighbours sometimes.
“I know,” Gus muttered when he met her at the landing, his shoulders tense beneath a faded band shirt. His brown hair was shoved back from his forehead in an artful quiff today, his self-deprecating smile not lighting bleak eyes. “It’s a shit hole. But it’s cheaper than anywhere else.”
“I didn’t mean to judge,” Gabi rushed out, a twinge of guilt in her stomach. She’d never had to worry about money, thanks to the town’s mutual adoration of her dad. “It takes me a while to turn off my perception when I’m … in detective mode.”
God, she hated struggling for words. She avoided Gus’s eyes when she reached the top, a single wooden door ahead.
“I get it,” Gus replied easily, warmly.
A weight lifted off Gabi’s chest at his easy forgiveness.
With a gesture of his sharp chin, Gus led her into a modest flat that was much cleaner and tidier than she’d expected from a guy in his twenties living with a fox. Then again, he was always dressed in clean, lavender-smelling shirts and dark jeans—not a rip in sight—and he clearly made an effort with his appearance, so she ought to have expected this. He closed the door behind her, and she spotted the fox bundled into a nest by a large window that looked onto a fire escape.
“Hello,” she said to the witch, pleased when she made a responding noise.
“Huh,” Gus murmured, blinking at Gabi as he headed into the kitchenette and began gathering things.
At her questioning glance, he explained, “People don’t say hi to her like that. They say it sneering or with a laugh or something. Cause she’s a fox, y’know?”
Gabi frowned, judging those people hard. “She’s also a person.”
“I like you, Pride.” Gus grinned, a smile that lit his entire tanned face. “And Maisielovesyou. Sit down. I don’t have tea, but I’ve got cola. Will that do?”
“Thank you,” Gabi said politely and took a seat at the breakfast bar that separated his small kitchen from the living room—a carpeted square with a beaten up sofa, a TV, and a portable radiator. On top of the TV was a cheerful snowman teddy bear with blushing cheeks and a stuffed carrot nose. The whole place smelled of toast and lavender and some other sweet smell. A witch tonic, maybe.
There were certainly hallmarks of witchery in the flat. Gabi peered at an army of plastic cereal containers filled with herbs, fifteen of them lined along the kitchen counter with their contents scrawled in Sharpie. Their living, greener siblings filled the empty spaces of the apartment, plants dangling from airers and door hooks and draped around the cupboards. Despite her first impressions, Gabi found herself warming to the place.
Maisie made a sound in her throat, startling Gabi, but Gus only screwed the cap back on the coke bottle and laughed.
“There,” he said, crossing the room to shove the window open so Maisie could jump out onto the fire escape. “The joys of outside.”
He grabbed two glasses of coke from the kitchen worktop and said, without preamble, “I saw a woman run up the road, shifty-looking. With everything that’s happened, I paid attention. Our flat looks onto the main road through Agedale. That’s why I asked you to come here instead of going to yours, so you could see for yourself.”
Gabi was stunned for a second before she recovered and got out her notebook to write every detail down.
“I was sitting there, dicking about with job applications—contemplating how best to word mymanytalents—when a shadow caught my eye. Do you know how many people around here would be skulking around in a black hoodie? One. Me. Anyway, this hoodie-wearing person comes sprinting down the main road and disappears into the back streets behind the bakery. I can show you the direction she came from and where she went.”
Gabi got legit butterflies.
“How could you tell it was a woman?” she asked. “Or are you just saying that because you sensed the power on Freya’s body was from a woman?”
“No.” Gus shook his brown head and took a gulp of coke. “Tight hoodie. Boobs, bum, thighs. I’d say itcouldbe a trans guy, but since I’m the only pariah around here for being a different gender than I was born … definitely a woman.”
Gabi made no comment but felt a twist of anger inside. This backwards town and its bullshit discrimination.
