the front and unlocked it, looking at first Fluke and then Gideon. Gideon was staring at my father, so I knelt down next to Fluke. “How’d it go? You buy yourself some treats? Did they give you the right change?”
He turned his head so I could see the tiny pouch on his collar, which jingled with change. It had a dollar and some coins, and a receipt for the treats.
I leaned in, gave him a good scratch with both hands, and grinned. “Great job, buddy. I guess this means you deserve a treat, huh?”
Gideon snorted. “You’re gonna spoil that fox.”
“You’re the one who suggested it.”
“I suggested you have him buy something, not treats for himself.” Gideon looked at the bag, then me, eyes narrowed and shaking his head, like he was deeply disappointed with my lack of imagination.
Truth told, I simply didn’t have the money for Fluke to go out buying frivolous stuff. I shouldn’t have gotten more treats, but Gideon was right that Fluke needed training as much as I did, and letting him go out with a ghost was as good as a set of training wheels.
“Maybe next time,” I suggested. I figured Gideon had heard enough about my money woes. He didn’t need me to rehash them.
I stood, pretending my knees didn’t creak as I did. Gideon tipped his chin in my father’s direction. “What’s with him?”
I glanced only briefly at my father, then back at Gideon. “Apparently he knows all about the people who are murdering arcane mages. He thinks I should quit. Run away. Get rid of you and Fluke and go back to only pretending my life isn’t crap.”
Behind me, my father scoffed. “Your life was fine. You had a house. A job. Everything you needed.”
Gideon shook his head and pressed his palms into his eyes in frustration. “This man. He’s gonna kill me, and I’m already danged dead.”
“No, you’re going to kill him,” my father insisted, and it was the most overtly protective thing he’d said in my entire life. I turned and stared at him in surprise.
But Gideon’s next words flipped my whole world upside down.
“If he’d shown the talent when he was younger, were you gonna hand him over to them? Find them, offer him up? Maybe suggest you should get paid for doing their dirty work?”
My father didn’t answer, just turned and walked away.
My father.
I sat on the couch, staring into space, and forgot to turn on the open sign until the first customers came into the shop half an hour later. Gideon and Fluke sat next to me, one on either side, neither saying a word. Just being there.
Around eleven, when the early morning buyers had grabbed their new releases and gone, and I was back to sitting on the couch, this time with a book and Fluke curled up half on top of me, Gideon cleared his throat. I looked up at him, eyebrows up.
His head was down, eyes on his hands in front of him, and given the posture, I half expected his hat to be in his hands.
“You okay?” I asked.
He looked up at me, sharply. “Me? I’m—I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have said that to your father in front of you.”
“In front of me, huh?” I couldn’t help the tiny smile that curled my lips at that.
He gave a little shrug. “I think he’s got a lot to answer for, and I expect to find out what he’s up to. But you don’t have to be exposed to that.”
I reached out with my foot to nudge him, like I would do with Beez, and didn’t remember until my foot went through his thigh, well . . . yeah. “I’m not fragile, Gideon, and I already knew my father was an asshole. It’s on me, thinking for a minute that he actually cared about someone other than himself. Silly of me, since I never had any indication of it when he was alive.”
“Man’s as trustworthy as a train robber and as mean as a badger, but he was still your Pa.”
Gideon glanced back toward the office with annoyance, and I followed his gaze for a moment. I could picture the old man sitting there at his—my—office desk. Except, well, he still couldn’t sit. And that made me smile. “I don’t know, Gideon. I don’t think most people have the relationship I did with my father.”
“You mean no relationship?”
I closed my book and sat up to look him in the eye. “Yes. I didn’t even