drained the milk into the sink, then tossed the cereal remnants into the trash can. Fluke brought me his empty bowl, and I set it in the sink, then leaned down to press my face into his neck. “Maybe you should just go now, then.” I said, looking up at Gideon. “If you can’t stick around, maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Sage, you know this isn’t that simple. I would love to stay and spend more time with you. I want to know you better. It just doesn’t work that—”
“Just get to spend enough time to make sure I’m good and attached, then you’ll leave. Well I’m not doing it, Gideon. I’m not getting any more attached to you.” I waved him away and refused to look up again until I heard his footsteps retreat.
I looked up, and I was alone again. As always.
Yes, fine, this time it was because I’d acted like a spoiled child and thrown a tantrum at a man who didn’t have a say in what happened. I headed out of the kitchen, thinking maybe I’d spend the day in bed whining to myself about how unfair life was, like a self-indulgent teenager.
My eyes lit on the pile of books from my father’s secret stash, and before my brain even connected what I was doing, I’d swept the lot of them across the table, onto the floor and all over the room.
Perfect end to a melodramatic tantrum.
If Iris’s books had been in a convenient spot, they’d have been next, but I couldn’t be bothered to gather them up.
I snatched the sleeping pills off the kitchen counter and went back to bed. Alone, as always.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fluke was dumping the damned athame on me again, and the cold weight of it in the center of my chest made it hard to breathe. This time we weren’t in the garden, and there was no Cheese or rhubarb, just Fluke dropping a dirty dagger on my chest.
I blinked over and over, trying to open my eyes properly, but they were so dry and gritty that everything looked like it was being reflected in a funhouse mirror.
Fluke stood over me, nose pressed against mine, big brown eyes distorted by the proximity of our faces.
I gasped for air and sat up, Fluke backing off and sitting in front of me.
Even after the athame dropped from my chest to my lap, it took me a moment to realize it was real.
I scowled up at my familiar. “No. Go put it back.”
He didn’t move.
“Dammit Fluke, I said no.” I pulled the blanket up so that the thing tumbled off my lap and into the space between us. “Isn’t it bad enough that Gideon’s leaving? Do you have to make shit worse?”
He whined and dropped his head, but still, he didn’t take the thing away. Instead, he reached down and nosed it in my direction.
My best response was, “Gah,” after which I turned away, curled into a fetal position, and tried to go back to sleep.
A second later, something hard and cold dropped in front of me again.
“No, Fluke,” I ground out, and burrowed deeper into the blanket. “Bad Fluke.”
He whined but pushed at my back anyway.
“Dammit!” I sat up, sending the dagger tumbling off the bed and onto the floor and Fluke hopping back.
He wasn’t put off for even a minute. The athame fell, and he jumped after it, picked it up, and dropped it in front of me again.
He was trying to be helpful, I told myself. He thought I could, I dunno, cast myself out of this mess. He didn’t understand that apparently everyone wanted to fucking murder me, and that Gideon leaving couldn’t be cured by magic.
But how had he found the athame at all? I’d buried it in the garden almost a decade before I met him. He’d never seen it. The Fluke in my dream had, sure, but—
Clearly, I didn’t understand the familiar bond yet, or how deep it ran. It must have actually been him in the vision. Or at least, he’d seen it, and known where to look.
I reached out and pulled him in close, ignoring the knife. “I know, buddy. I’m sorry I’m shitty company, just you know, someone’s gonna kill me.”
That was when I remembered Cheese. His lifeless body lying in the middle of the kitchen, where Alan had thrown him after killing him. Mom’s wild little house hellcat hadn’t gone quietly, though. Cheese had almost put one of Alan’s eyes out, leaving deep furrows down his face.