Phantom of the Library - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,58
you. This is my home. You came here a week ago.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You were escaping your master. You don’t remember?”
She paused. “I guess I do remember.”
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I said. “It’s okay. You can pretend to forget while you’re here.”
She gave me a tiny, grateful smile. “My warlock never…hurt me or anything. He doesn’t even like me very much. Just so you know.”
I one hundred percent doubted this, even if the hurt was just psychological.
“Well, you need to recover,” I said. “So don’t worry about anything. Let your body heal.”
The only trouble with that plan?
Those covenants. I had already seen Piers Nicolescu force Chester back to his side.
“Bevan…” Her hand suddenly patted my own hand. “You’ve been taking care of me?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re a familiar…”
“Yes. This is Etherium, my home. You were a Sinistral familiar, but you’ve come here to restart your life. You just need to get your strength back.”
“Your house is lovely,” she said.
“Thanks. I am pretty proud of it. My witch works on historical houses for a living, so every time I see something in a house I like, I conjure it up in my own house. The fireplace is from a Tudor bungalow and the stained glass was from a Baltimore row house.”
“How long can I stay here?” She looked at me with hopeful big brown eyes.
If I cleaned her up, she wouldn’t be bad looking, I thought. I wouldn’t mind…
My brain fuzzed, hitting the brakes. I was not going to clean her up. And I definitely wasn’t going to do more than that either. I was very happy in my role as a familiar, and traditional familiars didn’t get involved. We shouldn’t even really have a sex drive, it seemed to me, because new familiars were born alongside witches, not because familiars had to procreate to continue their race. There was no biological imperative. And yet…
I cleared my throat. “Let me whip up some dumplings. I have vegetable broth kept warm for you to eat when you woke up, but you could use some substance.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Just Bevan.”
Flour, eggs, baking powder, a dash of dried herbs and salt…the dumplings went in the pot and cooked within seconds. Jenny was watching me from her bed, still looking too weak and pained to move, but her eyes were bright.
“I can sit up,” she said, planting her palms on the bed and trying to muster up any strength to move her arms.
I narrowed my eyes. “No. I really don’t think so.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll bolster your head with some pillows and let’s just get the soup in you. Sitting up is a task for later.”
She gave me what was, objectively, the sweetest little smile anyone had ever given. “I just don’t like being helpless. When I feel better I could—I could keep house for you, maybe?”
“I don’t think I need a housekeeper.” I paused. “One day at a time.”
“I make wonderful pastries,” she said. “It’s sort of my specialty.”
“Pastries, huh?”
“Mm-hmm. All kinds. Strawberry shortcake, flan, key lime pie, linzertorte…”
“Linzertorte…we used to have that when we were kids…” Who knew a toad would be such a temptress.
I carefully filled a spoon and put it to her lips. This was not the way I usually spent my time. I was just glad she had survived the ordeal. The poultices must have helped after all, which meant I had saved her life. Not to sound arrogant about it. It felt strange to save someone’s life, like I had a certain responsibility now. I couldn’t just let her wander off into Etherium
“It smells nice here,” she murmured. “Like herbs.”
“That’s because I’ve been making healing potions to help you.”
“Healing! How exciting! Could you show me? I know how to cook and clean already so I’d guess it’s not that hard. Then I could heal you if you were ever hurt.”
You’re not staying here anyway, I thought.
My head just nodded like an idiot. “It’s easy to do. But I never get hurt.”
“I never get hurt either,” she said, like she was trying to convince me of her usefulness.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I just think it seems wonderful to have one’s own house and garden with a fire and make potions.”
“You don’t have your own home? Not in Sinistral? That would be unusual. Most familiars have their own home in the magical realm. And it’s just there waiting for us when we’re born. We conjure it out of our heads. Humans have to build their houses and sometimes