level. The only reason that old, crazy idiot can keep that thing with him is it’s enchanted.”
I groaned, leaning forward until my head nearly hit the table. Hawk was going to kill me, and things were already rocky. He already hated me. Now after Belinda and this, it was going to be even worse.
“Don’t worry about it. He can’t be too angry. He did sign up for this when he sent the finder for you. I mean, when the black feather landed on someone from Rest, you had to know it was going to get tricky.”
All my other thoughts vanished, as Zab’s words kicked them out so they could run through my head without distraction and take over. After they banged all around, I replayed them at a slow stroll. I let them sink in a little better, afraid I’d missed some nuance that would make sense of this.
When I finally straightened and turned to Zab, his eyelids slowly lowered until there were crinkles at the corners. “You didn’t know about that, did you?”
“No. I didn’t.”
That black feather he’d been staring at the first time I met him. It all made sense now. I’d chased after Hawk, nearly begging for help, and he’d been seeking me out from the beginning.
15
Another night of bad sleep, but this time it was fury that had kept me awake, in addition to the candle I could never put out. I’d been waiting for Hawk to walk in the office all day so I could ream him out, although I’d probably have to race Belinda to get to him first. Her mysterious illness gone, she was back at work. Every time the door opened, the two of us were the first to look over. She reminded me of a dog left at a kennel waiting for its owner. It was almost too pathetic to stomach. On the other hand, I probably appeared like the junkyard dog, ready to rip someone’s heart out of their chest after I’d mangled the rest of their body.
The worst was when we both caught the other staring at the door. Then it was some funky combination of awkward and anger.
“Belinda…”
“No.” She turned her head.
It was the fifth time I’d tried to speak to her today. She wouldn’t even let me apologize.
The door opened, and I didn’t look for once. I heard Belinda’s chair scrape the ground, and I still didn’t look.
I would’ve trampled him at the door but was beaten out by the stampede that was Belinda. She did her ritual shadowing-Hawk routine. The only thing that made it tolerable was that Hawk didn’t seem to notice her as much as he should’ve.
She shadowed him across the room to where Musso was flipping through some of the work, discussing weird things in hushed voices.
I was barely keeping my head from exploding as I sat and waited for my opportunity to strike. Didn’t know when that was going to happen, as Belinda was still tailing him, and Musso seemed to think he had something equally pressing. I crossed my arms, looking toward the windows and the witches and warlocks walking by, trying to hold my patience in check, the weight of which would strain an Olympic lifter.
“Is there a problem?” Hawk’s voice carried clear and loud across the room.
If he didn’t realize all the problems Belinda had by now, they were made for each other. The two of them were the same, birds of a feather, cut from the same cloth—the sayings could go on forever. Neither of them wanted to see a problem when it was right in their face. Nope. Just kept on going. He should throw in the towel and get hitched to her, because she wasn’t going to let daylight in between them anyway. He didn’t seem ready to really hammer home that point, though, so maybe he was more into her than it seemed?
“Tippi, is there an issue?”
I swung my head to him, surprised he was aware I was in the office, let alone noting that I was fuming so much I could’ve brewed tea on my forehead.
Belinda was twitching as she still hung as close as she could to him, only taking breaks from staring at his back to try to stare my existence right into hell. She didn’t realize it, but I was already there.
“Tippi?”
The rest of the room was watching, including customers, as Hawk’s attention was solely on me.
“Yes, actually, there is,” I said.
He detached himself from Musso and Belinda, and walked until