7. The Father

Julian's face was lit only by the glow from his phone when Micah appeared in his doorway and tapped a knuckle against the wood. Julian jumped, his eyes flashing toward him like a comet trail, but he relaxed when their gazes met. Fionna opened one eye, saw Micah, and then lifted her head. Micah jutted his chin toward the door and she understood at once, standing up and pulling off her wolfskin. She gave Julian a hug around his neck and then thumped off the bed before scurrying past Micah and out of the room.

Julian leaned over to turn on the lamp on his bedside table. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Micah slipped inside the room, nodding. "Can we talk?"

"Is she still here?"

"Ingrid? Um. Yeah. She's talking to Andrew downstairs."

Julian stared at the open door, his throat bobbing as he swallowed silently. Micah suppressed a sigh, closing the door to the hall, trying to force himself into a mindset of patience. If he was going to have the conversation he wanted to have with his father, it wasn't going to help either of them if he already felt prepared to explode. When Julian's attention remained fixed on the doorknob, Micah's shoulders sagged, but he pushed in the lock. It's not like a locked door would keep Ingrid out if she wanted in, anyway.

Noticing his reaction, Julian's expression darkened. "It's the illusion of safety, Micah."

"Right." Micah nodded. "Sorry." He crossed to Julian's bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress until Julian beckoned him up to his pillows. Julian helped him with a hand on his elbow in the sling until Micah scooted his back against the headboard and let out a long sigh.

"What are we talking about?" asked Julian, plugging the charger into his phone and setting it on the table.

"Me," Micah sighed.

"What else is—" Julian cut himself off before he finished the quip. He swallowed. "And?"

"And us. And me being…not human."

"You know that isn't news to me," Julian said with a wry smile.

Micah bonked their elbows together. "That's not where I was going with this."

"All right. Enlighten me."

Micah lifted his arm out of the sling so he could lay his hand across his lap, as if somehow getting more comfortable would make this easier. He rubbed his fingers against his eyes. "Do you ever imagine that life as an architect?" Micah asked.

Julian laughed humorlessly. He didn't say anything, staring at his hands, picking at his fingernail so it snapped off past the quick, a dot of blood rising from the nailbed. "What?" Julian raised one bushy black brow as he wiped the blood off on his shirt.

"You told me when I was a kid that you wanted to be an architect."

"Did I?" Julian let out a laugh like the puff of air from a book closing. "I don't know. What's the point? That dream belonged to someone who doesn't exist anymore."

"Yeah," Micah said quietly. "That version of you has a nice boring family, too."

"Oh, come on, Micah. You're plenty boring." Julian grinned, pinching Micah's cheek when he scoffed at him.

Micah picked up his father's hand speckled with dark spots and inspected his fingers. Several more of Julian's nails were short and scabbed, and most of his cuticles were torn back. "I think you play pretend as much as I do, Dad."

Julian let him hang onto his hand for a moment before pulling it out of his grip. "What else are we supposed to do?"

"I was actually hoping we could be honest tonight," Micah said carefully. "I can't keep…I don't want to keep up this pretense anymore."

Picking at another fingernail with a shaking hand, Julian pulled his knees up toward his chest, grabbing an extra pillow from between them so he could hug it.

Taking his silence as an invitation, Micah said, "You've always treated me so kindly, Dad. But I…I wish for a life for you where you never went near the Redwoods. And I know I wouldn't exist then. And that's part of the problem. I'm an integral part of your destruction."

Julian chewed on his fingertip so hard that there was an audible crunch. He winced, and his eyes darted toward the bottle of pills on his nightstand, but he didn't reach for it.

When Julian was silent for long enough that he wasn't planning to reply, Micah said with a plea making his voice thinner, "Dad."

"You're the child," Julian said hurriedly, blinking against moisture that gleamed among his thick black lashes. "It's never the child's fault." He swiped the back of his hand across his nose and angled himself to face Micah. "I know they treated you poorly, too. I know they called you halfling when you're actually a prince."

Tears jumped into Micah's eyes. Julian's abrupt departure from the deflection and the avoidance caught him off guard, especially since he was exactly right. Even the Folk like Sivarthis who allowed Micah to enter their sphere of influence did so only to belittle him and to elevate themselves.

Brushing Micah's eyes dry with his knuckles, Julian said, "I know you endured their cruelty with a smile to protect me. You were always better than them. You've always been so brave."

Better than them. The statement triggered a long-held worry, a bitter truth between Micah and his father that finally needed to be spoken. Spoken while they were both horribly sober. He'd endured the cruelty of the Folk with a smile, but he'd endured Julian's criticism of them with a smile, too. That needed to end.

Stomach lurching, he said carefully, "I wanted to be human for you for a long time." Micah dried his eyes, swallowed thickly, and said, "I can't keep doing that. It's dangerous, to all of us. I'm not human. Not entirely. And I want to live a life where I can proudly be my whole self."

They sat facing each other, motionless, at an impasse. Experiences from their last twenty-two years living together in Minnesota crowded into the space between them. Having to choose their new name for their new life, which was demanding and terrifying and frequently one misstep away from homelessness and ruin. Yet Micah suspected that his desperation lent them a hand. How many times did he create opportunities for him and his father with the aid of a bit of unintentional Fae charm? Why else would their first landlord have let them rent an apartment with nonexistent credit, no identification, and no jobs for either of them? How else could Micah have gotten into community college with claims of "homeschooling" and absolutely no grasp on formal education? It only made sense that they limped through those first few years in Minnesota because nobody could say no to Micah. It only made sense like this when Micah finally turned his attention toward it, rather than gritting his teeth and looking away, accepting it dismissively with a comment of "I'm just glad it worked out."

And yet, during Julian's sixth, eighth, tenth hospitalization, Micah realized that he had to deny everything about his Fae nature if he was going to keep his father alive. That ended up being the only relief for Julian.

"I'm sorry," Julian said. "I know I've held you back."

Micah reached for his hand. "Dad…"

Squeezing Micah's hand and clapping it between his own, Julian said, "No, no. It's okay. I let you indulge me. That stuff has been nice, hasn't it? Decorating Christmas trees and going grocery shopping and watching baseball games."

"Well, yeah. I love our family traditions."

"We're refugees from the Redwoods but damn it if we haven't become genuine Minnesotans since then, right?"

Micah frowned. "Wait. Are you trying to say that this is some kind of trade-off? Honest discussion about what we've been through means no more…normal life?"

Julian frowned back at him. "I suppose I thought that's what you meant."

"No. Not at all." Micah shook his head hard enough that he noticed a migraine rattling behind his eye. "I don't actually want anything we do to change, Dad. Just how we acknowledge things."

"That's a relief."

"I mean, come on. Fionna's gonna love the State Fair."

"As long as she doesn't eat the livestock," said Julian. They both giggled, their laughter very much the same in its melodious tumble.

As the sound faded with Micah's smile, he said more seriously, "I…didn't think you'd handle this conversation as well as you are. I thought it would end in a fight or a meltdown."

Julian's throat bobbed. He thought for a few minutes, gazing toward the ceiling. His hands remained still in his lap; he left his cuticles alone. "The Redwoods feel further away tonight," said Julian, nodding toward his window smeared with aloe vera. "Whatever you did with your staff and the aloe was very soothing."

"Oh. Really?" Micah glanced dubiously at his ward. It was hardly sophisticated magic.

"Your magic always brings more beauty and life wherever you go," said Julian. "It's the complete opposite of what…" His tongue flicked over his slender red lips. "Of what your mother did with her power."

Micah felt warmth bloom behind his sternum and spread through his veins as he beamed at his father. "Dad, that means the world to me."

"But don't get me wrong. I am freaking out and I will need more Seroquel than usual after this." He laughed, the sound a little too pressured as he leaned his head against the wall and hugged the pillow tightly enough that it folded in half.

"Okay." Looping the sling back over his shoulder so he could sit criss-crossed and face Julian more fully, Micah said, "Then I'll say this next part quickly."

Julian hummed with displeasure, narrowing his eyes and glaring across the room.

"Ingrid is not the same as the Redwood Queen," Micah blurted. "You hurt me when you treat her like she is."

Unmoving, Julian didn't reply. After a moment, he lifted another finger toward his mouth, but stopped when Micah reached to intercept him. They were a tableau of a habitual exchange: Julian threatening to come apart, Micah ready with a needle and thread to sew him back up. Julian said with a tremble in his voice, "You don't understand."

"Then help me."

"I don't want to talk about her."

"Dad," Micah pressed. "She's important to me."

"I don't want to talk about her!" Julian exclaimed. He groped for his bottle of pills and spun the top off, dropping two yellow tabs into his hand. He closed them in his shaking fist without taking them, eyes gleaming, chest heaving.

"Come on!" Micah said. "It's not her fault she looks like—"

"No," interrupted Julian. "It's because I remember everything." He spoke the words with a voice as frayed as a severed electrical cord, sparking and ready to shock if you touched it. Large teardrops formed in the corners of his eyes, his lips pulled tight with grief and torment. He repeated in a whisper, "Everything."

Micah's mouth dropped open. He sat in stunned silence for a moment. "What? You've always said it's like trying to remember a dream."

"Because I wished that were true," Julian said around a sob. "I wish I didn't remember. But every morning in the Redwoods, I'd wake up sober with the guilt and the shame and know that the nightmare was real. My friends were murdered, and the Queen charmed me and raped me every single day. Every day." Tears dribbled down his cheeks as he rolled the pills between his fingers. "My body was in rapture," he continued quietly, "while I watched helplessly from some cognizant corner of my mind. Screaming the whole time."

"Oh my god, Dad," Micah said, crying, covering his mouth. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Because we were pretending," said Julian with his cheeks soaked and his eyes filled with more and more tears. He hiccupped and held his forehead with his bleeding fingers, plunging his hand into his hair and gripping the silky strands by the roots. "You smiled and laughed and told me we were free. I wanted that to be true so, so badly. So I told myself the Redwoods were a dream. Even when she took me back, and you and Andrew and Chamomile rescued me."

Micah's stomach flipped. "You know about that?"

"Of course," wept Julian, muffled as he hugged the pillow against his face. "It's what I wanted to happen. I wanted to be back there. I wanted to feel that good again."

"Dad…" Micah covered his eyes with his hand, shaking so much his shoulder ached and oozed blood that was hot and sticky under his bandaging. "I can't believe this. No…no wonder you've been so miserable for so long. I'm so sorry."

Julian stretched his hand toward Micah's, who quickly clasped their hands together, palms clammy, fingers shaking. They held hands unspeaking while Julian hid his face and cried into the pillow, but not the way he did before he lost control. It was the sound of long-held grief like a thorn embedded in his heart, piercing sinew and viscera, but now it was dislodged. It might be bleeding, but the wound was cleansed, ready to heal again.

Julian lifted his head, sniffing, his hazelnut complexion red as the skin of an apple around his puffy eyes. "Chami gave me something," he said, picking up a tissue box, pulling out a clump of tissues and then handing the box to Micah. "In the car after she got me out. I think it made the cravings more manageable. Kind of like a nicotine patch or something." He dried his face and blew his nose. "And learning about Andrew's mom, how she struggled too, that was a comfort."

Micah sat in stunned silence, eyes round and staring. He remembered their return to Andrew's Saturn in the mushroom circle, with Chamomile and the cats guarding Julian's sleeping form. She'd had plenty of time with him, and put him to sleep somehow. It was well within her capabilities to produce some kind of…remedy, and it was well within her nature to keep that information to herself. But still—she'd just let everyone quietly heal without any idea that was why Julian had been doing so much better. No more hospitalizations, no more violent outbursts. All thanks to that tricky little goblin.

"Holy shit," Micah finally said.

"Chami's one of the best unhinged psychopaths I've ever met, and I met a lot of psychopaths in the Redwoods," said Julian. "You remember Root? God, he was insane. But he would sneak me a bowl of mushroom soup every Friday because he knew I was obsessed with it."

Micah managed a hard blink. "Dad, this is blowing my mind."

Julians shrugged.

"Like, what the hell?"

"I'm surprised you thought you were the only one lying through your teeth all these years, Micah." Julian kept up his dismissive attitude, smiling faintly before he reached out to ruffle Micah's hair.

"Yeah…guess that's on me." Micah finally released a sigh. "You're something else, Dad."

Julian slung his arm around Micah's neck. "But if you're wanting me to be honest, Micah, then I need you to know that Ingrid and I might always be like this."

Disappointment settled like a stone in Micah's stomach. He shut his eyes.

"Yes, it's worse because she looks so much like her mother. Maybe I ought to work on that trauma response." His voice warbled, but he took a fortifying breath as he set the two pills back on his nightstand and pinched his nose. "But that's not all of it." His arm trembled under Micah's cheek. "It's because she was a grown adult when I was kidnapped as a teenager. She led the hunt that murdered all my friends. She looked away when they put me back in a cage after the Queen had her fill of me."

Micah cringed. He didn't even remember this version of Ingrid. When he was a child, he only remembered how she shielded him from the Queen and her court. All of her compassion went to Micah, and skipped over Julian.

"When someone is complicit in your suffering, that wound makes a very ugly scar. I am confident that she understands that. I am sure she expects nothing better than terror and resentment from me." Julian caught fresh tears on his face with a tissue.

Micah burrowed into the warmth of Julian's arm, hand over his face, his lips and cheeks trembling despite his efforts to keep his composure. "Okay," he whispered. "I understand."

Julian stroked Micah's green locks, tugging his blankets out from under them and tucking Micah in. "But we will have an armistice for your wedding, honey. I love you too much to even dare ruin that day for you."

Micah shimmied under the covers to lay on his uninjured shoulder, sniffing, dabbing at his face. "Dad?"

After switching off the lamp, Julian uncapped his pill bottle and returned the tablets, where they clacked quietly into their neighbors in the bottle. Then he rolled to face Micah and laid his hand on his cheek. "Son?"

"Thanks. For talking."

Julian snorted. Then his expression grew more serious, the lines deepening on his forehead and around his mouth as he pursed his lips. "It felt good. Being honest." He combed his fingers through Micah's soft hair like he was trying and failing to imagine him having anything but the leafy, summer hue.

Overwhelmed by the comforting gesture, and the weightlessness where their pretense and unspoken pain once dragged them down, Micah's eyes slid shut as he let out a shuddering breath. "It feels amazing, Dad."

Leaving Ingrid curled up on the couch with her cheeks rosy from the whiskey, Andrew crept up the creaky stairs to the middle landing belonging to Julian. No light showed under the crack in the door, and no voices carried out. He padded to the doorway and tried the doorknob, but it was locked. He could almost imagine Julian requesting that if he knew Ingrid was still in the house. But still, that worried part of himself needed to confirm that father and son were safe. He pulled the curl of wire off from its resting place on a framed picture of Micah in the black robes and maroon sash for his MBA graduation ceremony. Fumbling with the wire in the hole of the doorknob, Andrew listened until the lock popped open and then quietly opened the door, peering into the dimness of the bedroom. He was reassured by the two shapes in the bed, and anyway Micah's hair practically glowed in the dark. Andrew was about to close the door again when Cinnamon's billowy tail flicked against his leg as the large ginger tomcat trotted confidently into the bedroom and jumped on the bed to nestle between Julian and Micah's legs. Andrew rolled his eyes at the cat's brazen confidence and left the door cracked as he retreated to the stairs.

Up in Micah's room, Andrew turned on his laptop at the corner desk. Micah had stolen it one day last winter and plastered its hitherto tidy and stickerless surface with several Pride stickers, a To a Tea logo, and a sticker Andrew had barely allowed that said COCKNEY CODER, even though Micah knew that wasn't Andrew's accent. While he waited for it to boot, he piled his hair in a bun and secured it with Ingrid's magic black hair tie.

As a little girl, Fionna stirred in the middle of the bed and sat up. She wiped sleep from her eyes and drool from her cheek. "Safe and comfy," she said, wrapping herself in one of Micah's knit blankets.

"Yeah," said Andrew with a smile. "Is your head okay?"

"I have thick skull." She grinned.

"That was a good sentence," Andrew told her. "But don't skip your articles. I have ‘a' thick skull."

"You are a pain."

Andrew's mouth dropped open. "I beg your pardon, little lady!"

Fionna giggled maniacally. "The videos on phone said that."

"Of course. I knew letting you use my phone was a mistake."

"Not a mistake." Fionna put Micah's blanket in her mouth before catching herself and dropping it, plucking a fuzz from her tongue. "Best choice ever."

"Uh-huh." He looked back at the computer, chewing his lip, opening a browser but not sure what he was wanting to do. It was good that Micah was back to sleep, safe with his father. It was good that the house was warded. But was it enough? These witches…the threat they posed just seemed to keep growing.

He looked sidelong at Fionna. "How come you knew the witches were in Micah's dream?"

She paused. Then she climbed off the bed and padded over to him, clambering onto the desk and plopping next to the monitor. "Different magic. Mine. Micah's like a garden. Ingrid's like stars. Yours, like library." Andrew raised an eyebrow. She shuddered. "Theirs dark, eats things. I woke up tasting it. It was like…" She blew a raspberry and pinched her nose, making a face like she smelled something foul.

"Understood," said Andrew, nodding. What an odd thought that he and a faoladh seemed to have the same sense for magic, that it often had a smell or taste.

Fionna picked up a stapler on the desk and shot off a few staples, eyes growing round and inquisitive. Scoffing, Andrew took it from her and set it on the other end of the desk, blocking her arm when she reached for it. He handed her a stress ball shaped like a brain instead, which she immediately put in her mouth.

"What about the girl we met at the library yesterday?" asked Andrew, getting a sudden idea.

Fionna shrugged and spat out the stress ball onto Andrew's arm. "Hers small, but white. Like the moon."

Andrew nodded, wiping off her drool and gazing thoughtfully at his screen. He tried to shift gears, pulling up some wedding sites to generate some idea of what they could do on a month's notice. He knew what he wanted to wear and that Chamomile was procuring what Micah wanted, and Andrew had already figured out what he wanted to do for the ritual during the ceremony. So many of the other details were negligible; even if they decided to get married tomorrow, they could still pull off something beautiful. But right now, it felt like he was trying to carry a bouquet in his arms while walking a tightrope over a volcano. Balancing these two polarized spaces in his head made a migraine stab through his eye.

Standing again, he went to the side of the bed closest to the bathroom. After gently setting aside the golden mulberry leaf necklace, Andrew picked up Micah's phone. He weighed it in his hand like he was weighing his options, chewing on his fingernail.

Not long before daybreak, Ingrid returned to the bluffs. "Call me back the moment something goes wrong," Ingrid told Fionna, standing back and in Micah's room as she shrugged into her black jacket. She pulled her hair out of her collar and looked over at Andrew. "Are you okay?"

Andrew blinked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Am I okay?"

Ingrid nodded with a slight sigh. "I know after Micah was stabbed while you were gone, I felt unsafe and disturbed for quite a while, especially after the initial shock wore off."

"That's so empathetic," he said warmly, even though she cut him a dirty look. Sitting back in the desk chair with a squeak, Andrew gazed out the windows, where a touch of indigo painted the sky near the horizon. "No, I suppose I'm not okay," he said. "Vengeance is all I can think about. And these dumb little bitches keep escalating, and they keep targeting Micah."

Ingrid stepped into his line of sight on silent feet. Fionna scampered across the floor to cling to her waist with fear flickering across her round, feral features. Stroking the girl's braids with her long fingers, Ingrid said softly, "This is the type of feud that made my mother what she was. Greed driving humans to try to steal our Fae magic, jealous that they themselves can't possess the wellspring of natural power that we do." She shook her head. "Micah is a far greater creature than my mother. What we must protect the most viciously from them, though, is his loving heart." Her ruby eyes flashed when she glanced sidelong at Andrew, the icy expression on her face reminiscent of the version of herself that wrought terrible fear in him for five years before they made peace. She added in a deep, expressionless whisper, "They will pay handsomely enough for making him bleed. But if they break his heart, I will raze this city to the ground." She inclined her head to him with cruel delight glowing in her gaze before she stepped out of Fionna's grasp and vanished into the shadows.

Andrew cocked his head, shuddering. "Well, that was terrifying."

Fionna stood blinking in confusion at the space Ingrid had occupied, whining. Andrew tugged her by her heart pajamas and sat her on his lap so he could hug her. "All right, little pup. We need a few hours of sleep, hm?"

She hopped off his knee, pulled on her wolfskin, and jumped on Micah's bed. The shaggy wolf turned in three full circles before curling up in a ball and shutting her eyes with a huffing sigh. Andrew tried to manifest her easy relaxation as he shut off his lamp, set an alarm on his phone that was probably earlier than it needed to be, and pulled the covers up to his chin. But the bed felt wrong without Micah, even if he was safe downstairs with his father. Andrew lay staring out the window while the wolf snored softly by his feet, every so often moving closer to him until she was nestled behind his knees.

Sleep eluded him. Every time his eyes slipped closed, it was to the image of Micah's seeping wound and the haunted look on his face. Sighing, he rolled onto his back, gazing at the pothos vines hanging from hooks across the ceiling. When dawn started to brighten the room, he surrendered the night as a failure and sat up. For a few minutes, he simply stroked Fionna's bony head and her soft furred ears, and then he climbed out of bed. He gave her a reassuring smile when she peered at him through one barely opened eye. He gathered an armful of clothes he brought with him from the wardrobe he'd forced Micah to allow him to organize. Shutting himself in the bathroom, he took a scalding hot shower that lasted mere minutes before quickly toweling off, braiding his soaked hair, and dressing in jeans and one of Micah's hooded sweatshirts inside the humid bathroom.

Back in the bedroom, he sent several texts to Sam and called him twice. Both times, the call rang once before he was sent to voicemail. Sam had been distant lately anyway, but after he appeared to murder Micah in his dream, ignoring Andrew was frustrating, and somewhat ominous. He went downstairs, checking that Micah and Julian were how he'd left them hours earlier, which they were. In the vestibule by the front door, Andrew put on an acid wash beanie also belonging to Micah and then pulled up the sweatshirt hood over it. He yanked on his winter boots, slipped into his pea coat, grabbed his keys out of the bowl where everyone kept theirs, and let himself outside. If Sam was going to ignore his messages, then Andrew was more than happy to get in his face.

He was thinking about a hot cup of tea the whole walk down Saint Claire, through the intersection bustling with weekday rush hour, and up to the black and white sign for Magic's. He almost wiped out on a patch of ice from runoff from the red awning, making a mental note to throw some salt down on his way back to the brownstone.

Taped to the shop door was a sign that read:

CLOSED TODAY

EMAIL FOR INQUIRIES ON EXISTING ORDERS

Andrew scowled at it. He rounded to the back door in the parking lot. In front of the heavy steel outside door, he checked that his runes etched into the brick were intact. It wouldn't be a bad idea to add some Ogham symbols to the Norse marks. When he opened the door, the little bell still jingled against the metal to ward off evil. Only faintly satisfied, he let himself into the apartment at the top of the stairwell.

With his hands in his jacket pockets, he kicked off his boots. He did a superficial search of the apartment, mentally identifying and cataloging the items as Sam's, and didn't sense any festering darkness that might account for Sam murdering Micah in a dream.

Everything felt and looked normal, quiet, and underwhelming. Over the last six months, Sam had gotten more comfortable adding his own personal décor to the apartment. There was a bit more color, and a few more nerdy posters. He'd gotten a bookshelf he'd put behind the couch in the living room, and Andrew noticed proudly the abundance of coding languages and programming guides scattered among graphic novels and queer romances. A spider plant sat on a television tray by the window. And no offense to Sam's plant care, but it certainly showed the contrast between Micah's preternaturally green thumb and a normal person.

Andrew checked in with Arwen, sitting next to the cat on his couch and stroking her spine for a few minutes in silence. She purred softly, relaxed as ever, her feathery tail thumping against the couch cushion. As the thumping got louder, and she started to get up to find somewhere that she wouldn't be annoyed, Andrew left her with a muttered apology.

If Sam wasn't home, there was no reason to linger at the apartment when there were things to be done at the brownstone. He left the living room and crossed the creaky floor toward the door past the kitchen. Andrew paused, looking down at the kitchen counter. Sitting on the countertop was a scrawled note on a cat-themed notepad.

Impromptu road trip with some friends, gonna work extra this weekend. Sorry I didn't stop by but I figured it'd be fine.

Sam

Dropping onto a bar stool, Andrew groaned and rubbed his temples. Something about Sam conveniently quitting town felt more than coincidental. But Sam would never truly betray them. He hoped. He thought with a flame of guilt and anger how Sam had reacted when Andrew told him off for talking to Cirrus. Sam had kept such a strange position in their lives since he joined Andrew at Magic's, first as an assistant, then as a coworker, and now as a friend. But things shifted significantly when Andrew and Micah got together.

Andrew had hated when friends did that to him in his miserable single life. Sam dated off and on, casually, since Andrew had met him, but nothing he settled into. To not be bothered by someone vanishing into a relationship, one had to be either very apathetic, or vapidly joyful, and Sam was neither.

Andrew picked back up his phone.

He sighed and stood up, arms crossed, looking around the living room in silence. He refilled Arwen's food and water dish. Andrew touched his hands to Sam's books, touched the coffee-stained mug on the counter by the kitchen, and touched the doorway into Sam's room. He didn't have Micah's ability to set up wards with just a smear of aloe, but he wanted to remind the space that it was safe and belonged also to Andrew.

Disturbed, but unable to pinpoint what bothered him, Andrew locked up and headed back to the brownstone to meet his shortly arriving guest.