Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

She tried not to let Pod know anything was wrong once she got back to her place. And with good reason, because the moment Pod managed to snatch her phone from her and figure out what had happened, things went pretty badly. He ran around the house yelling, murder beefhead , scooping up weapons as he went. She found herself having a standoff with a raccoon clutching a toilet brush, while the rest of the house seemed to go nuts. All the lights switched on and off repeatedly, as though she were in a very weird nightclub. And the now sentient TV didn't help—it blared one chorus after another from songs that declared death to monstrous liars, cheaters, and thieves.

Most of which were, unfortunately, really catchy. She found herself singing along to Olivia Rodrigo at one point. Fake microphone in hand, dance moves on point, Pod jigging away behind her, as she made her way through the kitchen.

She only stopped when she saw what was on the magnetic notepad, attached to the fridge door. All in careful, slightly shaky handwriting: I'm so sorry, my darling. Like someone who wasn't quite there had written it. And of course she knew who the someone was. Her grandmother. Her grandmother, who had seen that she was hurting, even as she danced.

Even though she didn't want to be, anymore. She wanted to be like marble, the way she had been before. Impervious to him and any of his actions, uncaring of what he thought. But of course there was no chance of that now. He'd dissolved all her defenses. And he'd done it with such precision, such attention to detail, that it was kind of breathtaking, really.

He'd even made sure to go beyond the mating bond.

To say enough to persuade her into confessing her indisputably real desires.

And oh, that thought took the wind out of her. She sat down hard in one of the kitchen chairs, and couldn't seem to get back up again for a long, long time. She just stared into space, until finally Pod dropped the toilet brush. He crept over to her, and put his little hand over hers.

Mom okay? he said.

She couldn't answer, however. Her throat was too full of tears.

S HE DID HER best not to think about it. But thinking about it was all her brain wanted to do. It went over and over everything he'd said and done, trying to piece together the plan he must have had all along. And every time she thought she had satisfied her mind with explanations— that was done to convince me of this, and this was the reason he tried that —her mind wanted more.

Worse, it wouldn't let go of the version of him she had grown so close to.

A day later she answered the door to find what looked like a walking, talking coat, scarf, and hat, and her first thought wasn't what the fuck am I looking at? It was God, Seth would find this hysterical. He would say it's exactly like that scene in a movie when the evil gremlins try to disguise themselves as a person. And he'd have been right.

Although maybe not about the evil gremlins part. Whatever was rustling around inside that human disguise definitely did not seem bad. It seemed soft-spoken and sort of apologetic. "Good day, madam witch," it said. "So sorry to trouble you at this late hour."

Even though it wasn't a late hour at all. It was still morning.

However, she supposed it might be midnight from the perspective of whatever was under the coat. Considering it could be absolutely anything. A being from another dimension, or several beings from another dimension, or a number of talking owls stacked on top of each other.

She couldn't be sure. And it seemed impolite to ask.

So instead she said, "No trouble at all. How can I help you?"

Because help felt like something she could offer. Something that she still had in her, no matter what Seth had taken away. I am still a whole witch, with a burgeoning desire to care for supernatural creatures , she told herself. And it was true. She felt it burning anew, the moment the creature answered.

"You very kindly left an offer when you borrowed my essence of dragon scale. And as I find myself with something of an issue, I felt it might be an appropriate time to take your good self up on it," it said, and she grasped what the issue was before it had even finished speaking.

She heard it in her head, clearer than her witch sense had ever been before. They want a corporeal body that is visible to humans , she thought. Instead of having to employ this invisible-man act . And after she had she realized two things: what was under there wasn't actually a physical being or beings. And the way to fix this was easy.

She would make them a shape to inhabit.

"Would you like to seem human, or like something else?" she asked, then watched as that scarf twitched into something like a smile.

"The former please," they said.

So she stuffed down her heartbreak, and set to work.

She captured some smoke in a vial, and threw it into her biggest pot. Then added some plastic wrap to hold the form, and a little flour to give it body, and a few other ingredients that would make the shape easy to slip into and out of. And finally, she brought the concoction to a boil. A good, roiling boil, until the whole thing made a sound like someone popping bubblegum.

Done, she thought as she grabbed a jar to pour it into.

"At four in the afternoon exactly, open it up and drink," she told the being, once she had sealed it up nice and tight. Then she handed it over. She watched it take what she had made in a gloved hand that wasn't really there.

Before it ambled off her porch, in the direction of the woods.

But just as she was thinking, well, that was a good distraction —and that possibly she could distract herself with these sorts of good deeds forever—the creature turned. "Your wolf was right to speak so highly of you. I shall most certainly be recommending your services to the rest of the community," it said.

And then somehow she was right back to square one.

S HE KIND OF thought by the next day she would be past square one. Especially when it became obvious that her last visitor had stayed true to his word. She had another visitor sometime in the afternoon—a troll named, inexplicably, Derek, who kept her busy with a potion for curing spontaneous nipple growth.

Only keeping herself busy didn't seem to matter.

And not just because of what the non-corporeal being had said. Because of other things too, lots of things, weird things that shouldn't have nagged at her, but did nonetheless. Like all of his soft expressions. And the super-sincere things he'd said. And how difficult it would have been for him to fake his kindnesses.

Because of course he must have faked them, if everything had been leading up to some final trap. But dear god, how? she found herself thinking, in her weakest moments. And even stranger: those moments didn't feel weak. They felt convincing. Compelling. Sensible.

She just couldn't fathom why. She was used to being skeptical and paranoid and anxious about everything Seth did. To always imagine another prank was coming, or wonder if now was the moment that cool indifference would return.

Because that was what usually made sense.

That was the version of events that had always won out in her mind.

But for some reason, that version was losing. Inexplicably, bizarrely, it was losing. Like he hadn't left in the middle of the night. Like he couldn't have left of his own accord. Like she'd never seen that text message. Or had seen it, but could somehow get around it.

Impossible , the old part of her brain said.

But for the first time, another part answered back.

You realize it's entirely possible that they faked it, don't you?

And of course she laughed. She told Pod, and he laughed too. Then the microwave and the TV joined in. The latter even played a funny bit from Friends , looping the audience laugh track over and over. Which should have pretty much put an end to such thinking forever.

In fact it did, for a little while.

Until she crawled under the bedsheets at far too early a time to sleep. And caught just a hint of Seth on the pillow next to hers. She saw his face in her mind's eye—the moment when he'd turned and looked at her after they'd had sex. That strong sense that he was going to say he wanted to stay, before she'd told him he should probably go.

And it hit her like a lightning bolt.

They didn't circumvent your magic. They used magic against you. They made you see what they knew you're still unsure about, no matter how much you believe you are brilliant and bright and the best: that he doesn't. That deep down, he bought into their bullshit. And it was only a matter of time before he let the truth slip or played a trick or tried to make you feel like high school all over again.

Even though high school is over now.

Though she still had no idea what to do once those electric thoughts were there. She raced downstairs in such a fury that Pod peeped his head out of his cupboard. What do, he chittered. What happen? While she rifled through the guidebook for an answer.

Something like how to see through an illusion, she thought. But there was nothing, there was nothing—as if illusions like that didn't exist. There was no magical amulet the Jerks could have used, no all-powerful staff that made you see things that weren't real. It was useless, utterly useless, and to the point where she set everything aside. She put her face in her hands, suddenly unsure of the reason she had believed this was anything but him betraying her.

And that was when she felt Pod's little hand on hers.

He tapped her gently. Then pointed at the page the guidebook had fallen open to.

Dad good, he said. Good good good.

So she looked, and there it was.

Seth's handwriting, under a bunch of words about how long it took to master flying.

OMG, he'd written. It only took you a day. You are AMAZING.

And suddenly her eyes were full of tears, and her heart was running away with her, and all she could think was you believed because he spent every second of the last month making all your fears unfounded, all your terror of hoping seem so sad, all your worries that something is wrong turn out so wonderfully that you've forgotten what wrong even is. He has tipped the scales back to it being okay to trust in something, singlehandedly.

And he did without even thinking you would ever see.

Then suddenly she knew exactly how to figure this out. As if it had only been uncertainty that held her back. But now that was gone, and the answer was so clear she didn't hesitate. She grabbed her bike from the hall, pedaled into town, and burst into Nancy's shop like a woman possessed. And she barely even paused when Nancy asked why she was in her pajamas and what on earth had happened and, "Oh gosh, should I call the police?"

She just showed Nancy the image on her phone screen. "Tell me what you see here," she demanded. Heart in her mouth, breath held.

And Nancy answered the only way Cassie knew she could: "I see those three jerkholes from high school with their arms around a department store mannequin for some inexplicable reason I probably don't want to know about." Puzzled, she looked at Cassie and smiled. "Does that help?"

But Cassie couldn't tell her how much it did. She was already furiously pedaling home.

To make some fucking werewolves pay.