20. Glamour

twenty

It was real. This was real. It was too big to be an illusion, and she ran without thinking, following the path she had walked day after day for years. Asphalt turned to cobbles, streetlamps turned to gas, and Milla burst into a store before she realized where she was.

Bells jangled, and the witch behind the glass counter jerked his head up, dropping his phone and blinking at Milla before a distraught cry tore from his throat.

“?Peque?a bruja!” Diego tackled her in a hug, arms wrapping around Milla like pistons. At his voice, at his touch, his smell, at him, the last bits of her restraint fell away. He was just as she remembered, his deep brown hair pulled in a loose bun, wearing a bright floral shirt and tailored khakis cuffed at the ankles.

She fisted her hands in his shirt and sobbed into the crook of his neck. It was all too much, and she was so tired . Darkly, her house, the bottling, the cells, her arrest, the betrayal.

“Diego,” Milla managed between sobs, dragging them both to the ground. “Everything happened so fast, and I couldn’t—” she gasped, unable to stop panicking long enough to string together a sentence.

“Shh, shh, Milla, I know.” He stroked her hair, gently swaying them both side to side. “I know; Darkly told me everything.”

“He lied,” she blubbered. “He lied, and he—”

“Not now.” Diego cupped the back of Milla’s head, his breath warm against her ear. He held her impossibly tighter, and his voice broke as he spoke. “Not now, sobrina, you’re home. You’re home.”

It was not lost on Milla that this was the second time she had run into her store a bleeding, crying mess. Diego made short work of cleaning off her feet and, once the bandages were applied, sat her on his rococo throne while he braided her hair and lectured her in the loving way only Diego could.

“First thing we will do is a mask.” He held up the braid, frowning at the dry, frazzled ends. “When was the last time you had a deep condition, bruja? Your hair is pésimo.”

“I can barely remember the last time I had a shower, much less hair product other than a bar of soap.”

He shuddered and dropped her braid, swinging around to the front of the chair. Crouching, he gripped Milla’s knees and studied her face. “And the eyes?” he asked softly. “Those little flecks are new.”

She pulled her lips between her teeth and shook her head. “I don’t know. I think it’s from the Loa? I’d never used that much magick before, not without multiple covens helping me channel it; it was bound to leave a mark.” She trailed the corner of an eye with her finger as if she could feel the discoloration. “Didn’t even notice it until I woke up in … in Darkly’s bed.”

Diego cocked his head, interest lighting up his face. “Oh?”

“Don’t get excited.” She brushed his hands off her knees and tentatively stood, setting her weight gently on her feet. The pain was dull but bearable. Diego had pulled her checkered slip-ons from his sewing room for the walk home, so there was that to look forward to. “Also, why aren’t you surprised he’s living next door to us?”

“He has been there for weeks.” He shrugged and rose, pulling out his phone and glancing at the screen. “I have had time to get used to it. Mierda, where is our OverEats?”

“Weeks.” Milla waited for Diego to explain. He tapped on his phone, smiling at whatever was on the screen. It was a different sort of smile than she was used to seeing on him. Softer, almost blushing. Despite being born in the sixteenth century, Diego wasn’t old. He had been in his late twenties when he died and was barely thirty now, but that smile made him look younger. More carefree. Milla knew her next question would wipe it away, and she hated herself for it, but she had to know. “What day is it?”

Diego ripped his face from the phone, that beautiful smile vanishing and leaving him looking stricken. “?Qué?”

Her brow bunched, and she took a moment, dreading the answer. “I don’t know what day it is.”

Diego gently gripped Milla’s elbows, looking her in the eye. How he understood how alarming this was, how disorienting, Milla couldn’t fathom. Maybe it was from the years he had spent at sea, telling time by the sun and relying on a captain or first mate to tell the passage of time. Or maybe it was just Diego, reborn into modernity with the strongest thread of empathy Milla had ever known. But he knew, and he broke the news to her as plainly and gently as possible.

“April 18th.” His grip tightened, refusing to let Milla back away. “Today is April 18th, you were arrested on February 29th.”

“Goddess.” She blinked rapidly, staving off the immediate burn of tears. Seven weeks was an idea, an intangible concept of time. Hearing the date made it concrete. “I missed my birthday.”

Diego worked his jaw, releasing one of Milla’s elbows to adjust his glasses, and then burst out laughing. “ That is what you are worried about, peque?a bruja?” He swept his thumb under an eye, grinning at Milla. “You had me worried. Here.” With a twist of his wrist, Diego handed Milla a box. “Feliz cumplea?os.”

“You got me a phone?” She turned the box over in her hand, ten kinds of confused.

“To be fair, C.R.O.W. got you the phone, Cyrus set up the phone, and I am handing you the phone.” He brushed imaginary dust off his shoulder. “So yes, through a very strange sense of logic, I am giving you a phone.”

“Why is C.R.O.W. giving me a phone?” Milla balked. “And who the hell is Cyrus?”

“We just assessed that I am receiving the credit for your gift, muchas gracias.” Diego glanced at the door as someone rapped sharply on the glass. His face lit up, and he hurried over to grab their dinner from the OverEats driver, thanking them and locking the door. “Cyrus is one of the witches, he runs the E.R.I.E. for Lou’s team. Look, he put the app on your phone.”

“And you know this how?”

Diego side-eyed her as he set out cartons of food. The salty-sweet aroma of fried plantains wafted to Milla’s nose, and her stomach growled. “Darkly called me after your arrest.” He set the carton in front of Milla, along with a fork. “Morgen and I were on the road within the hour, and, by the way, what did you do to Julie?”

She froze with a plantain halfway to her mouth. “Julie?”

“Redhead, nurse, your only other friend beside me?”

“No, I know who Julie is; I just...” Realization struck, and she slowly lowered the plantain. “Ooohhh. Oh, no.”

“Milla.”

She pulled her mouth wide in a grimace, voice rising with each word, along with her shoulders. “I may have stolen her ICYMI badge to get into the convention?”

“Milla!”

“What?” She put up her hands. “It was either that or use a Jericho Stone to rot through the walls, and you know how hard it is to desecrate coquina.” Diego hit her with a stern glare. She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t anything damaging. She just”—Milla waved her fork in a circle—“took a nap, and I took her badges and saved St. Augustine from being taken over by a life-force-sucking Voodoo spirit bent on revenge. Honestly, I thought you’d be more upset about Ana.”

“I have had over a month to come to terms with what Ana did.” He pulled another carton out of the bag and opened the lid. The mouth-watering scent of roasted vegetables, yucca fries, Cuban-style beans, and grilled meat accosted Milla. Her fork was halfway to spearing a yucca fry when Diego slammed the lid closed. “You owe her an apology.”

“She’s dust ,” Milla whined, prodding the compostable box with her fork. “Whatever’s left of her is at the Gates.”

“To Julie,” he clarified, moving his dinner out of reach. “She refuses to work in the store alone, and even when I am here, she insists I do my sewing up front. Do you know how difficult it is to top stitch a pleat without a dedicated workspace?”

Though she was pretty sure Diego meant to lighten the mood and soften the blow of his reprimand, Milla felt the sting. Goddess, she had been reckless, and not just when dealing with Ana. She had been reckless for years, and it was finally catching up to her. First with Kayleigh and the review-bombing, then with Anaisa and her demesne. She had possessed Darkly on a whim, hexed someone she considered a friend, and she had been careless with Diego’s life , taking him for granted and thinking he wanted to hide away from the world as much as she did.

One glance at the witch told her that was anything but true. He had been engrossed in something on his phone, something that made him smile. He had set up his own bespoke tailoring business and had run the store without her. From the looks of it, he was far more successful in the endeavor than Milla was.

New items stocked the shelves: pristine vintage turntables, haunted records, a vestic’s scrying bowl, and a row of obviously enchanted conch shells. Even her old items held an inviting luster, practically begging customers to take them off the shelves and bring them home. The ICYMI display in the front window looked less garish and migraine-inducing than Milla remembered, and it was all due to Diego, who she had taken for granted from that very first day.

“I’m sorry,” Milla said, forcing herself not to blink. If she blinked, the burn in her eyes would turn into tears, and then she’d be sobbing again. Making her problems Diego’s problems, and how fair was that? “I never meant for—”

The words died on her tongue, and the image of Darkly crumpled on the floor flickered through her mind’s eye as she echoed his own words. Tears welled up, and the fork clattered to the glass countertop as Milla covered her face in her hands.

“I’m so s-sorry,” she sobbed.

“Oh, Diosa.” Diego swept around the counter, wrapping an arm around Milla. “I know you did not mean for any of this to happen, but it did.” He cupped the side of her head, forcing Milla to rest against his shoulder. “So now it is time to do what you do best: fix it.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.” Milla swept the back of her hand under her nose, clearing away snot.

“Asquerosa. ” Diego gagged and summoned a handkerchief into his hand, forcing it on Milla. She blew her nose, letting out a watery laugh at his look of revulsion when she offered the handkerchief back to him. “No, gracias.” He let go and shooed her away. Sidling around the counter, he grabbed a notepad and pen and swept their dinner to the side. “We will make a list and start with the easiest. ?Sí?”

“Okay,” she said, all too willing to have Diego take control. Horned God knew she had only made a mess of things, and his Stitch Witch mind had probably identified all the trailing threads around her and determined what needed to be tackled first to disentangle her life.

“Number one, apologize to Julie.” He scribbled the instruction down in a flowing script, looking at Milla over the top of his glasses. “Inmediatamente. And remove the glamour from the leggings.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “First thing tomorrow. After I run my demesne.”

Diego hesitated, and then he wrote as he said, “Talk to Darkly.”

“Absolutely not.” She tapped the notepad. “Cross that out.”

“No, bruja, you need to talk to him.”

“Why?” She grabbed her fork and the carton of plantains. “He lied to me.”

“You lied to him.” He pointed the pen at her.

“Oh, Horned God, not you too.” Milla glared at him, speared a plantain, and shoved it in her mouth, chewing before speaking around the bite. “Yes, I lied to him to keep us out of trouble.”

“And how well has that turned out?” When Milla shoved another plantain into her mouth, Diego continued. “I understand why you made the choices you did, Milla, but you need to talk to him.”

“He turned me in.”

Diego went still, pen hovering over the paper and exhaled with an expression she had never seen him wear. It was not cold, but it was distant as if he had mentally taken a giant step to the side to get out of her way.

“Talk to Darkly,” he repeated and wrote a new line as he continued. “And work with Cyrus, get him to teach you how to use the E.R.I.E.”

“I don’t have an E.R.I.E.,” she mumbled.

“Sí, tu puedes.” Diego snorted and poked the phone box with his pen. “What do you think this is?”

“A birthday present?” She tried on a half-smile, attempting to lighten the mood. Everything had become so heavy. Once she had calmed down, grounding herself in Diego and the store, she only wanted to eat her dinner and exist. Not make lists of all the things she had to tackle. The cost of her so-called freedom would come due soon enough; couldn’t she have one night to be before the shitstorm began anew?

“When has C.R.O.W. ever given you a gift?”

“Did you know in German, ‘gift’ means ‘poison’?”

“Sí.” He sighed and set down the pen, pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “It is impossible to spend more than a day with Morgen without learning some German, and I was her houseguest for weeks.”

“Oh, Horned God, I forgot to ask.” Milla leapt at the weak opening, wanting nothing more than to change the subject away from all the shitty things she had to do. “How was Key West?”

Diego’s brows twitched, and a tiny smile flitted over his lips, easing the stern lines. “It was … different.”

“Different good?”

“Sí.” The smile widened, and a faint blush darkened his cheeks. “I met a few cultists—”

“Oh, Goddess, those idiots?” Milla cackled, beyond happy with the diversion. “I used to run into them all the time, passed out on Higgs Beach or chasing after whatever magick they could.” She shook her head and chuckled, reaching for a cylindrical carton she hoped was Cuban-style black beans. “Pathetic.”

Diego cleared his throat and scanned the four items on the list, a sour twist erasing that faint smile. “When I returned, Darkly explained what had happened—”

“When he turned me in.”

“—and Julie brought the mail by.” He bent to the side and straightened, dropping a stack of mail on the counter. “You should start with these.”

The topmost envelope was a bill. She flicked it aside and the next, sorting the pile with all the attention it warranted. Bills, business license renewal reminders, a letter from their landlord, junk mail from a real estate company, a bill—

“Wait.” She grabbed the letter and scanned it, pressing a hand on her head as what she was reading sank in. “What is this?”

“The landlord revoked our right of first refusal,” said Diego. “And sold the property to a company from San Francisco.”

“He can’t do that!” Milla re-read the contract, starting with the letterhead announcing the buyer as Homestead Commercial Real Estate. “We have a forty-five-day window; it’s in the lease agreement.” She flipped the page over, scowling when she saw it was blank, then re-read it a third time for good measure, picking out the key terms and dates. “This puts him in breach or something. Right?”

Diego shrugged and pulled another envelope from the bottom of the stack. “Julie had to explain it to me, but apparently, there are a few clauses in place that would allow the property owner to terminate. She said it had to do with the value assessment or something. I could not follow, but her ex-husband works in real estate. If anyone we know would know, it would be her.” He pulled out another stack of papers. “And this came two days ago. The new lease.”

She took it unwillingly. It was hard to ignore a stack of papers being thrust under your nose. Diego ate while she read the lease, her appetite dimming with each clause and dying an unremarkable death when she saw the new annual rate.

“This is almost double what we’re paying now.” She looked up and found Diego watching her intently. “Can we afford this?”

“?Tal vez?” He waved his fork at the ICYMI table near the window. “The leggings have given us a little wiggle room, but you are going to remove the glamour, ?no?” Milla opened her mouth. Closed it. “What?”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘I can’t’?”

She turned her arms, showing Diego the inside of her wrists, and smiled weakly. “I might have had to do a thing to get out of jail.”

“Peque?a bruja.” He cupped the backs of her hands, staring in horror at the twin triskelions. “This is … I have seen this.”

“In a grimoire?” she asked, hopeful. If anyone had seen this sigil before, it would have been Diego in his first life.

“On Darkly.” He trailed the arcs of the sigil on her right wrist. “What is it?”

“How have you seen this on Darkly?” She took her hand back, holding it against her chest.

“He has been living next door for weeks.” Diego shrugged. Then, a sly little smile pinched his lips. “It was not hard to memorize his exercise schedule.”

“Diego, ew!”

“What?” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “It is not my fault he prefers to punch that bag without a shirt on.”

“Are you stalking him?”

“I am taking my tea,” he replied plainly, “on the back porch, which is my right.”

“Oh, my Goddess.” Milla covered her face with her hands. “You are absurd.” But she laughed, and the laughter made her feel lighter. After a moment, she smiled softly. “Thank you.”

He closed his eyes with a smile and a shrug, then re-opened them and pointed at the sigil. “Do you want to tell me what that is?”

“A binding,” she said. “Lou put it there; it will allow her to control my Way. I think.”

“?Crees que sí?”

“There wasn’t really a lot of time to ask questions. Everything happened so fast. One minute, they were talking about cleaving me, but it turns out I’m already cleaved, and it was a setup, anyway. Lou, Constance”—Diego mouthed “Abernathy,” and she nodded—“Even the Tribunal Head that came in from Czechia. They knew my Way, and they had these two young witches in the room to witness, and Darkly bottled himself so they wouldn’t—”

“?él hizo qué?” Diego reared back, searching Milla’s face as though looking for a lie. When all she did was nod, he let out a low whistle. “I wondered about the haircut.”

“And now I have to work with him and Lou.” And once she’d started talking about that aspect of her so-called freedom, there was no holding back. She had unloaded it all: the absurdity of her not-trial, the raw-head, how she’d felt corralled into agreeing, and how they had used Darkly’s years as an Enforcer to support Lou’s suggestion. “They want me to pay into the ritual at Beltane,” she sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of a hand. “In front of Elder Witches of every coven in the Southeast.” She took a shuddering breath and let out the hardest part. “I’m scared, Diego.”

“Por supuesto,” he said, gathering Milla in his arms. “Of course you are, which is why you must apologize to Julie and get over yourself enough to talk to Darkly.”

“Diego—”

“Milla.” He hit her with a stern look. “I am right, and you know I am right. You need to talk to him and clear the air between you. I do not know what happened on that beach—”

“He turned me in.”

“—but whatever happened happened , and I am certain you both have your reasons. What I do know is that when I returned, our home was safe, our store intact, and Darkly made it so.”

“Probably driven by guilt.”

“Whatever it was, he has earned five minutes of your time to shut up and listen,” Diego snapped. Milla tucked her chin, leaning away. “Do you even want to work for Lou?”

“No.”

“Then you have common ground; start there.” He poked her shoulder. “The sooner you and Darkly learn to work together, the sooner Lou might undo whatever this is, and you can undo the glamour.” His finger swept over the triskelion on her right wrist, and he frowned. “I suppose this is a bad time to mention the desecrant.”

“Oh, Goddess, what is it now?”

“Something new,” he said. “A water horse, under the Usina Bridge.”

“All the way up there?” The Usina Bridge connected St. Augustine to Vilano Beach, crossing the mouth of the Tolomato River. “When did it get here?”

Diego adjusted his glasses and tipped his head. “I am not sure, exactly. It was here when I returned from Key West. Darkly called it something I cannot pronounce.”

“If he knew about it, why didn’t he handle it?”

“Again, you will need to talk to Darkly, as I refuse to get in the middle of this.” Another narrowed eye glare was sent her way. “But he implied it might have had something to do with whatever magick you performed in Vilano Beach.”

Milla swallowed, none too happy with how thick the lump in her throat had become. “Possessed him with a dead woman.”

“?Qué fue eso?”

“I said , ‘I possessed him with a dead woman.’”

Diego’s face went blank. He took in a quick breath, more of a sip than anything else, held it, and then said, “And you wonder why he felt the need to surrender you to C.R.O.W.”

“Shut up.”