21. E.R.I.E.

twenty-one

Dawn was a long time coming and not due to any time-fuckery.

Milla tossed in her bed, unable to get comfortable among the over-stuffed pillows and thick, too-soft comforter.

She’d kicked the comforter away hours ago and pulled out a hand-stitched quilt, tugging it tight around her body. And then she’d tossed the pillows across the room, staring at the ceiling and willing her mind to quiet and her eyes to close, but she couldn’t escape the creeping absence in the back of her mind.

When was the last time she had been left alone? For weeks, that voice had taunted her while the witch teased, and now she was alone and ill at ease without either of them there.

“This is ridiculous.” Milla rolled over, staring across the empty space. After reviewing the ICYMI inventory and Southern Gothic’s sales reports from the last seven weeks, Diego had forced her to walk home, practically shoving Milla into the shower and chatting about merchandise displays, the food at El Siboney, and the charming architecture of Key West while waiting out the threatened hair mask and following deep conditioning.

And now she was alone in her bedroom with a yellow candle burning. No chronomantic, no guard at the door, no whispers from a witch who wasn’t there. Just Milla in her bed, unable to sleep because she was afraid to be alone, and her mind was running a million miles a minute in every direction.

“Start at the beginning,” Diego had advised, tapping the first item on the list and shoving it into her hands before wishing her goodnight.

Start at the beginning. Apologize to Julie.

It was easy enough if Milla ignored the suffocating guilt that came along with it. If she were being honest with herself, which was becoming more difficult with every passing day, she had not given a single moment’s thought to Julie since she’d left her in the back office of Southern Gothic. It had been the least of her concerns, and the guilt at recognizing how easily she’d shoved all thoughts of her friend to the back of her mind was nauseating.

She had spent a week in that swamp focused on her Way, on wrangling her magick back under control, and for what?

To be able to touch Darkly.

Goddess, even thinking it made her sick. She had lied to herself for days, saying it was to return to St. Augustine, to tend her demesne, to get back to her abnormal life, and in the same breath, she’d desecrated a towel just to lie next to him.

Had she really been so driven by her hormones that she’d shoved all else aside?

Yes.

“Shut up.” She rolled onto her other side, facing the closed closet door and her dim reflection in the mirror. A pale face haloed in dark hair in a dark room. Her eyes were little more than black pits, wide in the low light and reminding her all too much of the witch on the other side of the wall.

When she and Diego got home, the lights were on in Darkly’s half, but the television was turned off, meaning either the vinefica, Rai, had returned or Darkly had woken up. Neither option left Milla feeling good about the situation, and her mood only worsened the longer she lay in her bed, wide awake.

Was he still awake? Or was he upstairs in that massive bed, cuddled in the silk sheets with Rai?

An uncomfortable twinge of muscle in Milla’s chest had her backing away from that thought, turning over again to put her back to the wall. Then she crept off the side of the bed, taking the thin quilt with her, and lay on the floor, falling into a light doze until the shrill bleating of an alarm had her bolting upright.

“HolyHornedGod.” She slapped the surface of her bedside table, searching for her new phone and knocking it off the side. Rolling onto her hands and knees, she hissed at the tingling in her fingers and reached under the bed. The shrill, jaunty alarm blared, and she cursed under her breath, fumbling with the device.

The alarm finally quieted with a sweep of a still-asleep finger. Milla slumped against the edge of her bed, her heart slamming in her chest, and the quilt pooled around her waist.

Sunlight crept through the seams in the drapes, reaching across the floor in a quiet summons of demesne to witch. With it came a subtle tug at her middle and a drag at her legs. A not-so-gentle reminder that she was well overdue.

“Yeah, yeah.” Milla kicked out of the quilt and dropped it on the bed on her way to the closet.

Less than five minutes later, she slipped out the front door and shouldered into a heavy-legged jog down Cedar Street. The demesne swelled to greet her, clinging to her calves and dragging her steps like she was running through molasses. But unlike her return from New Orleans when the demesne attempted to suck every last bit of magick from her to refill the reservoir Anaisa had been draining, this was the embrace of a clingy toddler.

Gripping her legs and refusing to let go. Needy in the intensity of missing her.

Yet, for all the neediness, there was a hesitance. With every step she took, the clinginess lessened to a fierce handhold, one that felt … shared, stretched between two points until thin enough to snap.

That had Milla drawing up short as she approached the San Sebastian River. A prickling crawled up her neck like a phantom breeze teasing the fine hairs and loose strands that had fallen from her ponytail. Sun beat against the stucco facade of the St. Augustine Distillery, and she squinted, shielding her eyes and scanning the empty road behind her.

“You’re being stupid.” She shook off the feeling and darted across the road, falling back into the same struggling gait. Not even a mile in, and her legs were heavy, the weak muscles struggling to move starving bones. Where she had flown down this same road only weeks before, now she fought for each breath, wrestling against the urge to give up.

This was her demesne. Hers. And even if Lou’s sigil dammed her Way, she was going to tend it, dammit.

A cluster of palms tucked between twin Key West cottages offered a brief respite from the sun, already bearing down only an hour after dawn. She slowed, shuffling along the edge of the sidewalk to make room for a runner approaching at her back, their footfalls steady and strong. Bending at the waist, she gripped her knees, sipping in long, measured breaths as she waited for the runner to pass.

No one did.

She angled her head back the way she’d run. The road was empty and quiet, save for red-faced, gasping like a fish out of water, Milla in shorts that barely stayed on her hips and a Pork ‘n’ Butts BBQ shirt she’d modified into a tank top.

Again, the hairs along her neck prickled. She straightened and spun around, squinting into the shadows cast by the palm trees. Nothing moved, and the stillness was so intentional that Milla saw red.

“ What ,” she spat.

Another long moment passed before Darkly stepped out of the shadows, looking every inch as wrecked as she felt. Pale, wan, his hollow cheeks flushed, and that idiotic haircut covered by a blue baseball cap with MAGIC embroidered across the front. His tech shirt clung to his torso, and Milla hated that she noticed. She glared at him, crossing her arms. “What do you want?”

He put his hands up and had the good grace to back away. “Cannae go for a run without any ulterior motive?”

“No.” She fought against the desire to stomp her foot and pout. “Yes. I mean—don’t run with me.”

“Wasnae.”

“Yes, you were,” Milla argued. “This is my route. You know that.”

“Own the road, do you?” His tone was short, but he maintained the same hang-dog expression he’d worn in Constance’s office and again in his half of the duplex.

His half.

Goddess, remembering that was enough to have Milla raging all over again.

“No, but you know damn well I designed this route to best tend my demesne.” She thrust her finger at the ground and treated herself to that little foot stomp. A spark of interest flared in his eyes, and his brows twitched upward. “Soulbound or not, I think it’s safe to say that, yes, in a way, I do own these roads.”

Whatever humor he’d found in Milla’s little display faded at the mention of her binding. Darkly’s gaze fell to her hand, still pointing at the ground. He frowned deeply, working his jaw side to side, but said nothing.

“Ugh, fine.” Milla threw her hands up in frustration. “Just—either run ahead of me or far, far behind me.”

“Milla…”

“No, Darkly,” she snapped. Horned God, he had the worst timing. Cornering her in a living room and stalking her on a run. Not that anyone could call what she was doing running , but it was the point of the thing. The intent! He was a witch; he ought to know better than to try to have an emotional scouring in the middle of the street on a hot-ass April morning. “I don’t want to hear it.”

His brows dropped, nostrils flaring as he pressed his lips together. A look she knew well. A protest was coming, a demand, and she just couldn’t.

“Not now,” she said before he could get the words out. ‘Talk to Darkly’ was on her list, but Goddess, not like this—when she was exhausted and could barely think straight, when he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. Not in public. “I just want to run my demesne. Can you at least allow me that?”

Darkly blinked, his shoulders dropping and posture relaxing. His throat bobbed once, and he nodded, but he didn’t take off running in the opposite direction or even move, for that matter.

Milla rolled her eyes, grumbling as she put her back to him and took off jogging at her halted pace. A few strides later, his footfalls echoed hers, keeping a distance as he followed her the length of Bridge Street. She was wheezing when they hit the waterfront, and a cramp pinched her side, but she pressed through the pain, fueled by her anger at the fact he wasn’t even breathing hard.

He kept his pace, running six feet behind Milla, and followed her lead. Just as he’d done on that first run, after the raw head, and when she confronted a Loa, he shadowed Milla as she attempted to reclaim the witch she was.

Lou waited for them on the front steps of the duplex, an e-grim in one hand and a sour expression on her face.

So, really, it was just her face.

“Where were you last night?” She stormed down the stairs, stopping short of barreling into Milla. “Both of you, for that matter.”

“Why?”

“You ken where I was,” said Darkly. Lou lifted her gaze over Milla’s head as a cool shadow draped over her back. “And Milla was with Diego.”

“Yeah.” Milla nodded. “Wait.” She twisted to ask him, “How did you know I was with Diego?”

“Had a message when I woke up,” he explained as if it should have been obvious, “letting me know where you were.”

Milla’s neck heated. She whipped her head around, glaring at the weeds growing through cracks in her front path, not at all comfortable with the idea of Darkly and Diego texting about her.

“What is this about, Lou?” Darkly edged around her, his body a wall between Milla and his sister.

“There’s been another one.” She handed him the e-grim, waiting as he scanned the screen, a deep line pinched between his brows. “Near Lake City.”

“Where’s that?” He tapped the screen and squinted, then extended his arm halfway, blinking as he read what Milla assumed to be an E.R.I.E.

“About halfway to Tallahassee,” Milla said. “Is this about that ritual?”

Lou stared at her as if just remembering she was there and then nodded. “It is, good memory.”

“How could I forget.” She moved beside Darkly to read the screen. “You left the readout in my cell; it gave me something to think about until my guard took it away.”

“And what did you learn?”

Milla scanned the graph on the tablet, tracking the rise and fall of the multicolored lines and the blurred signature behind them. Darkly swept the graph forward, and the lines converged into one thick black line, arcing and falling in harsher peaks and valleys. A detail that had not been part of the printout Lou had left. “That you only gave me part of the picture.”

Darkly tensed, the tablet trembling slightly as his arm went taut. He jerked his head up, and from the hot huff of breath that hit her head, she knew he was glaring at his sister.

“Goddess, get over yourself.” Milla grabbed the e-grim and climbed the stairs onto the shaded porch. On a hunch, she pressed her finger to the screen and swept to the right. The graph moved with her gesture, traveling back along the X-axis. The lines de-converged and separated into multi-colored strands. She studied that, chewing her lower lip in thought, and then held out the e-grim to Lou. “This reading is from last night?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Then you have a problem.” Milla turned toward her door, gripping the handle and freezing as Lou said, “ We have a problem.”

She looked back over her shoulder, eyes hopping from one Simmons sibling to the next. Darkly stood beside and just behind his sister, a dark scowl twisting his face as he bore holes into the side of Lou’s head while she remained straight and tall, waiting for Milla to challenge her.

And who was Milla to disappoint?

“I have to get to work.” She depressed the handle, and the glass pane rattled as she pushed the door open.

“Congratulations.” Lou mounted the stairs, approaching Darkly’s doorway. “You’re here. Now grab your Stitch Witch and come next door.”

With that, she stepped inside, followed a moment later by Darkly.