30. Oneiromancy

thirty

The week passed too quickly for Milla’s liking. She had hoped for time to sit and reconnect with her demesne and Diego, but every minute of every day was filled with coven demands, sparring on the casting range or working the store while Diego kept to his sewing room. The only time she truly had to herself was at the end of the night when she drank her tea, but even then, those moments were brief and stolen by the death-like sleep.

She tried to catch him after the coven meeting, but Diego vanished when they were dismissed. She could hear his muffled voice as she made her tea, laughing on the phone. Whoever he spoke to, they made him smile, and that was all that mattered.

So Milla cuddled with a blanket on her sofa, drank her tea, and woke up on her bedroom floor.

Darkly waited for her on the front walk, dressed in his running clothes and looking as ragged as Milla felt. She greeted him with a quiet “good morning” and set off on her run, if it could even be called that.

Soreness dragged her steps; her pace was still abysmal, and Darkly’s constant shadow didn’t help. His presence was as annoying as it was comforting. Milla was beyond embarrassed that he was witnessing her terrible running but couldn’t bring herself to tell him to fuck off. Even if she couldn’t fully trust the witch, his quiet presence silently urged her on, subtly pushing Milla in that supportive way he always did.

By Wednesday, the run was easier, if still slow, and by Thursday, she felt strong enough to add in the loop of Eddie Vickers Park. As much as she wanted to credit her determination, she knew the praise belonged to Rai, whatever was in the tea she made, and Tobias.

He was a patient coach, which surprised Milla, but was no less challenging for it. Every day at two, he arrived at Southern Gothic to drive her to the casting range, where they lobbed low-level hexes back and forth until her muscles screamed and her head spun. Rai observed the first day, handing Milla a bag of root shavings when she teetered too far to the side and slurred her words.

“Angelica root.” Rai shook the bag. “Tuck a few under your tongue and suck on them, it should help with your recovery.”

“An’ whaddabout the hi— hic —ups?”

“I’m afraid only water will suffice.” She patted Milla on the arm and sauntered to the bench and her teak box.

The next day, Darkly, Lou, and Donmar joined them, keeping to the large field where the Simmons siblings put on another show. This one, however, Darkly lost to the sound of Lou berating him.

“You cannot be this distracted in the field, Keir.”

“Am nae distracted,” he hollered back, whipping out his arm and sending a series of shadeblades at his sister. She ducked and dodged each one, replying with a whirling pinwheel of light that left Darkly staggering and starblind.

Milla laughed, spinning around as Tobias barked her name and barely dodged a blue fireball.

“What the hell, man!” She spat hair from her mouth and swept overgrown bangs from her eyes. “You nearly singed me bald.”

“But I did not.” He lobbed a second fireball, and Milla snatched it out of the air, her Way rising to her palm with barely a thought. In the blink of an eye, she’d spun his magick into hers, holding the blackened orb in her hand before snuffing it out.

“Good work.” He nodded.

“Warn me next time,” Milla grumbled, but it was halfhearted. Something like pride warmed in her chest at his hard-won praise. The next day, he cast a cloud of smoke imbued with white-hot embers and sent it flying across the pit, and Rai introduced her to a new burn salve.

When she got home, the duplex was empty, which was not unusual, but the front door was unlocked, giving Milla pause. She stared at the handle for a long moment, wishing she could reach out with her Way and sense the demesne. Lou had closed her off when they were done at the Casting Range, explaining in her off-hand way, “I believe Cyrus has what he needs to re-write the E.R.I.E. parameters. We can work out an arrangement for your care of the demesne, but I’m not yet comfortable with you wandering around the city unbound.”

“How come he gets to keep his?” Milla had jogged her chin at Darkly, standing nearby and playing with a stoat-like slip of shadow winding around his arm and through his fingers.

“I need him for a task,” Lou said. “Speaking of— dún .” Milla’s Way snuffed out. She swayed at the sudden loss and the shackling weight on her wrists, stumbling forward as Lou walked away with Darkly following close behind.

He had not even looked back, following Lou to their golf cart and disappearing down the trail before Tobias put out the last of Milla’s fires.

Now, standing on her front porch and staring down an unlocked door, Milla was tempted to knock on Darkly’s, one hundred percent ready and willing to make up any lies necessary to sit in his half of the duplex and not be alone.

Instead, she took a big girl breath, shook out her hands, and entered her home. Her home . This was hers, and she wouldn’t let any unlocked door, absent roommate, or coven of witches take that away.

The wad of blankets and random pillows were still stacked on her sofa, her checkered slip-ons where she’d kicked them off the night before. The only oddness she could identify was the open cupboard door in her kitchen and the row of neatly laid herbs and leaves on the counter.

Powdered hemlock, dried juniper berries, a pile of cloves, dandelion heads, purple hellebore petals, and a twig she knew would be hawthorn.

It was her tea, deconstructed, next to a mortar and pestle and a small vial of what she thought to be dried violet. The label read, “one teaspoon” in a clean, clear hand. Milla scratched her cheek, glanced around her duplex, and said aloud, just in case any not-Ghosts were listening, “I guess I’m making it myself tonight.”

After dropping her bag in the bedroom, she dragged her comforter onto the floor, plugged in her phone, and texted Diego.

MAKING MY TEA.

It was their routine, after all. She was being responsible, which was all he had ever asked of her. While the tea steeped, she locked the doors and grabbed a trash can for when she was ill, checking her phone for Diego’s reply.

There was none. At one point, three little dots began dancing at the bottom of the chat screen, and then they stopped, which Milla knew because she was obsessively staring at her phone. When that became depressing, she sat on the couch and drank her tea.

A sharp, shrill alarm threw Milla’s eyes open. She dragged in a breath like a death rattle, willing feeling back into her limbs as the dregs of her tea-induced nightmare clung to the edges of her mind.

Masks and music, endless champagne. Faceless witches applauding her Way, calling for her to rot flowers and rejuvenate the blooms. A woman dressed as the sun and a man whose face was a blur, laughing with Ezra and clinking their glasses with Milla.

But the end, Goddess, then the end of the nightmare had been the worst. Even now, she could feel the hard press of her back against a wall and Ezra’s hand at her waist, the heat of his palm bleeding through that ridiculous bodice. She darted her tongue out as if she could taste the salt of his thumb teasing her lower lip and his mouth … the easily remembered warmth of it, the slide of his tongue against hers. The sizzling trail of his finger from temple to cheekbone to jaw…it had been so real. Too real.

A floorboard creaked, and Milla’s door clicked shut. She whipped her head to the side, and the world spun, turning her stomach and sending black spots into her eyes.

“No, nono.” She heaved onto her side, halting when the floor was two and a half feet further away than it should be and Milla was—“In bed?”

Hauling upright, she blearily took in her room, herself. She was under her comforter, mostly. It was tangled around her legs near the end of the bed, and she was over her bedsheets and still fully dressed in the yoga pants and cropped tank top from the day before. Her teacup was nowhere to be seen, and grayish-yellow light crawled through the curtains. She silenced the Horned God-damned alarm and read the time—just after dawn. Sagging over her legs, she groaned into her hands. How in the nine rings she was going to survive a run with Darkly, a shift at the store, and an afternoon sparring with Tobias, she had no idea.

Every muscle in her body ached, her limbs felt like they were made up entirely of sandbags, and her throat was as raw as an emery board.

“Coffee first.” She rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes, taking a few steadying breaths before standing. Her bladder protested, and she quickly revamped the plan as she shuffled across the room and down the hall. “No, bathroom first, then coffee. Then death. A long, unbothered death six feet underground where no one can …” Her words trailed off as she noticed the long, lanky witchy sprawled on her sofa. “What the fuck.”

One long arm was thrown over Darkly’s head, a leg had fallen onto the floor, and the rest of him was buried beneath the same pile of blankets that had occupied the end of her sofa for the last week.

Milla stepped closer and kicked his foot. “Get up.”

He snorted awake, bolting upright and immediately assessing the room with bloodshot eyes before landing on Milla glowering at him.

“Milla.” He tossed the blanket aside and, in a flash, had his knees under him, reaching for her. “What’s happened? Are you alright?”

“Did you sleep on my couch?”

He blinked, looked down at the furniture he was kneeling on, then settled back, stretching an arm across a cushion to look cool, or natural, or whatever. “Yes?”

“Are you stoned? ”

“Not anymore?” He said with a sheepish smile.

“Triple Goddess’s Tits, Darkly, can’t you go a day without getting higher than a kite?”

The last of the sleepy witch disappeared, and his jaw went hard. “We all have our coping mechanisms, Milla.”

She glared at him, lost for words. That stupid smile returned to deflect the moment, so she said the only thing she could think of. “Why are you sleeping on my couch?”

“‘Cos Rai’s in my bed.”

He said it so simply, as though it should have been obvious, but why in the nine rings should it have been?

“Why is Rai in your bed?” she finally managed.

“Because Toby’s in the guest bedroom.” His smile faded, and Darkly looked somberly back at her, waiting patiently, which she hated.

Milla swallowed, glancing at the blanket she kept re-folding and the pillows she kept putting away, her mind doing some very uncomfortable math. “How long have you been sleeping on my couch?”

“I’d really rather not answer that question.”

“How long, Darkly?”

“As long as Rai’s been in my room.” He kept his face blank, and Milla stomped her foot. A growl crawled up her throat, and she knew she was throwing a tantrum, but he was being so cagey and obtuse, and all she wanted to know was why .

“How long.” She forced the words through gritted teeth, putting as much frustration into them as possible. Darkly shrank back and dropped his eyes to his knee.

“Three weeks,” he answered in a mumble.

“ What. Why?”

“Already explained that.” He looked up at her sheepishly, brows raised in a silent plea for her to pick a different subject. “Why are you sleeping on the floor?”

She snapped her mouth shut, not liking the turnabout one bit. “I didn’t see you last night; where were you?”

Darkly sighed and ran a hand over his head, rising from the couch to stretch. Of course, he slept in low-slung plaid pajama pants and nothing else. His long arms flexed, muscles lengthening and bunching in his torso. Milla pressed her back against the wall to keep her gaze from traveling lower to where the v of muscle plunged beneath the waistband. Her mouth went dry—was dry. It was dry. From her tea and mouth breathing all night. Not from the stupid tall witch enjoying a luxurious stretch less than four feet away from her.

He finished his stretch and crossed his arms over his front, looking all too proud of himself, or rather, looking like himself . The cocky, arrogant witch she thought she knew.

“Ran with the cultists,” he answered. “Lou wanted me to confirm some details before we drive to Tallahassee tomorrow.”

“Right.” She swallowed that obnoxious lump in her throat, eyes firmly pinned over Darkly’s head. “Well, okay. Cool. I’m going for a run.”

He nodded, half gesturing to a duffel bag on the floor. “I’ll join you if that’s alright?”

“What if I said it wasn’t?”

Darkly smirked, and the dimple drove into his cheek, which was all the answer she needed.

For the first time that week, Milla did not feel as though she were trying to outrun him. Her body ached, muscles protesting every step, but Darkly was just as slow and lethargic as her. That knowledge alone sent adrenaline into her legs, pushing Milla faster than she had managed. For a few blocks, she felt like herself again. Powered by the demesne, by the strength in her body. It was as though a dark curtain had been lifted, and for the first time since the Soulbinding fell on her wrists, Milla felt like the scales had tipped, not so much in her favor, but at least finding a balance.

She glanced back at Darkly, three strides behind, and found him jogging with a peaceful expression mirroring how she felt. He nodded, a tiny smile kicking up his mouth, and Milla returned her focus to the road before them, ignoring the flurry of moths that had kicked up in her belly. Regardless of the knowledge that he had been sleeping on her sofa for close to a month, that Rai’s clothes were in his bedroom because he’d given it to her to use while relegating himself to furniture, he was still Keir who jumped at his sister’s beck and call and argued against Milla being on the team. He was still the Enforcer who had used her as bait for a raw-head.

But he was also Darkly. The ridiculous witch who had run with her morning after morning, teasing Milla until earning a hard-won smile. Darkly who took her out for lunches and struggled through the issues with her Way. The idiot Aural Insurance Adjuster who asked, “What do you need?” and ran her store and tended her demesne when she was gone, ensuring she had one to come home to.

Milla slowed as they approached the San Sebastian River, that last thought rattling in her brain. She stared out at the water, wishing she could feel the magick of St. Augustine coursing through her veins. The sigils on her wrists were like shackles weighing her down, and at her back stood an anchor. Panting lightly and watching her as he always did.

She took a deep breath and faced him, noting how his shadow pulsed and bled across the sidewalk. His head dropped back as he caught his breath, eyes hidden by his sunglasses, appearing for all intents and purposes like a man taking a moment to recover from a run. But the thoughts lingered. Everything Darkly had done, everything he was doing, and still, a piece was missing. Milla knew it in her bones, but what she did not know was why .

Darkly dropped his head, regarding her before speaking. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Isnae nothing,” he argued. “I know that look, Milla.” She tilted her head, brows rising in question. “There, that one.” He pointed at her. “It’s the one you get two seconds before you do something stupid like possess me with a Shade. Or hex me.”

That said, Darkly took a hasty step backward.

“Oh, get over yourself. I’m not going to hex you.” She bounced the inside of her wrists together. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to. I was just thinking.”

A dark look crossed his face, and he frowned. “What were you thinking about?”

She opened her mouth, the accusation on the tip of her tongue. A cool spring breeze blew in off the river, teasing the short hairs at the nape of her neck, and Milla thought better of it. “Nothing.”

It was a thought, that’s all. Unfounded and unproven. Just a wandering thought from the suspicious mind of a witch who had been too well taught not to trust anybody.

“Milla.” He moved closer, and she shook her head.

“I said it’s nothing, Darkly.” Putting her back to him, Milla breathed in the air of her demesne and resumed their jog.