Page 95 of De-Witched

“He’s okay.” Melly leaned on the mop handle with both hands. “He sighs, he groans, he curses the ceiling, but he’s back the next day with a new, um, experiment to try.”

“A good brother, then.”

“The best.”

“You must miss him while he’s here.”

She nodded. “The house feels too big. Uncle August says I could go over to his, but then Mrs. Q would be alone. She...she said you call Gabriel ‘Gabe.’” Curiosity shone in the girl’s eyes, with not a little speculation.

“It annoys him. I enjoy annoying your brother.” Leah shrugged, focused on keeping it light. Surface. From the direction of Melly’s questions, she had a feeling Gabriel had done just that.

Whether he’d tell his sister about the change in their relationship, well, that was his choice.

But she hoped.

Melly laughed again, swiping the mop across the soaked floor. “I know,” she said in answer to Leah’s comment. “He used to grumble how you were out to make his life hell.”

Leah’s eyebrows went up.

“It made me want to meet you even more. It’s so obvious he doesn’t want to answer questions about you. That he, you know, likes you. Like, likes you likes you.”

Ah, to be fourteen. Unsure what to say, Leah fell back on a vague, “Huh.”

“He’s only dated a few women and they were all different, so I don’t think he has, you know, a type.” Thoughtfully, Melly swirled the mop in the bucket as Leah tried and failed not to be interested. “Well, looks-wise. They all scramble to agree with his every word. They don’t stick around long. I think he wants a woman who’ll push back. Who’ll annoy him.”

It could’ve been a billboard, for all its subtlety. Leah wondered if Gabriel knew his little sister was matchmaking. With a human, for that matter. “You don’t say.”

Melly slapped more water on the floor. Leah didn’t have the heart to tell the girl she was doing it wrong if you could see your own reflection.

“He’s stubborn,” Melly continued, wrinkling her nose in thought. “He needs someone to push back or he’ll get bored. And too full of himself.” Her sneakers squeaked in the water as she twirled the mop to the right. “He’s, uh, not bad looking.”

“No,” Leah allowed, conjuring intense green eyes, sharp cheekbones, a soft mouth curving in the barest hint of a smile.

“He’s funny. Sometimes.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“And he’s strong. Like, if you needed to lean on someone, Gabriel would be there. He’s always been there.”

A lump appeared in Leah’s throat.

Melly looked up at Leah, her parents’ ghosts dancing between them. She frowned a little, the barest furrow. “Some people make fun of him for being too quiet or too blunt, but that’s not the important stuff. He’s...solid. Someone you can rely on.”

The Warlock of Contempt. And yet.

Leah heaved a breath through her clogged throat. “Some people don’t look beneath the obvious.”

“No.” Melly smiled, approving, the specter of grief disappearing. Dimples winked at her. “But you do.”

Well, she’d stepped into that one.

Luckily for her, Sloane also stepped into it—it being the lake of water that ran over the kennel hallway.

“Gah.” The teenager gawked at the water pooling around her sneakers. “Did we have a leak?”

Melly lifted a hand from the mop, gestured. “I’m mopping!”

“Uh...” Sloane slid her gaze from the grinning girl to Leah to the floor. Something shifted on her face. “You’re Gabriel’s sister.”

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