Page 3 of Truly Madly Magically

Out here in the dark, I allow myself to feel the intense sympathy I never let him see.

The only good news about Zander’s grieving this summer is that he hasn’t been partaking in his usual string of human one-night stands. Don’t ask me how I know that or, better yet, why I track it so I can stick my fingers in that unhealable wound.

I land on the rickety porch, also on stilts. I can hear the sound of birds huffing about up above. No doubt Ruth greeting Zander’s eagle familiar, Storm. I don’t know what familiars get up to with each other, or even how they communicate, but I know Ruth and Storm have never had any of the animosity toward one another that I felt they should.

Traitor, I think pointedly at Ruth, but she ignores me.

So I take a deep breath. I knock, hard, before I think twice.

There’s a beat as I stand there on the porch. Then Zander hauls opens the door. Maybe someday the punch of him won’t wind me, or so I like to tell myself—but tonight it does, the way it always has, since we were young and stupid. Even though his dark, wavy hair is disheveled and a touch too long, his moody gray eyes are shadowed, and the beard that I know hides a moon-shaped birthmark just under the right corner of his lips is getting a little wild these days. He reeks of alcohol, which I know could be the bar or his choices lately.

I think it’s probably both.

He looks behind me as if expecting the rest of our friends, clearly not believing I’d come here on my own. And I wouldn’t. Not for any other reason. Not on a random night in September, anyway.

“Can I come in?” I sound weird and formal, but it’s the best I can do.

“Uh. Sure.”

He moves out of the way, and I step inside.

Zander’s never been known for being particularly neat or tidy. He’s a typical guy, but this is a new low even for him. Paper plates litter every surface. Empty beer cans, stacks of mail, dirty clothes everywhere with random socks scattered across the floor, T-shirts tossed over the backs of furniture, and a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the counter in the small galley kitchen. Next to a whole lot of empties. The air is scented with the sharpness of hard alcohol and the heavy staleness that comes with grief and depression.

He’d refuse to admit to feeling either of those things if I asked.

I don’t ask.

I’ve spent a decade hardening my heart to this man, but the past few months have made my previous attempts at ironclad resistance wear thin. I feel for him. I worry about him. I want to comfort him.

I have allowed myself almost none of these indulgences. There’s a reason our historic deal remains in place. We’re weak when it comes to each other. That’s always been true.

But we’re also fucking toxic.

Our friends think we’re bad now, with our bickering and general harshness toward one another. They have no idea how we’ve grown and matured.

The fact we can even share space these days is a testament to that. And how much we love Emerson Wilde, I suppose, because watching out for her after the Joywood wiped her magical memories at our high school graduation ceremony forced those of us who love her to grow up. Fast.

Emerson’s sister and my best friend, Rebekah, had to choose exile to survive, but the rest of us stayed for Emerson. Zander. Me. Georgie, her best friend, always right by her side. Jacob, too, but with enough emotional distance to stave off what I think must have been inevitable—given that they’re engaged now.

Maybe I hate the Joywood for that as much as anything else.

Which is why, along with the fact I love my friends, I’m part of this whole coven thing in the first place. Made up of cast-outs, grumpy Healers, former spell-dim witches, the most feared once-immortal witch of all time, and Zander. We’ve decided we want a chance to ascend—to become the ruling coven ourselves. A decision that has earned us all targets on our backs. Not to mention the enmity of the most powerful witches alive or dead, and ample opportunity to fight off their dirty, too-dark magic

In the meantime, Zander and I are going to be parents.

Another fast-forward leap into serious adulthood that I can’t say I’m at all comfortable with, but here we are.

I know I should start laying the groundwork on that. So, remember Beltane this year? After I got sick but Jacob healed me right up? I can’t bring myself to go back there. The past might be my thing, but my past is a shitstorm.

What I can deal with is this pigsty, so that’s what I do. I magic the trash away and the clothes into one pile in the corner instead of many piles strewn about. With a lift of my hand, the bottle of Jack hovers off the counter and upends, dumping its contents down the sink.

Zander watches all this and scowls at me. I conjure up a little concoction, and because his place is disgusting, I even magic up a mug from my own apartment. Everything lands with a thump in front of him on the counter where he’s planted his palms.

“Sober up,” I say to him, because I’m a gentle, comforting soul in all things.

Also to see if I can say it. That I can tells us both that it’s the truth. He isn’t entirely sober, though given the clarity of the way he’s glaring at me, I wouldn’t call him drunk either.

He does that growling thing too well. “You know, this is low. Even for you.”

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