Page 37 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

“I hate you,” he muttered, returning to the system controls.

“And I love you, in spite of your childish ways, Walter.”

He glowered.

11

Walter

I woke up snuggled in a warm blanket and cushy bed, unsure how I’d ended up here, but gladly sank into the cozy feeling. The last thing I remembered was searching for texts to help explore and control the villa in the library. Well, attempting anyway. It’d been a pretty exhausting last few days, between all the attention Weather sought, to the way Bez scolded Weather every time he tried to play, sniff, or begged for a piece of Bez’s inedible dishes. Tony also added to the flames of chaos—sometimes literal between Bez and Weather—by trying to sting the puppy every time I turned my head.

I never considered myself the nurturing type, so kids weren’t high on my list of priorities. But having to wrangle the three of them while acting as the only productive person here and having almost no time to myself was a strong reminder. Tending to a familiar, Mythic beast, and Diabolic was exhausting enough.

Still, I’d made serious progress in understanding this ship. It was, in fact, classified as a vessel, not a house, in the schematicsI’d found in the library. I shivered, wrapping myself tighter in the blanket, thinking back to Novus’ caved-in skull.

Thankfully, Bez had disposed of the body, which I hadn’t asked for details on other than to ensure it didn’t lead back to the Fae, so either he burned the corpse to ash or tossed it into the vacuum of dimensional space. Either way, the library’s self-preservation wards did wonders for cleaning up the blood stains and removing the stench of death. I liked the automatic cleaning and organizing enchantments in this library; I just wished I knew how to enact the catalog commands when researching.

It took time to decipher the text, but I’d managed that, too. Not that I comprehended the translation since it followed the Sylvan alphabet yet used some coded styling in the manual breakdown. It didn’t matter. Soon, I would unravel every single part of the ship, from how to work the control system for navigation, to figuring out where and how the Diabolics were stored, all the way to the biggest bonus of learning where each portal doorway in here led and what they held. I could spend forever here, learning everything, charting a course wherever, whenever to take us anywhere in the world and beyond with the push of a few buttons.

The curtains leading to the balcony were drawn open, letting bright starlight shine inside the bedroom. Since the villa skirted between planes, remaining on the edges of cosmic space with one half and orbiting our world with the other half, the light of this hidden world held a similar effect to the aurora borealis. Twinkling colors poured inside. They sparkled against the furniture set up outside the walk-in closet, the adjoined dressers—which were only adjoined because Bez dragged a second one from another room and slammed them together—and the ivory bedframe posts. Bare cream walls caught the colors and reflected them back at me, stinging my eyes.

I brushed sleep dust from my eyes and grabbed my glasses placed on the nearby nightstand. Bez must’ve brought me to bed. He could be sweet when he wasn’t being obnoxious. Speaking of obnoxious, the first thing my clear vision landed on was the one portrait Bez hadn’t removed and tucked away elsewhere. A self-portrait of Baron Novus, which remained on full display with the added touches Bez had made. He’d punched a hole through the head and wall to match the actual Novus whose head he’d kicked in.

“Wakey, wakey, dry eggs and plain ole bakey.” Bez paraded into the bedroom, crystal tray in hand while using a tail to shoo Weather from trudging in behind him.

Not that I liked Bez’s disregard for the puppy most of the time, but I couldn’t handle being plopped on by a nearly two-hundred-pound Cerberus while half asleep for the third time. If not for Bez’s essence, I’d probably have broken something or, at the very least, have a mild concussion from the eager tackles.

“You made me breakfast?” I asked skeptically, mostly reserved for the normal-looking dish presented on the tray Bez placed on my lap.

Scrambled eggs and bacon with a glass of water and orange juice.

“Yes, a difficult task since your palate is lacking, but I worked on keeping all the flavor out of it. No sugars, salts, or sides to make this a truly spectacular dish.”

He wasn’t kidding about the lack of seasonings. I took a bite of the dry, unsalted eggs. Did he even add milk? Complain one time about not wanting dairy in a dish, and he took it off the menu forever. A scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of broccoli was in no way the same as broccoli and cheddar. I swear, the only ingredient he added to these eggs was passive aggressiveness. At least the bacon was perfectly crunchy and plenty salty to compensate.

“Not that I don’t love the gesture, but why the gesture?”

“No reason.” Bez checked his phone, something he never did—ever. He’d sooner hurl it into the void of time and space before responding to notifications. “Just want you to know I value your work. I know you’ve put a lot of effort into learning how this villa functions.”

“Yeah,” I said, tearing a piece of bacon. “Pretty sure in a few more weeks, I’ll know this whole place inside and out.”

All I needed was a single manual, one lead that would connect to others, and soon I’d know how every gear, floorboard, and symbol in this massive place worked.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Finding the Diabolic essence is still high on my list of priorities.”

Weather hadn’t been all that helpful in that regard. Then again, it’d only been a few days, and he didn’t exactly know what I was requesting.

“I hate to say it, but it could take months on our own,” Bez said. “I don’t even know where to begin, and usually, you’re better with research but…”

“But what?” I asked.

“But maybe it’s time to call in reinforcements?”

“We don’t have reinforcements. I can’t think of one mage that’d help me unravel the mysteries of an illegally obtained Fae home, which also has a lot of illegally acquired artifacts.” My stomach twisted in knots—I didn’t really have friends to call on, no one from the Collective who’d really missed me since I took off. Maybe my siblings cared…maybe. But I was certain, Collective priorities would overtake any family loyalty if I showed them the plethora of items in the former baron’s possession.

“I wasn’t thinking of mages,” Bez said. “More like…”

His phone rang, which he ignored.

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