Page 37 of The Fantastic Fluke

“Your familiar,” he agreed. “Which both of us have been trying to tell you from the start. Did you really think another mage’s familiar would just follow you around, practically talking to you, letting you make plans to keep him around forever?”

It was perfectly logical, and he was right, but...Fluke was my familiar. He was staying forever, and not because he didn’t have somewhere else to go. Because he belonged with me.

“Sorry you gave him such a ridiculous name now?” Gideon asked, grinning at me.

“Excuse you. Fluke is the best name ever.” I looked at Fluke, who gave us both the same grin and a little bark. “See? Perfect.”

Chapter Thirteen

“It smells like a museum in here,” Mal said, rubbing their nose in distaste. The four of us, Mal, Beez, Fluke, and me, were standing together in the doorway to my father’s apartment, staring in as though afraid to step over the threshold. “I figured with him owning a bookstore, it would be, you know. Books.”

Beez rolled her eyes. “He didn’t believe in keeping books. He just read them and then put them back into stock and sold them at the store as new. Something something, all things are temporary, blah blah, other pretentious hoity-toity bullshit.”

Mal looked about as impressed as Beez, and, well, I was sure I did too. I had spent years working at the shop, and my house’s second bedroom was full of bookshelves.

Now that I owned the bookstore, I imagined my own collection of books was going to expand by a lot. Maybe it was time to start clearing out the living room furniture in favor of more bookshelves.

Next to me, Fluke sneezed, then shook his head as though disgusted.

I stared at him, one eyebrow quirked, till he looked up at me. “Prima donna much?”

He humphed and stuck his nose in the air, heading into the apartment before us. He turned in a slow circle, looking at the stiff black leather sofa, the glass and chrome coffee table, and the rest of the stark, minimalistic decor. He reached up with a paw and poked the sofa, then took two steps back as though it offended him. After the super soft sofa in our living room that he adored, I imagined it did.

Instead of hopping up and trying it out, he turned and faced us, sitting on the carpet and waiting.

“That looks like the vulpes seal of disapproval,” Mal said, nodding to Fluke. “My kind of fox.”

Beez, ever the logical planner, took two steps into the apartment and turned around, hands on her hips. “Okay, Mal, you take the kitchen, it’s right through there. On the off chance you find anything you think is amazing, bring it to Sage. Everything else goes in boxes. Sage, you take the bedroom—”

“Absolutely not.” I threw my hands up between us as though that could defend me. “If my father owned sex toys, I never, ever want to know that.”

She made a disgusted face but nodded. “Okay, fine. I’ll take the bedroom. You start with this room? Let’s grab the boxes from the hallway. We’ve only got a few hours. The estate sale people will be here at one, so we need to have this stuff packed up.”

The estate sale people were a small company in town that took large lots of estate items on consignment. They sold the items, took a cut, and then they would send me a check for the remainder. I didn’t expect to make much; it was honestly just the easiest way to get rid of all his stuff without having to throw it away. The estate people even came to pick it up, so it was minimal muss and fuss, and I didn’t have to rent a truck to shuttle it all somewhere.

We just had to box it up for their people to take away.

“If you see anything you want, feel free to grab it,” I told Mal, since I was sure Beez already knew my thoughts on the matter. “Just, um, set it on the coffee table for now, I guess.” I looked at the table, and Fluke came up next to me, testing the tabletop with one paw like he had the couch, or like he was thinking of jumping up there. Or like he was afraid it would collapse if anyone set something on it. “Oh, it’s not that bad. And it’s not like we’ll forget you’re here, so there’s no need to ham it up for attention.”

“No way,” Mal agreed, stopping to scratch Fluke’s head. “He’s the best thing in this place.”

Beez groaned from outside in the hallway. “A little help, losers?” We both rushed back out to help grab the boxes, tape, and packing paper.

The living room didn’t take long, but Fluke followed me around the whole time, keeping just behind me, like I needed protecting.

I tried not to think too much about what we were doing: packing up a man’s life for sale. Dad hadn’t had much. The living room was mostly a couple of ugly statues—a sleek abstract chrome cat and a black stone greyhound sitting opposite each other on his entertainment unit. There were no DVDs, no speakers, and nothing at all that would clutter up the sheer minimalism. The whole room was black, white, and chrome. It felt like the coffee shop, a little—impersonal and empty and strange.

“Why did your father eat off mirrored plates?” Mal called from the kitchen. They had only met my father a handful of times, and never for long, so this sterile reflection of his personality was likely a surprise to them.

“I’m surprised there’s not a mirror over the bed,” Beez yelled back from the bedroom. “Guy’s favorite pastime was looking at himself.”

“He wasn’t that bad,” I mumbled, but my heart wasn’t even in it enough to say it out loud. I didn’t believe it, and I wasn’t even sure why I was doing it, other than habit.

There was a tiny cough behind me, and I turned to see Mal in the kitchen doorway. Their face was apologetic. “You okay? You could always tell us to can it. I mean, I’m not my father’s biggest fan, but I don’t think I’d want to hear all about what an ass he was if he died.”

I thought about it. Remembered the yelled insults of Saturday. The slightly less violent ones of the previous week. The two decades of cold distance. “I’m not sure I even knew him, Mal. It wasn’t like he wanted a kid, let alone one who was barely even a mage.”

Fluke gave a little growl at that, and Mal looked at him. Then they waved in his direction, a small smile playing across their face. “Barely even a mage, but you got yourself a familiar. So not only did he judge you on something you couldn’t control, he did it wrong. Sorry, but he really does sound like a tool.”

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