Page 23 of The Reluctant Reaper
“And whose fault his that?” she snapped.
Amara blinked and took in her mother’s denial / sudden fury / helplessness. “That’s fair,” she conceded. “What did Paeon say?”
“Paeon?”
“Yes, the god of godly medicine. Why are you saying ‘Paeon?’ like you have no idea who I’m talking about?”
“It hasn’t come to that yet.”
“Oh. That’s... good, I guess.” Amara’s knees wanted to buckle from relief. If Mom had declined to bring in the big gun, her dad couldn’t be in too much trouble. “But maybe you should?—”
“I put your friend in your tower.”
Amara giggled in spite of herself. “Thanks. That’s not a sentence you normally say. Anyone normally says.”
Her mother grabbed a piece of her hair and gave it a tender yank. “You must be tired. Go rest. See to your friend. And we’ll talk about everything and anything in the morning, when the others get here.”
“Okay.” Amara tried to do the polite triangle hug but her mother was having none of it, giving her a squeeze that left her breathless. “Good night.”
* * *
It was stupid, given the size of the compound, but everything looked smaller, starting with her mother and ending with the tower, three stories high and artfully covered in vines, an Insta-worthy picture if there ever was one, but she didn’t so much as glance up. Instead, she unlatched the unreasonably tall and heavy egress and shoved, and in seconds she was hammering on Gray’s door.
She jumped at the scream.
“I’m coming! Don’t harvest my soul, I’m coming!”
“Jesus,” she said when he swung the door open. “How long have you been greeting people like that?”
“Two seconds. C’mon in.” He let her enter, then waved his arms like Vanna pointing to the right letter onWheel. “You believe this place? Of course you do. You were spawned and raised here. Butwow.”
She borrowed a line from Olivia Goldsmith’sFlavor of the Month. “It’s not home, but it’s much.”
Gray was in his normal sleeping attire: shirtless with shorts. Thank goodness they were just friends, because it had to be said: The man had an outstanding physique. It wasn’t fair; Gray counted ignoring the McDonald’s drive-thru and going inside as a workout.
He'd been given the smallest of the tower chambers and she was glad. Better the tower than the house; sharing the same space with death gods didn’t always work out well. This way Gray had a separate space to retreat to if needed.
The chamber was simply furnished with a double bed, an end table, and two overstuffed, wine-colored chairs. There was a small table between the chairs, and the brass bathtub was directly across from the bed, adjacent to the fireplace. The built-in bookshelves were bare, the carpet a deep brown, the windows shut tight against the March chill.
“This place is like the fanciest of fancy B and Bs. Gotta say, the tub’s so cool, I don’t mind not having an en suite bathroom.”
“There’s a bathroom on this level,” she replied absently.
“Yeah, I know. Your mom?—”
“It’s the second door on the left just after the door to your room.”
“Um, Amara? Preeeeeetty sure you’re not listening.”
“But if you don’t like that, you’re welcome to come up to the top of the tower and use mine.”
“Okay, now I’m getting a ‘she’s not listening’ vibeanda Rapunzel vibe.”
She laughed. “Don’t be an idiot; my hair’s not nearly long enough.”
“Yeah, ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your bob’ won’t work. C’mere, have a seat in one of these ludicrously puffy chairs and tell me about this tower. Your family tower!”
“Pass. There’s a reason my room’s at the top. It was given to me so I could look over the kingdom I’d one day inherit.”
