“Oh, Ibetyou are.”
Olivia makes a sound like she’s trying not to scream or laugh or both. “Peg, maybe this isn’t the best time?—”
Peggy plants herself on the couch like she owns it. “You can’tnotlet me in now. You’ve been ducking me all week. You owe me at least one glass and some serious hot tea. Spill it, librarian. Who is he, where’d you meet him, and does he have a brother?”
I exchange a glance with Olivia. Her eyes sayhelp,but her mouth moves too slow.
I step forward. “I have no brothers remaining.”
Peggy pauses. Her eyes soften just a hair. “Oh… shit. Sorry.”
“No offense taken.”
“Still,” she says, lifting the wine, “I feel it’s my duty as Liv’s best friend to say this: if you hurt her, I will break your kneecaps. And your… spear.”
I blink. “You would shatter my honor-weapon?”
“No,” Olivia groans, face in her hands. “No no no. Don’t take that literally.”
“I wouldn’t dare break your actual… thing,” Peggy grins, winking at Olivia. “It’s just an expression.”
“Ah.” I nod solemnly. “Then I swear it shall remain intact. As will her heart.”
Peggy whistles. “Damn. Where’d you find this guy, Liv? Renaissance Faire? Viking funeral? Hunky ex-convict book club?”
“Peggy—”
“No judgment, babe. Just jealous. If I’d known they made ‘em like this outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’d have been prowling harder.”
I sit carefully, still half-alert, watching Olivia flit around the room pouring wine like she’s praying it will distract her friend. Peggy talks and talks—about work, about town gossip, about a raccoon that broke into her garbage cans and left behind a mutilated Ken doll.
But slowly, I see it—her vigilance easing. Her shoulders untightening. The laughter that bubbles out of her isn’t forced anymore. Even Olivia, caught between horror and hysteria, lets herself breathe.
In this moment, around this strange fire of human absurdity and wine-stained affection, the shadows don’t press in quite so heavy. I don’t forget the vow. I don’t forget the monster. But I remember something else too—why we fight. What we guard.
Her.
Peggy eventually dozes off on the couch, mid-rant about the mayor’s scandalous secret vacation photos. Olivia covers her with a throw blanket, her movements tender.
“She’s gonna wake up thinking this was all a dream,” she whispers, moving to stand beside me.
“Do dreams often involve threats of weapon mutilation?”
“With Peggy? You’d be surprised.”
She smiles at me. I reach for her hand.
For once, there’s no looming threat. No chittering. No blood.
Just laughter. Wine. And her hand in mine.
CHAPTER 11
OLIVIA
Town hall meetings in Walnut Falls are usually a snoozefest of pothole complaints and budget arguments. Tonight it feels like we’re all sitting in the front row of a cosmic horror show.
I press the hidden recorder in my palm, heart pounding in time with the whirring air conditioner. Kursk stands beside me, disguised again by his talisman—human, yes, but tall as a telephone pole, broad as a barn door. His chest still shows traces of the bend of the spear invisibly tucked beneath his shirt. I can feel the tremor in his muscles. He doesn’t look comfortable. Neither am I.
