“I don’t know. Do you need one?” Sondre frowned briefly. “I can explain things unless you need details on sex with men. I know a guy though who—”
The rest of Sondre’s words were lost under Craig’s laugh.
“You still aren’t my real dad, and I don’t know if I like you,” Craig said when he stopped laughing. “You’re not a total tool, though.”
“I’ll add that to my next job interview. ‘Not a total tool.’” Sondre rolled his eyes. “You’re not the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life, either.”
“What is?”
Sondre gave him an assessing look and decided to be blunt. “Bit by a rattlesnake? Became a witch? Couldn’t see my family again? It was all part of the same thing, I guess.”
“Sounds pretty bad.”
“It was. I hated losing everything and everyone who mattered. My plans. My friends. My brother.” Sondre pointed to the door.
“I feel like you’re doing that I-can-relate thing old people do,” Craig muttered.
“Nah. I can’t relate. I lost everyone.Yougot to keep part of your family. The best part,” Sondre pointed out.
“Rather not think about how great you think my mother is. I heard you the other night. Scar a kid.” Craig’s cheeks were red, and Sondre reminded himself that for all the difficulty, the teen boy was dealing fairly well.
“Sorry you heard. She’s happy, though. Having you here and having someone treat her like the amazing woman she is.”
“Stillnot okay thinking about you and her,” Craig stressed. He sighed, glanced over at Sondre, and added, “But yeah, she is. My dad was an ass, tried to take her to court, just… awful. Plus, he tried to kill us in the accident. She thinks I don’t know, so she doesn’t talk to me about it, but I’m not stupid. Rather kill me than pay child support. What a dad, huh?”
“Might be easier on her if you were stupid.” Sondre shoved open the main door to the castle. “Mask.”
Craig fixed the awkward contraption over his face as the two were headed out of the castle intentionally—which was an improvement on the few times when Sondre had to find and retrieve the boy.
Sondre was weighing what to say about the fact that the kid’s father tried to have him killed. Over the decades here, Sondre had seen his share of bad situations, but it never got easier to find the words of comfort.
“I don’t have anything to do here,” Craig blurted a few steps later. “It’s not like I’m trying to start trouble for Mom. I’m just so fucking bored. No school. No one but old people to talk to. No TV. No games. No anything.”
“So what are we to do?” Sondre asked, grateful that the murderous-bastard-is-your-father conversation was paused. Talking to the teencalmly was the only way he could deal with Craig. Honestly, in most cases the answer was just talk to the new witch like aperson.That worked on teenagers, too, apparently.
They walked along the path that stretched from castle to village.
“I was thinking I could join one of the sports houses,” Craig mused, scuffing his feet in the dry ground as they walked. “I mean, I can’t do magic, but there are plenty of sports that are nonmagic.”
“Does your mother know your plan?”
“Sort of,” Craig evaded. “She said that since I’m not magical, I don’t need a house, but I can’t just… do nothing. That’s all I do. Nothing.”
“And break rules,” Sondre muttered.
“You’d have liked my mom before I came along,” Craig said. “I’m not supposed to know, but she was not really a rule follower either.”
She still isn’t.Sondre considered saying it. If Maggie had been following the rules that governed Crenshaw, Craig wouldn’t be here. Instead, Sondre only said, “You don’t say.”
Craig leveled a surprisingly mature look at him. “Do you blame her? What wouldyoudo if you had no responsibilities?”
“Not blaming your mom. If I wasn’t headmaster—or a married man—I’d pretty much drink and get laid,” Sondre said. “That was a lot of what I did when I arrived here… hmm, roughly seventy years ago.”
“So you get it.” Craig looked back at the path. “I’m bored. I can’t go to your magic college. I don’t have friends. I love my mom and all, and it’s not like I want to go back to live withhim,but…”
“What if there was another option?”
“There’s athirdplace?”
