"Apparently."
"Why French?"
"How should I know? Maybe it had dreams of being a croissant warmer in Paris before youcondemned it to a life of frozen waffles and sadness."
The toaster made an indignant noise. "Les gaufres congelées ne sont pas si mal."
"It's defending frozen waffles," Cassie translated, because apparently three years of high school French were about to become relevant in the worst possible way. "In French. My appliances are multilingual and judging me."
"Welcome to magical awakening, lass. It's all downhill from here."
Movement caught her eye through the window. In the garden.
The gnomes had moved.
She had three of them—cheap ceramic things she'd bought on clearance years ago when she thought quirky lawn decorations might compensate for her inability to keep flowers alive. They'd been arranged in a little cluster near the rosebush.
Now they were lined up along the walkway. Like soldiers. Or a very small, very judgmental welcoming committee.
One of them—the one with the fishing pole—had turned to face the house. His painted eyes seemed to track her movement.
"Liam."
"Aye?"
"My garden gnomes are watching me."
He glanced out the window. Went very still. "Ah."
"Just 'ah'? That's all you've got?"
"What would you like me to say? 'Oh dear, your ceramic lawn ornaments have developed sentience and possibly malicious intent, how unexpected'?" He rubbed his jaw. "This is what happens when you cast spells you don't understand. The magic leaks. Spreads. Gets into everything."
"So what do I do?"
"You learn to control it. Or you live with a haunted house full of opinionated furniture and judgmental garden decorations." He met her eyes, and something in his expression softened. Just slightly. "Or you let me help you fix this before it gets worse."
The cabinet groaned again. The toaster muttered something in French that sounded distinctly like cursing.
From somewhere upstairs, Cassie heard what might have been her bedroom curtains sighing dramatically.
Her life had become a magical sitcom. Except instead of a laugh track, she had a Scottish handyman who looked like he wanted to strangle her and kiss her in roughly equal measure.
"Fine," she said. "Help me."
"Right then." Liam set the wrench on the counter—or tried to. It stuck to his palm like it hadbeen welded there. He sighed. "But we're doing this properly. No more random spells. No more wine-fueled experimentation. And for the love of all that's holy, no more summoning strange men into your kitchen."
"That was ONE TIME."
"Once was enough, lass."
The wrench pulsed in his hand. Warm and smug and entirely too pleased with itself.
And Cassie realized with perfect, horrifying clarity that fixing her sink had been the easy part.
Now she had to figure out how to un-summon a man who looked at her like she was chaos incarnate.
While her house slowly came alive around them, one opinionated appliance at a time.
