Sorry, I should have said before. Kit was cleaning a gun. Why would there be a gun at your house? Blackthorn Hall is like a rock. You turn it over and so many things are underneath. This time a gun was underneath.
Kit went whiter than any ghost I’ve ever seen. He dropped the gun onto the counter. And he didn’t speak. I wonder if he was wondering what I was wondering. I was wondering how Ty knew how to clean a gun. Enough to tell someone they were doing it wrong.
Maybe he just didn’t know what to say, so he said that.
They looked at each other.
Time is not fast or slow where I am. And yet it was long enough for me to feel like the whole world was disappearing, like there was nothing else except Kit and Ty looking at each other.
Kit said, “You shouldn’t be here.”
He has never spoken to me like that. With such a cold voice. He had put his hands in his pockets and his shoulders were thrust forward, like he was being aggressive, but I could see his hands in his pockets, all knotted up. I wonder if Ty saw it too. Kit’s fingers, digging and digging into his palms.
But Ty wasn’t looking at Kit. He was looking past him at the window. I could hear birds, and quiet English sounds, and Ty breathing. He said, “How long do you think it will take you to forgive me?”
Kit looked at me. He looked a little betrayed, as if I had known he would be here, had planned this. But I didn’t. “I don’t know,” he said.
“But not now,” Ty said in the smallest voice.
“No,” Kit said. “Not now.”
There was no more reason to stay then.
Maybe there was a reason. Maybe it was Kit’s hands crushing in on themselves, until I thought the bones would break like hearts.
But Ty couldn’t see that. Ty was in pain. I put myself next to him, wrapped myself around him, held him while we went back through the Portal. I was sad. I wanted to see you very much, Jules. But Ty needed me to be with him.
If you dream this, maybe you will know we were there in your house. I am sorry we didn’t stay.
Julian, I don’t know what to do. Ty misses Kit more than he thought he could miss someone. He misses him as much now as he did the day he left. He loves him the same. I think he always will, and it scares me.
Kit is used to not needing people, but Ty needs people. He is afraid to need people but only because he needs them so much. He is not going to stop needing Kit. I don’t know if Kit will always need Ty. But Ty will always need him.
Irene says hello. I am teaching her to play dead.
I love you.
Livvy
MAGNUS
Dear delectable muffin of love,
I hope this perfumed letter finds you well, and that you and R and M are having an excellent time in your exotic journey to…well, I believe the term you used was “upstate.” I have heard legends of this Upstate, but never did I know my family would see for themselves its mountains, its twee farm markets, its River of the Son of Hud.
More to the point, I hope the kids are enjoying their visit with Grandma, and I hope you are referring to Maryse as “Grandma” as often as possible because I enjoy the face she makes when we do. On a less pleasant but more urgent note, I hope you’ve had a chance to talk with Luke about the Cohort/Idris stuff.
But do not tire your beautiful hands with a written reply. I will be heading to this “Upstate” myself to join you later this afternoon, as I am relieved to report the business with the Blackthorn kids’ cursed house is moreor less resolved. Although it was touch and go, let me tell you.
I don’t think I even showed you the note Jem sent, which said, “Emma and Julian are trying not to bother you about their house, and that is very nice of them, but unlike them, I feel absolutely no compunction about bothering you, and so this is me, now, in this note, bothering you. We are in need of a warlock, and you are the best one I know for this. We would all really appreciate your help.”
As is often the case, I was both mildly annoyed and mildly impressed with Jem, who managed to be both very kind and also to remind me I am a sucker when it comes to him and Tessa and will rush to their aid when I can. Because I am a sucker when it comes to him and Tessa, I wrote back quickly letting them know I would come.
I know what you’re thinking: “How could Tessa need a warlock when she is a warlock?” But different warlocks have different expertise, as you know, and while Jem was flattering me that I was the best choice, the reality is I have dealt with a lot more curses than Tessa. That’s what comes of spending the past decades hiring your services out to any miscreants who come by instead of more intelligently living a calm life as a magic researcher in the Spiral Labyrinth. Tessa always was the smartest of us.
Anyway, I must give Emma and Julian credit. I expected to arrive and find them banging the cursed objects against one another or something, but they had set up a decent enough protective circle and even found a spell. It was anold, generic spell I have found to rarely be of much use with actual curses in the modern day, but still.
Rather stupidly I set up a basic workaday curse-breaking circle of my own and gave it a try. “Stupidly” because I had forgotten who set the enchantment in the first place. Your worst ancestor, Benedict Lightwood, all-around demon enthusiast and dilettante necromancer. How in bed with demons was Benedict? He literally died of demon pox—which, if you do not know because you are beautifully pure, my Alec—is a sexually transmitted demon disease.
