“Sure they can. These places are costly to maintain. Most are automated now.”
“But…” Aghast, I cast around for a word to express my dismay. “You only came back to decommission Watchmere?”
The nanosecond it leaves my lips I want to suck it back in, swallow it down. Let the spiky edges of it slice my throat open rather than put it out there, between us.
“No, I mean, not only that, but yes.” His voice brims with frustration, and it’s like a slap in the face.
“Okay. Good. Well. That’s fine.”
“Ivy, come on?—”
“Good luck with the light.” I practically run down the stairs, which is truly stupid because I do nearly break a damn ankle. Gunner bounds down after me, and I throw the toffee onto the table in a daze, and practically sprint home.
I don’t have time to worry about why Caleb is back.
I have a much, much bigger problem blinking up from the bay than his issues.
Thank goodness I have a magic house that can help with that.
Eight
Ikick my shoes off at the pink front door, and the house creaks in alarm at the mess of sand I’ve tracked inside. Gunner shakes himself, a fine dusting of sand flying out in every direction. The house sighs beneath my feet, the sand vanishing straight away.
It’s handy charm, that.
“Is anyone home?” I call up.
It’s around eight, so it’s not unreasonable to think my sisters are all around here somewhere. Though, unlike me, they have lives. Posey tinkers or hangs out at Saltline, and Rose could be teaching lessons or performing or doing artsy things with her friends.
They’re not running around staring at ocean eyeballs.
Yet.
No one answers, and my hands tremble slightly at my side.
“Okay then, it’s just you and me, Gunner.” That’s fine.
This is going to be fine.
“Don’t just stand there,” Gunner tells me. “This isn’t okay. That was a serious ward on that light that failed, and I know you saw whatever the—” he barks instead of cursing. “Thing was in the bay.”
“It wasn’t great, was it.” My palms are sweaty, and I wipe them against my dress, trying to figure out how I’m going to tackle this new problem.
“But your flair for understatement is perfectly intact,” Gunner mutters. “You should call your sisters?—”
“But they’re busy with their own things?—”
“It wasn’t a suggestion.” There’s a bit of a bite to Gunner’s tone, and that, more than anything, gets my hackles up.
I sigh, staring at the ceiling overhead. A cobweb stretches from the Capiz-shell fixture to the wall.
A cobweb that shouldn’t be here if the magic was still working properly. It is, mostly, thank goodness… but something’s gone wrong. I frown like the cobweb’s personally chosen violence against me.
“Why hadn’t anyone told us about the ward?” I ask, but Gunner doesn’t give a response. Instead, he bounds up the old ornate stairs, toenails clicking where he misses the thin runner in his haste.
It should feel homey, comfortable, familiar, the sound of his regular doggy noises in the old house.
It doesn’t.
