“Yes.”
“Of course you can.” Ramona turned off the light.
Darkness settled over the room like a blanket. Ramona lay there, staring at the ceiling, hyperaware of every sound. Her ownbreathing. The creak of the chair as Zara shifted. The distant hum of traffic outside. The building’s old pipes groaning.
This was fine. Totally normal. Just a regular Tuesday night with a demon in her bedroom.
She closed her eyes. Tried to relax. Counted backwards from one hundred.
At seventy-three, she heard it.
A sound from outside. High-pitched, eerie. Like a scream, but not quite. It started low and climbed, wavering at the end.
Ramona’s eyes snapped open. “That fucking cat.”
“You mean the fox?” Zara asked from the darkness. Her voice was calm.
“It’s just a cat.” Ramona had lived in this apartment for two years. She knew the neighborhood sounds. “There’s one that battles with the raccoons behind the building.”
“That’s not a cat.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what a cat sounds like.”
“And I’ve been alive for three hundred years, Mortal. I know a fox when I hear one.” There was a pause. “And it’s calling your name, Ramona. Specifically.”
Ramona sat up, the covers pooling around her waist. “What? You speak fox?”
“Are all mortals this dense?” Zara huffed in annoyance.
The sound came again. Closer this time. Ramona got out of bed and went to the window, pulling back the curtain. The alley behind the building was lit by a single streetlight, casting everything in sickly yellow. And there, sitting on top of the dumpster, was a fox.
It was small, red-furred, with a white-tipped tail and dark legs. Its ears were pricked forward, pointed directly at Ramona’s window. As she watched, it opened its mouth and made that sound again — that eerie, climbing cry that definitely wasn’t a cat.
And she felt something.
A pull. A recognition. Like a string tied around her ribs, tugging gently.
Ramona sighed. “I guess it could have been that fox.”
Behind her, she heard Zara stand up. Heard her cross the room. Felt her presence at her shoulder, warm and solid.
“You feel something,” Zara said. It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t—” Ramona stopped. “I don’t know. I never had a familiar.”
“I thought all witches had one. Felix has Gerald, Posey has that plant, even Kashvi has the—” Zara’s voice broke off, as if she was trying to stop herself from revealing something.
“Kashvi has what?” Ramona pressed.
“Never mind. Where’syourfamiliar?” Zara asked.
“I’ve just never had one. We had a cat growing up that I used to pretend was my familiar, and Simone’s hare was sweet, but I’ve just never… found one.”
“Who is Simone?” Zara asked.
“My ex-wife,” Ramona explained, shutting the curtain.
Zara nodded, glancing back to the window where the fox was staring up at them with an intensity Ramona didn’t appreciate.
