“We’re nearly a hundred miles from your apartment,” Zara said quietly. “Through unfamiliar territory.”
Ramona opened the driver’s door slowly. The fox didn’t move.
“You came a long way for me, didn’t you?” Ramona said softly.
The fox’s ears flicked forward. Not quite agreement, but acknowledgment.
“I need the driver’s seat, though.” Ramona gestured to the back. “Can you…?”
The fox stood, stretched with deliberate slowness, and hopped gracefully into the back seat. It turned in a circle twicebefore settling into the corner behind Zara’s side, eyes half closed but still watching.
Ramona slid into the driver’s seat. Zara got in the passenger side. And just like that, they were three: witch, demon, and fox, driving back to Fernwick together in Ramona’s ancient sedan that smelled like old coffee and lavender car freshener.
The fox was silent the entire drive. Ramona checked the rearview mirror periodically, finding it in the same position each time — alert but resting, present but not demanding attention. Zara typed something on her HellBerry, then closed it and just watched the landscape pass.
No one spoke. There was nothing that needed to be said.
When they finally pulled up outside the apartment building, the sun was straight overhead. Ramona put the car in park. Turned off the engine.
The fox was already on its feet.
“What do we do with you now?” Ramona asked, twisting to look at it as they climbed out of the car.
The fox met her eyes for a long moment. Then it jumped over the center console and out Zara’s side of the car, landing lightly on the sidewalk. It didn’t run immediately. Instead, it looked back at Ramona through the open car door, tail swishing once.
“Thank you,” Ramona said, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. It just felt right.
The fox held her gaze a moment longer. Then it turned and bolted, a streak of red-gold fur disappearing into the alley between buildings. Gone as quickly and mysteriously as it always did.
“Well,” Zara said, still holding the door open. “That was interesting.”
“You think he’s…” Ramona paused, searching for the right word. “Connected to me already? Before a formal claiming?”
“I think he’s been connected to you since the first time you heard him screaming in the alley.” Zara’s mouth curved slightly. “The claiming ritual is just making it official.”
Ramona glanced up at her apartment building. “Well, four more weeks.”
“At least.” Zara nodded, threading her fingers through Ramona’s. “Come on, let’s go see if Princess Buttercup ate Felix while we were gone.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The HellBerry buzzedin Zara’s hand — a sound like wind chimes made of bone, discordant and wrong in a way that made Ramona’s teeth ache.
“That’s them,” Zara said. Hell was calling. Zara had sent a message to her supervisor just fifteen minutes before, explaining the extension Earth-side given their unsuccessful severance ritual.
She was standing in the middle of Ramona’s bedroom, perfectly still. She’d glamoured one of Ramona’s plain black T-shirts to look like a proper button-down — the illusion was flawless, all crisp lines and corporate polish, though Ramona could see the slight shimmer at the edges if she looked closely enough. Her short dark hair was slicked back as much as the length would allow, revealing the sharp angles of her face.
She looked every inch the corporate demon Ramona had first summoned.
Well. Almost.
A dark tail swished behind her, reminding Ramona of a cat.
“Do you want me to leave?” Ramona asked from her position on the bed, where she’d been pretending to read the same page ofAdvanced Runic Syntaxfor the past twenty minutes.
“No.” Zara’s voice was flat. “Stay. Just… don’t talk. They can’t see you if I keep the camera angled this way.”
The HellBerry buzzed again. Insistent.
