Her glossy eyes held mine for a long, terrible moment.
Then she pumped a tiny fist in the air and launched herself off the couch in a flurry of velvet and curls, pitter-pattering up the stairs to plan her murder-themed sleepover.
I exhaled a shaky breath and hauled myself to my feet. “Great,” I muttered. “That’s definitely not going to backfire.”
As I headed for my pantry to pack, I pulled out my phone and opened my messages. First, deciding that I wouldn’t have time to see Lex in the morning, I texted her with the directions to the cabin for her trip with Lochran and asked her to say hi to BooDini for me when she got there. It might have been almost a decade, but I was certain BooDini would be thrilled to see her. Then I opened my conversation with Blaise and began to type.
Oh... forgot to mention. The house is... mildly possessed. You might need to humor her with a few spooky activities. Happy to pay a bonus if you do. See you tomorrow!
I was wrestling my tent and sleeping bags into the already overstuffed trunk an hour later when my phone buzzed.
K
I stared at the screen, resisting the urge to hurl my phone into the trunk too.
Gods help me. Between a murder doll and a security guard who communicated in single syllables, this trip was going to be a disaster.
Chapter 5. Blaise
I threw my bag over my shoulder and into the back of the van, where it landed with a softthunkatop the precarious heap of tactical gear. I could almost hear Ambrose’s phantom voice nagging in my ear about being careless with the equipment. Not that it mattered, seeing as we hadn’t taken on any remotely dangerous jobs in months. My bulletproof vest had slipped off its hanger four months ago and still lay crumpled on the floor, buried beneath other bits of dislodged gear I hadn’t found the energy to put back.
With a sigh, I climbed out of the driver’s seat and circled to the rear. It took a full ten minutes to wrestle the mound of redundant crap into some semblance of order. Ambrose would usually have snuck into my van and done it for me once he got sick of complaining.
But, like with everything else these past six months, he’d been keeping his distance.
Gods, did I miss that neat freak.
There had been a moment during the summoning, just as the first bell tolled, just as I was fighting the urge to reach for him in case it was the last time, when his hand had found mine, and everything had finally clicked.
Ambrose might regret that night for reasons I didn’t understand...but he wanted me.
For one fragile heartbeat, as the final bell rang and I realized we’d been granted another year together, I thought we might be able to untangle this mess. But when I raised my eyes to meet his—my mind whirring with all the things I wanted to say—there it was. That same look. The same regret he’d worn that night.
And just like that, the confidence I’d felt seconds earlier drained away.
If he didn’t want me, why reach for me like he was afraid of losing me? Why stay in our apartment just to spend six months avoiding me instead of returning to the Shadow Realm and sparing us both this slow, miserable rot?
None of it made sense.
It was all just...
...fucking confusing.
The moment the celebrations ended, we made our way back to our shadow apartment in awkward silence. I spent every step trying to find the words—because I couldn’t keep living like this.
But the second we crossed the threshold of our dreary flat, Ambrose’s shadows brushed my legs, and my thoughts scattered. In the blink of an eye, we were back in our real apartment.
Thewhooshof acceptance emails followed as soon as they found a signal, and Ambrose sagged with visible relief—relief that he’d be spending the next few weeks on a job, far away from me.
And that was when I had finally snapped.
I don’t rememberexactlywhat I said. It all spilled out in a rush—half-formed thoughts that had made perfect sense in my head, only to fracture into tangents the moment they hit my tongue.
But the core of it was simple enough.
I needed to know why he regretted that night. I needed him to know that I didn’t. And, more than anything, I needed my best friend back.
He just stared at me. Mouth opening and closing with no words falling from his lips.
