“For the record,” he said, “I haven’t had one of those in about three centuries.”
The door clicked shut behind her. Marcus checked his watch. Twelve days, fourteen hours, and a margin too thin to think about.
10
The cabin soundeddifferent at four in the morning when you hadn’t actually slept.
Marcus had given up around three. Now he lay on the couch, fully dressed, listening to the floorboards in the bedroom announce every restless turn Hazel made. Yesterday he’d kissed her. The wood remembered, apparently. So did he.
His fingers fumbled the buttons on his shirt, the same buttons he’d fastened for centuries without thought. The protective charm he’d given Hazel sat on the side table by the couch; she must have removed it before their walk yesterday. Before the hellhounds.
The kitchen felt smaller when she entered, though she stayed carefully by the doorway. Her hair was twisted up in its usual messy bun, copper strands escaping. She wore her old college sweatshirt and cartoon-cat pajama pants. Normal. Familiar. Except for the way she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Morning,” she said.
“Good morning.” He turned to the kettle, grateful for something to do with his hands. “Tea?”
“Please.”
They moved around each other like dancers who’d forgotten the steps, maintaining a buffer of space that hadn’t existed yesterday. When she reached for her mug at the exact moment he tried to hand it to her, they both froze, fingers not quite touching.
“Sorry,” they said in unison, then winced at the echo.
Azrael padded in, took one look at them, and rolled his eyes so dramatically his whole head moved. “Oh, for the love of…”
“Breakfast,” Marcus said quickly, turning to the stove. His hands were steady as he cracked eggs into the pan. Steady as he reached for the bread. Steady until…
The acrid smell of smoke filled the kitchen.
“Is that…?” Hazel stared at the toaster.
Marcus yanked out two pieces of charcoal that had once been wheat bread. Yesterday, he’d finally managed golden-brown perfection after days of failure. Now he was back to burning it, his concentration shattered by the memory of yesterday’s kiss.
“I’ll make more,” he said.
“It’s fine. I’m not really hungry anyway.” She clutched her tea mug like a lifeline. “About yesterday…”
“It was adrenaline.” The words came out too fast, too sharp. “The hellhounds, the danger. These things happen in high-stress situations.”
She blinked. “Right. Just adrenaline.”
Neither of them believed it.
“We should focus on the case,” Marcus said, scraping eggs onto plates with mechanical precision. “Twelve days until trial.”
“Absolutely.” She picked at the handle of her tea mug. “The case. That’s what matters.”
Azrael let out something between a snort and a hairball. “I’m going to go suffocate myself in my cat bed. Call me when you two stop being idiots.”
By afternoon,they’d established a careful geography of avoidance. Marcus had retrieved his case files from his briefcase and spread them across the kitchen table, making notes in his precise handwriting. Hazel had fetched her grimoire from the bedroom and claimed the armchair by the window, allegedly researching protection spells.
The only sounds were the scratch of his pen, the whisper of turning pages, and each other’s breathing.
Marcus tried to focus on witness testimony protocols. Instead, he found himself tracking her movements in his peripheral vision. The way she absently played with a loose curl. How she bit her lower lip when concentrating. The soft humming that started and stopped abruptly whenever she caught herself.
He forced his attention back to the legal pad. The same paragraph he’d read six times without absorbing a word.
She shifted in her chair, and he made the mistake of looking up at the exact moment she glanced his way. Their eyes met, held. Everything seemed to pause.
