"I know."
Sidney feels cold. Not the underworld kind of cold, not the temperature-dropping presence of death that he's become familiar with over the past three days. This is the ordinary human cold of fear finding a place to settle and deciding to stay. It's in his bones and in his hands and in the base of his throat, and it has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the fact that there's a five-year-old on a playground who trusts him to keep her safe, and the people who want to hurt her are willing to use her body as a doorway between worlds.
"I need your help to keep her safe," Sidney tells him. "I know Erath has already asked you, but this is me asking you."
"You don't have to ask me. As long as he's not forcing you to stay in the underworld against your will then of course I'll help."
August shifts, and Sidney can feel the change in him, the transition from strategic to personal, and he braces for it the way you brace for something you know is coming and can't avoid.
"Okay, I'm just going to ask, since you keep dancing around it," August says. "Are you in a relationship with him?"
Sidney considers several responses. He picks the least revealing one. "It's complicated."
"What does that mean?"
"It means we haven't exactly talked about it."
"You're sleeping with him and taking care of his daughter and you haven't talked about it."
"We've only slept together once," Sidney says, too quickly, and then winces at how defensive it sounds.
August raises an eyebrow. The eyebrow communicates more than an entire conversation could.
"And me taking care of Penny has nothing to do with Erath," Sidney continues, steadier now. "She trusts me. I'm not going to abandon her when the whole world is working against her. That would be true regardless of whatever is or isn't happening between me and him."
"But something is happening between you and him."
"Maybe." He hesitates. "It's complicated."
"You said that already."
"Because it is." Sidney runs a hand through his hair. "Don't make a big deal out of it. I don't even know if it's a thing. Erath is not exactly a talkative, emotionally forthcoming person. And I don't have the best track record with men. So let's not put a name on something that doesn't need one."
August's expression shifts. The interrogation drops away and what replaces it is the look Sidney has seen a hundred times. It's the look that means August is worried, and not the kind of worried that comes from curiosity or judgment but the kind that comes from years of watching someone you care about get hurt and knowing you can't always stop it.
"I'm just worried," August says. "The same way you always worry about me."
"I appreciate that," Sidney tells him, and he means it. "But Erath has gone out of his way to be obnoxiously careful with me. He hasn't pressured me into anything. He hasn't asked me for anything."
He hesitates. The pigeon struts away. On the playground, Penny is chasing the red-haired girl in what appears to be a very enthusiastic game of tag.
"That's the weird thing, right?" Sidney says, quieter now. "It's been three days and he hasn't once asked me for anything or guilted me into anything or told me I need to earn my keep. He just…" He trails off. The words are in a place he doesn't usually go, a place that's quieter than the rest of him and harder to reachand more honest than he'd prefer. "He just lets me exist around him without expectations. And maybe I need that more than I want to admit."
August's expression softens. The tension in his shoulders eases and he looks at Sidney the way he looked at him the first night they met, when Sidney was nineteen and working his first shift at Willow's and had no idea what he'd gotten himself into. He looks at him with the steady, uncomplicated affection of someone who chose to be his family and has never once wavered on that choice.
"If you're happy," August says, "and he's treating you well, then I'm happy too. I just want the best for you, Sid."
"I'll be happy when I'm not being stalked by a coven of witches who are trying to maim me and abduct the little girl I'm protecting." Sidney straightens up on the bench, pulling himself back to the practical, which is where he's most comfortable and least likely to say something that makes his throat tight.
Sidney looks at the playground. Penny is sitting in the grass now, cross-legged, talking to the red-haired girl about something with great animation, hands moving, face bright. She looks normal. She looks happy. She looks nothing at all like a child who is being hunted by people who want to use her as a conduit between life and death, and the disconnect between what she is and what they want from her is the thing that makes Sidney's hands close into fists on his knees.
"I'll talk to Erath," Sidney says. "Get more information about the Coven."
August agrees. Sidney thanks him and pushes himself up from the bench, wincing at the stiffness in his back from sitting too long on a surface that was clearly designed for people who don't carry forty pound children on their backs.
"We should be getting back." He glances at the sky, which is darker now, the gray thickening at the edges in a way that isn't weather. "I don't want to be out after dark. Not with her."
He crosses to the playground and calls for Penny, who protests leaving with the full-bodied outrage of a five-year-old who was in the middle of a very important conversation. She waves goodbye to her new best friend, whose name is apparently Sophie, and allows Sidney to carry her back to where August and Xela are waiting. She tells Sidney, very seriously, that Sophie has a cat named Mr. Whiskers and that Mr. Whiskers only has three legs but can still jump onto the counter.
