Page 44 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

That was fair. Max couldn’t argue with that.

“That would be really awesome. Thank you.”

Rory had already texted the D&D group and moved their session to Thursday, so that they could get out to Mr. Jones’s estate Friday night. He wanted to meet with them at eight o’clock Saturday morning, and he was putting them up Friday and Saturday night, assuming all went well.

Everything was all arranged, but Max’s stomach was still burbling uncertainly a few hours later, and Rory gave him a hug.

“It’s going to be okay,” Rory assured him. “Alex can contact us if they need anything, and we’re not that far away.”

Wrapping his arms around Rory and closing his eyes, Max wondered if his parents had felt like this the first time they’d let him manage the shop alone. If so, they hadn’t shown it, and Max had been supremely confident that he could handle it. (He’d practically grown up there. Why wouldn’t he be able to handle it?) There were plenty of things that could have gone wrong, but none of them had.

With a sigh, Max let his arms fall and stepped back. Rory was smiling softly at him.

“I know it will probably be fine,” Max said.

“And you want to look at Mr. Jones’s collection.”

Max couldn’t help but nod. “I really do. I can’t believe he told you we could come.”

Mr. Jones hadn’t let Max’s mother visit the collection, and he’d resisted all of Max’s efforts for nearly fifteen years.

Rory had had one conversation with the man and somehow convinced him to change his mind.

“You’re amazing, you know,” Max told him. “I’m so excited to see the collection, and you made it happen!”

Rory’s cheeks went pink, and he looked pleased. “I’m still not sure what I did, but I’m glad it worked.”

It couldn’t just be Max being a bit rude, though that probably hadn’t helped. His mother had been much more polite than he was, but she hadn’t managed it, either. But there was something particularly engaging about Rory. Max had felt it from the first moment he’d met him—even when he’d thought he was a bird—and it seemed like Mr. Jones felt it, too.

Max was glad Rory was very good at people.

By Friday, Evie had texted her shock that Max was actually leaving the bookshop and going away for a weekend twenty-seven times, Max and Rory were both packed—Max had dug out a duffel bag that Rory could use—and Max had given Alex the spare set of keys for the shop and the apartment and made sure that Alex knew how to use them.

Alex, despite pointing out that they’d been locking and unlocking doors for years, gamely demonstrated their ability.

The weather was cool, but it was unlikely they suddenly needed to worry about a freak snowstorm or anything that was going to prevent Alex from walking to work.

Alex laughed at him. “Oh, my god, it’s fine. I’ll text tomorrow. Nothing will go wrong. Stop worrying.”

Max wondered if this was what it felt like to have a kid, and he wasn’t sure he was cut out for it. Was it normal to worry all the time?

(Then he thought of the years when he’d taken care of Evie after their parents had died. Yeah, it was exactly like that. It didn’t exactly go away, but it had lessened a little as she’d gotten older and proved that she could take care of herself. Maybe the same thing would happen as Alex got older? Not that they were Max’s sibling or child, but… still.)

Max did his best to stop worrying. “Try not to burn the shop down while I’m gone.”

Alex scoffed at him. “We both know that if anyone’s going to burn the place down, it’s going to be Nōwē.”

That was true enough. Max turned to the cat. “Try not to burn the place down while I’m gone.”

Nōwē regarded him with supreme indifference and began to groom herself.

Rory said, “As long as you continue to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed, she’s not going to burn the shop down.”

That was probably true.

Alex nodded. “And that’s why I’m going to come feed her and make sure she has fresh water. We might even cuddle with some books for a few hours if that’s okay.”

“If you want to, sure,” Max agreed.