Page 27 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Kate

We sleep, eat, and fuck for three days straight. We don’t talk much about anything. We snuggle together in tight bundles. We chow down on home cooked meals (and a lot of venison). We fuck and fuck and fuck. Lots of sex. New sheets everyday.

It’s the morning of day four back home when there’s another knock on the door.

This time, it’s Marlowe’s parents.

They stare up at him as he slouches in the door in a pair of my sweatpants, a loose t-shirt, and an attitude.

“Oh, you’re back? I’d almost forgotten about you. I’m an orphan now. I accept that.”

“Marlowe Waverley,” his mom snaps without meaning to.

All three people involved freeze and the air is thick with tension and discomfort.

“Invite them in for coffee and pastries, Marlowe. You’re a witch, not a barbarian.” Brooks calls this nonsense out from the kitchen as Tanner waits in the foyer behind me. He won’t let us get more than five feet from him. Brooks is okay as long as we’re all just within five feet of each other so … fifteen feet away max. Same rules as before, huh?

“I don’t want them here.” Marlowe pushes up off the doorjamb and fills the doorway with his bulk. “Well? Where are the DNA tests?”

“We …” His mom trails off, tears welling in her eyes. “After all the crazy things that’ve been going on, all those missing people, I just … Marlowe, honey, I love you and I’m sorry.”

His dad says nothing, but I can’t leave Lo there to sway. I grab him by the arm as he puts a hand on the wall, and his hat morphs through about a dozen bouquets that his parents can’t see. He’s making bouquets for them. Does he know that? I wish they did.

He wants to give his mom flowers, and it’s so cute that I could die.

“I can’t believe I violated you twice just to get back to this ,” he whispers as his eyes dart around the floor near our feet. His and mine. Matching striped socks. His are orange and black. Mine are purple and black.

“I violated you, too, remember?” I whisper back as his parents stare at us like we’re insane. His mother is crying silently, and his father is fidgeting like he wants to say something but isn’t sure how to.

“Where are the DNA tests?” Marlowe repeats, voice cracking as he lifts those dark eyes up to them again.

“They’re right here,” his dad says finally, lifting the kits in his left hand. He sets them down on the small table that decorates our front porch, a pair of chairs on either side of it. We’ll need to get more chairs so the four of us can sit on the porch together and—

I am still the Hag Wytch.

Marlowe’s face falls, but he doesn’t argue. He stands there and accepts the swab from his dad, rubbing the inside of his cheek. When his father presents a different test that requires blood, Marlowe bites his thumb and drips red into a vial. His mother gasps, but he ignores her.

“When the tests come back, you … your sisters …” His mom can’t seem to find the words around her son. He peers at her like she’s a stranger, steps back into the house and drags me with him, and then slams the door again.

“I’m not opening this door until Saturday morning,” he growls out, staring at the inside of the wood and waiting for his parents to leave. His shadow paces the wall behind him, no more holes in its wings. His hat still has a bite mark out of it, so I’ll make some time to fix it. I inherited plenty of fabric and craft materials from my grandma. Inherited plenty of other things, too.

Annie, look at the legacy you left behind. Your house. Your journal. Your stories. The Witchwoods. I’m so beyond grateful.

Marlowe turns around, but he doesn’t get very far. He puts his back to the door and slides all the way down until he’s sitting on the ground. His teeth are gritted, eyes squeezed shut tight, and he shoves both fists against his face trying to breathe through his emotions.

I curl myself around him, hugging him tight, and he goes limp as quick as that. I’m dragged into his lap and tucked against him. The grandfather clock continues to tick as Tanner comes over to sit beside us, cross-legged and shirtless. Brooks is right behind him, bringing coffee and pastries on the silver tray.

“I’m okay now,” Lo assures me as I sit back and give him a disbelieving look. He offers me a smile that’s even better than love-spell Marlowe’s smile. Fuuuuck. I’ve never had somebody in my whole life look at me like that. He lifts up his hand and twirls the ring around on his finger, staring into the turquoise gem with the corners of his mouth turning down slowly.

The bad memories surge in us like a pulse, the way they’ve been doing every hour on the hour. Even while asleep. Nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. Our wedding rings. Agony. Two very important pieces tied together.

My memory: the former Hag Wytch as a woman, sitting in front of me with eager mortality in her eyes. My stolen machete, sliding across her throat. Hot red droplets on my face.

The pain surges and then dies, the recollection fading like a bad overlay on reality. One second, I’m in the Hag’s nest, making the most difficult decision of my life, and then the next, I’m here. Sitting in my foyer with my husbands like nothing happened.

We all know it: nothing is free. Everything costs. Sacrifice is part of magic. In order to become witches, we had to enter the tree and risk everything. In order to become a coven, we have to understand that we could lose it.

The four of us appreciate each other so much in that quiet space, in the span between ticks of the grandfather clock. There’s a softness in that room that’s belied by our grotesque hats and our scars and our gray morals. It’s a belonging, a peace. We came back with love in our space.

I stutter a little with my breaths, but Brooks hands me a cup of coffee at the perfect temperature with the perfect ratio of milk. I settle down between Marlowe and Tanner to drink it. Stix pads into the room, hops on the bench, and glares at us with one cloudy eye and one gold one. The dog and the crow are both in the backyard, probably hunting illicit Witchwoods game.

“I’m okay,” Lo repeats, like whatever he just saw, he’s truly fine with it—bad memory or not. Will that weaken the spell, us confronting these memories with positivity? I hope not. Brooks holds his mug in big, inked hands, studying me shamelessly with all eight of his eyes. Sipping his coffee like a boss. Gulp.

I’m about to be in trouble somehow. I can sense it. I’m wary as shit, sipping my own coffee like I’m not concerned. Not at all. But am I enjoying the bromance? Yes, I fucking am. Tanner peers around me at Lo, like he’s genuinely curious about something, their hat brims wrinkling together. That’s how close they are.

Marlowe’s dark eyes shift over to Tanner, and there’s nothing but a trepidatious neutrality on his lips. No hatred. No resentment. No carefully curbed rage.

“What?” he asks, a little snarky, a little bitchy, but like he’s curious, too. “If you have a question, ask me. I might actually answer you this time.”

Tanner’s wry smile is adorable. He leans in a little closer, almost nose to nose with his West.

“Did the memory hut help you find peace with everything? With your family?” Tanner asks the question with zero bullshit, zero condescension. It’s just Tanner and Marlowe looking at each other like they have more to gain by acknowledging their coven bonds than not. So hot. I know they’re not into each other sexually, but I love that they swallowed each other’s jizz down. Yeah, I could get off on that. Not a sacrifice for me.

“I …” Marlowe stutters and then leans his head back against the door, hard enough to make it jiggle in the frame. He takes off his hat and sets it aside. I do the same. Tanner and Brooks keep theirs on. One so he can listen more clearly to every heartbeat. One so he can watch my pulse. “Yeah, it did. Because if Kate wanted me to pass her by, I would have. If I wanted to go back to my family and friends, I could’ve done that, too. Everything is different now because we all got to make our choices.”

I sip coffee to hide my smile, and it’s the best thing in the world. Every sip, every bite, every breath has been the best thing in the world since I got Marlowe, Brooks, and Tanner back. I wouldn’t trade anything for these moments, and neither would they.

We all proved it—literally.

“An easy choice,” I admit, and Tanner nods, crossing his strong arms over his naked chest. We don’t wear a lot of clothing in this house, and I’m okay with that.

“Easiest choice I’ve ever made,” he agrees, half-folding his ears into irresistible origami with fur. I sit up on my knees and give them a squeeze, and he grins with a single fang in the morning sunlight. “When I said that I was all in, I meant it. Here, there, life, death. Nothing I can’t do, baby. Nowhere I won’t go.”

I roll my eyes, but I like it. His flirtations are welcome, and I don’t know why I ever made such a fuss about it before. Jealousy, probably.

“The memory hut proved what a rotten, selfish bastard I really am,” Brooks says simply, and he’s not even being disparaging. He means it. I think about that for a minute, unsure if I agree with him. I cannot believe we’re sitting down. Relaxing. Existing without adrenaline.

I see blood on the edge of Brooks’ saucer, and he gives me a look. Nosebleed. Hag Wytch.

“No.”

“Brooks—” I start, trying to be blase about it so he’ll lose interest in the subject of me and this curse. He interrupts me, and Marlowe and Tanner both turn to look at me with that same eager curiosity. They like watching Brooks dress me down, I’ll bet. I enjoy watching him do it to them, too. Fair’s fair.

“Let me ask you again: do you want to be the leader?”

I stare back at him, mug halfway to my lips.

“Uh, what did I do now?” I finish my coffee and set it aside, holding up a hand when Brooks attempts to pour me more. “Did I say anything about leadership? I’m just stressing over here. That’s not a crime, is it?”

Brooks gives a low, mean laugh, but doesn’t respond right away.

“High-strung, see?” Tanner leans back against the wall and hooks a crooked grin at me when I turn a glare on him. I know what he’s doing. He’s been doing it this whole time. His eyes are serious, but his smile is too big and way too cocky. He’s trying to flirt his way out of this, using a different technique from Brooks’ cold anger. “It’s okay, Kate. We all felt weird when we came out of that hut. It was … you know, like following you guys into hell.”

That’s exactly what it was like. We followed each other into the Witchwoods. We followed each other into death. We followed each other into hell.

My hand is shaking as I steal a chocolate muffin off the tray. I bite into it, and damn, but it’s good.

“I baked those,” Tanner whispers, holding up a hand to his mouth, like that’s a dirty secret. “We can’t let the boss make all the moves, you know what I mean?”

I smile at Tanner while I chew up his muffin. I wish it were dry or undercooked or something that I could tease him about, but it’s not. It’s really good. Tanner even takes the empty muffin wrapper from me, and helps me suck all the chocolatey crumbs off my fingers.

“How do we break this curse?” Marlowe asks abruptly, turning to Brooks. Our Southwoods doesn’t answer right away because he doesn’t know. Not to say that he won’t, eventually. But right now, he isn’t sure.

“We can do this for a while, so long as we wear the rings. We can keep Kate like this.” He looks right at me. “Do you understand? Our worst case scenario is we stay like this permanently, enduring sacrifice to feed the curse. This is as bad as it gets. Things can only get better from now on.”

He means all of that, but once again he’s missing a piece of the puzzle.

“No, Brooks. Because I’m immortal. I can’t die. If we don’t break the curse, we live a hopefully very long life together and then you three leave me behind.”

He scoffs at me, like my very real concern is nonsense.

“Then we’ll also become immortal.” He pauses and works his jaw, like hey, immortality is a challenge but I’ll hack that, too. I appreciate the Big Dick Energy, but come on. Where’s the practicality here? “Better than that, we’ll just find an unsuspecting victim and torture them until they agree to take on the Hag Wytch’s curse.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I grind out, but I’m not actually angry, and he knows it. I’m terrified. “If I don’t pay the price, then you three will die. Hello, the nosebleeds. I told you this. Did you somehow forget the worst admission I’ve ever made in my entire life?”

“Yes, it does. It does work exactly like that.” Brooks turns to me, and he’s really mad now. I shrink back, but not like I’m afraid of him—like I’m about to be schooled. “So let’s do this. Let’s have our come to Jesus moment.”

I’m literally speechless as he gets up and crawls over to me, balancing on all-fours and staring down with an imperious nature that’s only gotten worse. I suppose he keeps saying he’ll do impossible things, and then he does them. I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d obeyed his orders before, and hadn’t tried to save him from the Hag Wytch?

A better outcome? A worse one? But we will never know, and that’s okay. That was the point of the memory hut spell.

“Why does it feel like I’m in trouble?” I ask as Marlowe and Tanner exchange another look. It’s when they turn back to me that those looks become sinister. Yep. In trouble. And not just with one guy.

I am seriously out bro’ed here.

“Because you are. Once you’ve finished your coffee, I’m going to put you over my knee and spank the shit out of that ass. You’ll go to bed with red cheeks and a sore clit ring.” Brooks tilts his head, the tip of his hat curled like a crescent moon, all those red eyes up top blinking. “We were lost in the Witchwoods, seemingly forever. We got out—more than once. We can satisfy the curse and then once the disease itself is gone, we take care of the resulting symptom.”

He has a fair point. Fulfill the curse requirement. Then recover from that fulfillment.

Hmm.

All three of them start to bleed from the nose, and I shake my head wildly.

“No. No. No. Fuck.” I close my eyes and I let my anxiety have free-reign to do whatever it wants. I actively participate in self-sabotage by telling myself I’ll never get to keep a life so perfect. I hate it. I want to believe him. I almost do. But I can’t.

That is the actual curse. That’s what the curse is. Spitting in fate’s face and making her swallow.

I open my eyes again, and they’ve all stopped bleeding.

“Yes, just keep doing whatever you’re doing. Back and forth. Bad memories. Despair.” Brooks nuzzles against me and sighs, and the sound is so full of possession and surety that I relax a little under him. “I’d say welcome home, but you are home for me, so … thank you for being here.”

Shit. I’m dead. I put my arms around his neck, and he wraps an arm around my waist, his other palm on the floor as he balances himself. I may have spilled coffee on the carpet runner. Oops. I’m sure there’s a spell for that.

“No, thank you for picking us as your coven,” I mumble back. “The hut gave you the hardest choice.”

Brooks scoffs against my neck.

“That’s ridiculous. We all would’ve been better off if I’d chosen differently. Even you’d have been happier—”

I slap him, and Brooks scoots back, but only a little. We’re still nearly nose to nose, his hat brim rumpled against my head. His brows lifting in question.

“Okay then, and that was for what, Mrs. Poppy?”

Ooo. He remembered. It’s like we’re playing chess again. His piece. My piece. His piece. My piece. His rock-hard cock against my knee. My leg rubbing him on purpose. Marlowe and Tanner, sitting so close we’re sealed together on either side. I’m cuddling them with my wings, wrapping them in feathers.

“You knew that I wouldn’t be happy without you guys. Brooks, you made a decision in that memory hut for me, not for yourself. That makes you selfless. You just had horrible, conflicting choices: make your coven happy or make everyone else happy. That’s why being a leader sucks sometimes, because you’re supposed to think critically about emotional choices like that.”

He wets his lips and looks down and to the side, his hat brim sliding over my forehead. He’s not unaffected by any of this, even if he is the boss and even if he is doing a good job. We’re all here to support him. That’s why our coven is working so well, and it’s why we have so much fucking power.

It’s incredible. I think Brooks was right again. It’s all about connection.

“Agree to disagree?” he murmurs, looking up at me like a twenty-six year old man with his new wife. Some girl back in the fifties really missed out. I hate that he has a body count of four, even if it’s the same as mine. I wish it’d been zero before me. I bite his lower lip, and he sighs. “No more kissing until I spank you. You’ve had plenty of kissing out of us for now.”

“I literally died.” It’s meant to be a joke. It almost is, but then it’s not, and Brooks is drawing away to sit in the south again.

“Remind me: how is it that you ended up dead?” he asks, calmly pouring himself coffee as my jaw drops again. I look at Marlowe, but he’s obviously on Brooks’ side, and I don’t understand how they out-bro me when I’m their wife.

“Stand up for me,” I whisper, but Marlowe only laughs.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right? You’re lucky that he’s the leader. You know how I am, two-time convicted scumbag.”

I snort at that, turning to the east in search of Tanner’s help.

“If you hadn’t run from me, it’s possible I would’ve been on your side. Now? Nah.” Tanner flicks his hat brim and purposely turns away. I catch the vaguest glint of a smirk on his vulgar mouth, one wolf ear pricked and the other flat. “Take your dressing down like the naughty girl you are.”

I harrumph, ruffling up my tangled orange and black hair with my fingers. My hat steals another muffin from the tray, and I can taste the chocolate even though I’m not wearing it. On the walls around us, our shadows sit in silent conversation, sipping coffee and eating muffins together. Thankfully, Brooks’ and Tanner’s have their heads reattached. Good vibes all around.

“How?” Brooks repeats loudly, and I look back at him with narrowed eyes. “How did you die, Kate?”

“What would’ve happened if I’d let you die instead? Tanner and Marlowe never would’ve let me do the resurrection spell for you. Nobody would’ve been able to kill the Hag Wytch. You’d have been a ghost in the Witchwoods, and possibly been eaten.”

“Yes, and then the three of you could’ve left my ghost behind and—”

I crawl over and slap him again. On my hands and knees this time, panting and furious, wings taking up way too much space. I smack Marlowe and Tanner both with them and end up with two strong grips clutched onto a handful of feathers. Oh. I kinda like that.

Golden sunlight spills through the stained glass, painting us all with color. Reflecting off the silver of the vintage coffee pot. There’s a bench with shoes underneath. A hall tree with hoodies. The garage door and, beyond it, the boxes that Marlowe started organizing for me. For us. Our Christmas decorations and our house and our truck, and this thing that drove me goddamn nuts in the beginning is my greatest dream now.

Our. We. Us.

“Admit that I’m an integral part of this team, Brooks. That’s all you have to do. Say thank you for dying for me, Kate. Thank you for bargaining with the Hag Wytch .” I exhale and sit back on my haunches, waiting.

Brooks looks directly at me, sipping his coffee. His cheek is red from being slapped, and I’m into it. He probably likes it, too, that kinky bastard.

“You said you wanted to be a North worthy of this coven, someone I’d have picked?” Brooks says it like a question, but it doesn’t need an answer. I hear him. He answers it anyway. “You are all worthy of the positions you hold. We wouldn’t be sitting here if you weren’t.” Long pause. “Kate is still in hot water though. No doubts about that.”

I glance back at Marlowe and Tanner, debating my odds. I crawl to the latter and he takes me into his lap, looking down at me with those words written in the shape of his lips and the shine of his eyes.

“ I love you, baby. I … I’m an idiot, and I wanted you from the very first second I saw you.” He told me to get married to someone else, to grow a garden and take care of my pets, to live and be happy. That was his dying wish, his last words. My happiness.

“Thank you guys for everything. For filling in all of my blank spaces.” I stop there, and the silence is painful. It aches. I hurt and I’m happy, like I’m breaking apart and coming back together at the same time. We’re all glowing now, shamelessly bright with power.

“No thanks required.” Tanner’s words are gruff with emotion, but he doesn’t bother to hide his smile when I reach up and tug on the small bone that’s pierced through his fancy brow.

Marlowe watches us carefully and then reaches up to play with his hair, face red from embarrassment or emotion rather than a nice, hard slap like Brooks’ cheek.

“Can we finish up with all of this shit and focus on breaking the curse? It’s just another spell that we have to get done. That we will get done.” Marlowe sounds mature and steadfast, like he’s grown up a shit ton in the last month. Everything about our experience has changed us, and I feel like I’ve known them all for a hundred years.

“The people I ate—” I start, but it’s Tanner who interrupts me this time.

“You can’t un-eat them, can you? Can’t puke ‘em up. Don’t apologize if you’d make the same decision twice.”

He got me with my own logic there. If they can admit when I’m right, I’ll extend the same favor. I put my forehead up against Tanner’s, and he feels amazing. My hand sneaks up for a velvety wolf ear, and he sighs when I rub it. His shadow tails sway, like he’s wagging them for me. My good boy.

“Anything else that needs to be addressed before we move on?” Brooks asks, and of course it’s me again volunteering things.

“What I did to Marlowe on the roof …” I’m not sure what to say. Marlowe takes care of that for me.

“Well-deserved. Exactly what I had coming. Eye for an eye. Moving on now. ” He scoffs as he turns back to me and then gets all scowly. Even makes a tch sound under his breath like I’m ridiculous.

“Thank you also for the things you guys said to me in the cabin. I … those words became a part of my soul. They’ll be with me forever.” I close my eyes because Tanner’s eyes are too close, and I can’t bear to look. He takes my face in his hands and kisses me, stirring anxious bats in my stomach. It knots and twists as I clutch onto his bare shoulders.

“Thank you, for agreeing to the curse when you truly believed you would pay the price.” Tanner whispers those words against my mouth, and I collapse against him. He rubs my back, and we just sit there with the ticking grandfather clock.

I still believe it.

I am still the Hag Wytch.

And they all know that that’s exactly what I’m thinking.

We sit around the table for hours, watching Brooks write on a piece of paper. This time, he writes with his hands, and I love the way his fingers look poised on that pen. The tendons in his wrist, the red-gem on his finger that flares every sixty minutes with a fresh nightmare.

It feels like we’ve come home, but if we want to stay here, we’ll have to fight.

“Okay, so if you know how to put something back together, it usually means you know how to break it, too.” I exhale, lacing my hands on the table in front of me and hoping that I don’t sound like a complete crazy person. I’ve had hours of magical theory lessons from Brooks, snippets here and there, overheard conversations between him and Tanner, but it’s possible I have no idea what I’m saying. “Like, if you can make clothing, you know how to best tear it apart if you need to. If you can heal someone, like a doctor, you probably also know how to kill them.”

“So if you can cast a curse, then you can break one?” Brooks says, like he understood me completely in one go. I lift my eyes from my hands to his face. Only the big eye on his hat is open, and it’s staring right at me.

“Yeah … I … is that fucked?” I look over at Tanner, slumped in his chair with his boot hooked around my ankle. He’s staring at me like he hasn’t looked away in hours and has no plans to look away anytime soon. I smile at him, and he smiles back at me.

“Curses only work between witches, yeah?” Tanner clarifies and Brooks sighs, putting his pen down and reaching up to rub his temples. It’s one of his only stress ticks.

“Supposedly. My mentor didn’t know much about them. She’d only cast a curse once.” He scoffs and then he laughs. Then he, in a completely and utterly new move, kicks back from the table and drops his head back. All of his eyes close, and he forces himself to slow his breathing. To relax. I watch it happen in real-time, this perfect, ironclad control.

Brooks knows as much about curses as I do. The thought is sobering, but it also gives me hope, too. Like I can help solve this. We can all work together to solve this. We might not have the answer yet, but we could find it.

All three of them get nosebleeds, and I slam my eyes shut against the sight. Still the Hag Wytch. Still destined to be alone forever. Just try to enjoy the moment. If, one of these days, they bleed harder, they fall, they start dying, then I can run.

Only then. My only exception.

“Must’ve been the curse that she cast on or with the Hag Wytch. No clue if there was ever a Hag before that one, but she was my mentor’s Southwoods.”

I just stare at him. This is the first I’m hearing of this. What in the actual fuck?

“I hate origin stories. Who cares? If it doesn’t help us break the curse, it doesn’t matter.” Marlowe crosses his arms and frowns at the tabletop. Not like he’s angry though, just thoughtful. He’s not trying to be rude: he’s serious. And he’s right.

“But maybe it does?” Brooks leans forward and stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Seeing him in that well-worn denim does things to me that are hard to explain. He taps his bare toes to mine under the table, and I clutch the sides of my chair’s seat. “She said a lot of weird shit to me when I saw her ghost.”

He thinks on that for a minute, and Tanner snaps his fingers.

“I forgot all about her in the midst of chasing Kate.” He works his jaw, and flashes me a quicksilver glare. Scrapes his fingers over his smooth face. They’re all very clean-shaven today, and they smell like soap and incense. The hats are as gross as ever, but mostly because mine can’t stop licking everything in sight. I’ve lost two magnets off my fridge today, and nearly threw up both times. The taste of plastic and metal is not something I enjoyed. “She said to make sure we were never eaten.”

“She also said that Kate needed to suffer or the curse would come unraveled, that we should leave our North alone.” Brooks sighs as he pulls his hands from his pockets and crosses his arms over his tight white t-shirt. “And that the curse couldn’t be broken via magical means.”

Wait. What?

I stand up and my chair topples over. Marlowe gets up and retrieves it for me, and then lords over me with demon wings, like he’s trying to be intimidating but only comes across as sexy. To me, anyway. I snatch a spare cockie off the tray and bite into it.

“That’s a clue, Kate. Not an answer. If that bitch knew what she was talking about, maybe she wouldn’t have lost two coven members and left the third as the Hag Wytch for so long, hmm?”

“Marlowe—” He cuts me off with a lift of his palm and looks away, sheaves of golden wheat and slow-moving moths appearing on his hat.

“There’s no point in arguing with me. I’ll tell you why: because all three of us agree that you aren’t allowed to suffer alone. Three against one. You’ve been outvoted.” Marlowe curls the corner of his lip and flicks his dark eyes back to me.

“If that’s how this works then I will always be outvoted.” I turn to Tanner, and he shrugs both shoulders.

“What does suffering mean anyway? How would you suggest we enact enough suffering on you to break the curse?” He cocks his head, like he’s waiting for me to challenge him. “How are you going to feel true despair, Kate?”

“I don’t know. ” I throw up my hands. “I’m just saying: if I don’t fulfill my side of the bargain, you will all die. I don’t want to live without you, so guess what? We’re down to very few options.” I swallow the rest of my tasty penis cookie and look down at the table.

I’m breathing hard. I’m frustrated. Brooks can tell.

“Why don’t we get something to eat?” he asks, and then he holds up a hand and flicks his fingers in the direction of the fridge. The door opens with a creak, and I spot the last of the cumcakes in their container on one of the shelves. “We’ll go out, have a bite to eat. Then we can check on the situation with Mrs. Madsen.” Long meaningful pause. “And then we’ll cast the spells for the sex tape.”

Oh. I’d forgotten all about that. My cheeks flush pink with shame. How did I really let myself believe a leaked sex tape was a big deal? I died. My coven died. I’m going to end up all alone again. But still …

“Yeah, okay. Let’s do that.” Here we are back home and, magic or police or social media, Brooks has my back. And yet, I still beat him at chess, fair and square. “Brooks wants to be the king to your queen.” Marlowe told me that. I think he’s right. I turn to Lo, still standing next to me, a moth perched at the bite mark on his hat brim. “Bagels? But first, let me patch that up.”

I reach up and slap at his hat brim, and he smiles that beautiful smile for me again.

“Please do. Every time I look at it, I think about how much I’d like to slap your fucking hat.” He’s only just said that when my hat licks his mouth and comes back with amusement, worry, and fear. Yikes. I reach up a finger to one of my hat’s fangs and rub at it absently, scratching the white enamel while I think.

“I don’t have any leather, but—”

Tanner tosses a small hide over my shoulder from behind.

“We moved some of the supplies from the cottage back here. It was a short walk, and much easier to use what we had instead of forage for new supplies. This is the same leather that the hat was made out of.” Tanner drapes himself over me from behind, and just holds me there.

It gets quiet again. It gets soft. And I don’t want to let myself get used to this. Am I sure I’m not dead? Because this could be my afterlife, and I’d be happy here.

“Come upstairs and we’ll get that fixed right up.” I flick Marlowe’s brim, wink, and offer him a smile that I hope is half as pretty as the one he gave me. I lean my cheek into Tanner’s and let my gaze slide to Brooks.

He’s watching me, and he isn’t smiling at all.