Page 9

Dahlia

I stared at my phone for a solid ten seconds before sighing and unlocking it. This was going to be a conversation . I hit Thea’s name and put the call on speaker so I could nervously clean up the countertop while it rang.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Dahlia,” she answered, voice suspicious. “You never call me during the day. Who died?”

“Okay, rude,” I said, scrubbing a mysterious smudge off the counter. “And… sort of a valid question.”

There was a pause. I took the phone off speaker and put it to my ear. “What do you mean , ‘sort of’?”

“So… remember the locket Henry gave me?”

“The one I specifically told you might be cursed and should probably be buried in a salt circle with a priest chanting nearby?”

“Yeah. That one.”

Another pause. “ Dahlia. What the actual hell.”

“Okay, listen ,” I said quickly. “I need a ride to the grocery store.”

“Did the locket eat your car?”

“No! The Beetle’s fine. I just… don’t have enough room for everything I need to buy.”

“Since when do you buy enough food for an army?”

I hesitated.

“ Dahlia. ”

“I’ll explain when you get here,” I said. “It’s kind of… a lot.”

“ Dahlia. ”

“I’m fine. No one’s dead. Just… I sort of have a… guest.”

Another pause.

“A guest?”

“Yeah.”

“A ‘guest’ who is somehow tied to the locket, aren’t they?”

“…Maaaaaaybe.”

She made a long groaning sound like she was either in physical pain or dragging herself out of bed. “Are they a ghost? A demon? A haunted Victorian doll in human form?”

“No. I mean… he’s a guy. Just, like… from a few centuries ago. And he came out of the locket.”

Thea went dead silent.

Then she shrieked, “YOU UNLOCKED A CURSED LOCKET MAN? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“I didn’t mean to! It just… happened!”

“You accidentally freed a magical locket man?!”

“I was making tea !”

“This is why I told you to leave creepy heirlooms alone!”

I cringed, holding the phone a little farther from my ear. “Look, can you come get us or not?”

Thea made a sound halfway between a growl and a whimper. “Us. Us . Jesus Christ, you’ve already adopted him, haven’t you?”

“No! I mean, I’m feeding him. And letting him use my shower. But it’s not like—”

“Oh my God, you’re housing a time traveler like he’s a stray dog.”

“He’s not a dog! He’s just… very large. Honestly? He’s a mountain of a man. And grumpy. And allergic to lavender, apparently.”

There was a pause, then a resigned sigh. “Give me twenty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

“I swear to God, Dahlia, if he tries to eat me, I’m lighting him on fire.”

“You’d have to get past Sunny first. He’s claimed him.”

“Great. The cat’s on his side. That’s very reassuring.”

She hung up.

I stared at the phone for a moment, then set it down on the counter and turned toward the living room.

“Good news!” I called. “We have a ride.”

Kieran, who was sitting at my kitchen table reading a cookbook like it held the secrets of the universe, looked up warily. “What’s the bad news?”

“She’s a little intense.”

His eyes narrowed. “Define ‘intense.’”

“You’ll see.”

Twenty minutes later— exactly twenty minutes later—I hear the low rumble of Thea’s blacked-out Escalade pulling up outside. The sound alone makes my stomach twist with nervous energy.

“She’s here,” I mutter, mostly to myself, as I grab my stash of reusable grocery bags from the hook by the door. I head to Oleander’s hutch in the corner and crouch to scoop him up. He glares at me with the kind of contempt only a mean rabbit can muster.

“Don’t bite me, you furry little menace,” I warn under my breath.

He promptly tries to bite me.

I manage to stuff him gently— safely —back into his hutch with only minor bloodshed and a lot of muttered curses, then I stand up and call over my shoulder, “Kieran, let’s go! Time to meet the terrifying whirlwind that is my best friend!”

He appears in the hallway like some kind of reluctant summoned demon, dressed in the older-style clothes I picked out for him: loose, faded trousers and a linen shirt that looks like it walked off a period drama set. Somehow, it suits him. Annoyingly well.

“Is she always punctual?” he asks, peering toward the front door like it might explode open at any second.

I snort. “She’d be early to her own funeral if she could.”

Kieran groans softly. “Fantastic.”

He follows me toward the door with the gait of a man marching to his own execution.

I offer him a sideways glance. “You’ll be fine.”

“You keep saying that, and yet the itch from the lavender still lingers.”

“You’re really going to hold that against me?”

“Flower, I’m really going to hold everything against you until further notice,” he mutters.

Gods, I wish he would.

I swing the door open—and there’s Thea, leaning against her SUV with mirrored sunglasses on, sipping from a neon pink iced coffee cup like she’s a hitman waiting for a mark.

Her eyes land on Kieran, and the straw in her mouth freezes mid-sip.

“Oh, hell no,” she mutters, yanking her sunglasses off.

I wince. “Here we go.”

Kieran steps half in front of me like he’s supposed to be a human shield. “That’s her?”

“Yup.”

“She looks like she eats men.”

I grin. “She does. Try not to be rude, or she’ll add you to the menu.”

Thea storms up the walkway with all the grace of a freight train, her combat boots stomping against the cobblestone like she’s about to serve someone a cease and desist—possibly to Kieran’s existence.

“I’m gonna need someone to explain— right now —why a whole grown-ass man is standing in your doorway looking like he escaped from a time-traveling Renaissance fair,” she says, jabbing a finger toward Kieran.

“I told you I’d explain everything when you got here,” I say, lifting the grocery bags like a peace offering. “And maybe don’t lead with threats. He’s still adapting to soap .”

She turns to me, eyes wide. “Dahlia, what the hell did you bring to life?”

“Technically,” I say, edging down the front steps toward the SUV, “he brought himself to life. I just opened the locket and let the strange haunted man fall out.”

“ Haunted ?” she repeats, voice jumping half an octave.

“We’re still figuring that part out.”

Kieran crosses his arms, looking vaguely offended. “I am not haunted.”

Thea points at him. “And why are you dressed like you’re about to recite poetry in a candlelit crypt?”

“I didn’t have a say in the wardrobe,” he snaps.

Thea’s mouth falls open. She looks at me. “You made him get dressed in period drama cosplay?”

“It was in Aunt Miriam's stuff. He looks good!” I protest. “Besides, he was going to eat dinner with me naked last night. Naked. Holding a towel. He at least tried to make breakfast fully clothed this morning, swearing at vegetables on fire, and all.”

“ Vegetables on fire? ”

Kieran glares at the sky. “Your heat contraptions are far too aggressive.”

Thea looks like she’s genuinely questioning her reality at this point.

I sigh, rubbing my temples. “Can we please just go to the store?”

Thea pinches the bridge of her nose. “You owe me so many explanations. And probably therapy.”

“You’ll get both,” I say, ushering Kieran toward the passenger side.

“I’m not sitting in the front with him,” Thea warns.

“Good,” Kieran mutters. “I prefer the back.”

“You smell like smoke and regret. Don’t test me.”

“Fantastic,” I groan as I shove the last bag into the back hatch. “Let’s all just survive the car ride without killing each other, please.”

Kieran opens the back passenger door and looks at the interior suspiciously. “How does one not die inside this metal box?”

“Seatbelts. Just get in and don’t touch anything,” I warn him.

As we all pile in, Thea mutters, “If this ends with me possessed by a demon, I swear to God, Dahlia...”

I just smile and buckle my seatbelt. “Later. Let’s go get groceries before someone tries to eat the rabbit again.”

“You what? ” Thea shrieks.

Kieran shrugs. “In my defense, he looked delicious.”

Thea groans. “I need a drink. And a priest.”

And with that, we drive off down the sleepy streets of Brookside, my ancient curse of a houseguest squished into the back seat of Thea’s Escalade, and the kind of chaos that makes life feel a little too real unfolding by the minute.

So, instead of dwelling on the impending panic attack, I launched into my promised explanation.

The curse, the locket, breakfast, and then I told her everything Kieran told me last night over grilled cheese.

Thea hadn’t said much since I began.

Well, no—that’s not true. She’d said “What the actual fuck ” about twelve times in the first five minutes, then gone quiet.

Her hands gripped the steering wheel like she thought it would float away, and her eyes flicked between the road and the rearview mirror, where she kept sneaking glances at Kieran like she wasn’t sure if he was real or some kind of hallucination brought on by too much espresso.

Kieran, of course, looked as relaxed as someone cursed into a locket for over two centuries could look. He slouched in the seat behind me, arms crossed, jaw set in that broody way he seemed to default to.

“So,” Thea said at last, her voice sharp. “Wanna run that by me one more time? Just, like, slowly. For the people in the front seat trying not to hyperventilate.”

I cleared my throat. “Okay. Short version: the locket Henry gave me for my birthday? Magical. Cursed. Contained this guy”—I pointed to Kieran—“who is, uh… about two hundred years old and was trapped inside by some very dark magic.”

Thea’s eyes widened. “Two. Hundred.”

“Give or take a few decades,” Kieran muttered, staring out the window.

Thea let out a weak laugh. “Oh, good . Ancient man trapped in jewelry. Totally normal.”

I tried to keep my voice calm. “There was a coven. His brother betrayed him. His… his first love might’ve lied about dying—there’s a lot to unpack. He tried to save her, and it got him cursed. He’s basically a magical landmine.”

Kieran shot me a look. “Thanks for that.”

Thea ran her hand down her face. “You’re telling me you have a hot ghost-immortal-ex-warlock roommate with a traumatic backstory, and you didn’t call me the second it happened?”

“I passed out!” I snapped. “He popped out of a necklace ! I thought I was hallucinating!”

Kieran grunted. “And she screamed.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t taze you.”

Thea took a sharp breath and shook her head. “Okay. Fine. Whatever. There’s dark magic. Ancient curses. Betrayals. We’re clearly in a whole new level of bullshit. Do you know who cursed you?”

Kieran’s face darkened. “Not exactly. It wasn’t just my brother. The thing that helped him—whatever it was—it wasn’t human. It was old. Older than any of us. It fed on grief, on desperation. My brother… Silas, he wanted more power. He made a deal. One I don’t think even he understood.”

Thea was silent for a moment, digesting. “And your coven?”

“I don’t know,” Kieran said quietly. “Scattered. Broken. Some dead. Some lost to whatever that thing was. I don’t know if any survived.”

“And the girl?” she asked.

Kieran’s jaw clenched. “Calliope… She told me she was dying. I thought she’d been stabbed. She begged me to do the rite. I thought it would bind her soul to mine. I thought it was the only way to keep her from slipping away. But I don’t think she was dying, now.”

“She tricked you,” Thea whispered.

“She used me,” Kieran said. “Maybe it was part of the plan all along. Maybe she was part of the betrayal. I don’t know.”

Silence stretched through the car like a wire pulled too tight.

Thea exhaled hard, then said, “Okay. So here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m going to drop you two off at the store. While you shop for boring mortal things, I’ll hit the occult section at my office down the block. If there’s a rite, I’ll find traces of it. Or at least some clue.”

I blinked. “You believe us?”

She shot me a look. “Dahlia, I’ve seen you make tea that cures migraines in like five minutes and nurse a plant back from the dead in a single day. I’ve known there’s weird shit in the world. I just didn’t expect it to come with a six-foot cursed man in a linen shirt.”

Kieran glanced at her. “I have a name, you know.”

“I’ll learn it once you stop smelling like that,” she shot back.

He gave a reluctant snort. I wasn’t sure, but it might’ve been the closest thing to a laugh I’d heard from him yet.

Thea continued, “Look. If something ancient is stirring? We need to be ready. But I’m in. Just don’t leave me out of the loop again, or I will burn your garden down.”

“Alright,” I said, grinning despite the tension in my chest.

As we neared the store, I caught Kieran watching Thea with a furrowed brow. “She’s strange.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But she’s family.”