Chapter 22
Marcus
I hadn’t meant to listen to the conversation. I was worried that Arcane or my mother was up to something, so I’d checked up on my camera feeds. The equalizer at the bottom of the feed showed the stairwell was moving. Remembering that I’d left the basement door open, I’d thought at first that it was Gigi singing to herself.
I turned on the sound to hear her voice because I could never seem to get enough of her despite all the time we’d been spending together.
My first instinct when I heard the stranger’s voice was to rush down there and protect my little witch. And I almost had until I started to listen to their conversation.
I immediately felt a kinship with her. We were both raised by narcissists, her father, and my mother. And we both were trying to escape unwanted fates, with limited success. Though I guess she was successful in the end.
Deciding to bring Triscuit along, I loaded both him and his dinner up in the carrier I’d seen Gigi use to take him down to the coffee shop. With him in tow, I went up and over the rooftop patio and back into my home, with Triscuit complaining about the cold during the short walk over.
As I heated up our food, I listened as the girl explained how her father had blamed her for the bad luck that had befallen him and tried to sell her off to one of his friends, a much older man who only saw her as a possession. Her mother had tried to save her, using magic to transform her into what she was now.
“That’s strong magic. Your mother must have been a great witch.”
The other voice hesitated. “Something like that,” it said cautiously. “But then she died. They said it was suicide from heartbreak after I ran away—that’s what she told them. But I know the truth. My father poisoned her. I was right there in her purse; I heard him admit it.” The voice was sobbing now.
“I’m so sorry,” Gigi’s voice cracked as she spoke. “And I’m sorry I made you live through that memory again.”
“It’s okay. I had to explain it to the old witch, too.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat at the tragic story I’d just heard. I realized the spirit had waited until I’d left to talk to Gigi. I didn’t blame her. The men in her life had let her down. I didn’t want to start this relationship with lies and deceit, so I decided I had to tell her that I knew.
With Triscuit’s carrier in one hand and an overfilled plate in the other, I made my way downstairs. I decided to bring Triscuit along because I thought maybe he’d be able to tell if the spirit was dangerous or not. I also wondered if his presence would help make the introductions easier.
Gigi was quiet as I slipped into the room under the basement.
“I want to be completely honest,” I said as I placed the overloaded plate with our food on the table, which was now dust-free. “I heard everything you were saying down here while I was upstairs.”
She stiffened, and I could feel her worry in the air. Or was that the girl’s worry?
“I didn’t mean to snoop,” I said. “I have a camera in the stairwell, and it caught the conversation. I thought you were singing to yourself at first, and I wanted to hear it.” I directed the next words at the innocuous-looking compact still in Gigi’s hands. “I brought Triscuit down to meet you since I thought you might want to meet him.” I placed Triscuit’s carrier on the table.
There was nothing but silence from the ghost girl. But Triscuit didn’t freak out either, which I took to be a good sign. I didn’t need to wonder long whether Gigi’s familiar could detect the ghost’s presence, because he started being friendly immediately.
“Hello! How ya doin’?” Triscuit asked, sounding much like Gigi.
Gigi grinned and reached over to open Triscuit’s carrier.
“Let’s eat before the food gets cold,” I said. “I had to put it all on one plate because I didn’t have enough hands.”
We ate in relative silence, surrounded by the old witch’s things, which already felt more familiar.
Triscuit continued reacting to something in the room, sometimes talking, sometimes nodding, and once even offering a toy, but it wasn’t until the end of the meal that she finally spoke. “I like Triscuit. Can you bring him down sometimes so we can play?”
“Sure. I’m Marcus,” I said, introducing myself now that she didn’t see me as a threat and vice versa. “Are you stuck down here?” I looked around the room.
“Kind of. I have to stay near the compact. There was a bookstore right above us, so I got to read new books sometimes. And I get to see the corner of the antique store, but it’s usually covered with things.”
“But you haven’t been in my coffee shop?” Gigi asked.
“No. That’s too far.”
After some testing, we figured out that she had a range of about ten feet around the compact. She could see past that but couldn’t interact with anything. Well, technically she couldn’t interact physically with anything at all, but she could go into books and read the words if it was within the radius.
“Wait a minute, I remember the bookstore. That corner should be the romance corner!” Gigi exclaimed.
If the air could blush, it did.
“That’s okay. Technically, you’re not really fourteen anymore. You can read anything you want,” Gigi said. “I have lots of books if you want to come upstairs with me.”
“Can I?”
“Wait,” I said. “How do we know it’s safe for her to go upstairs?” I didn’t say the second part, which was, how did we know it was safe for Gigi? “I’m pretty sure now she’s the one Arcane Development is looking for.”
“Maybe. But it could be something else in the room. Why would a bunch of wizards want a transformed girl?”
“Wizards?” her voice shook. “My father’s friend, the one he promised me to, was a wizard.”
Gigi and I exchanged a look. What were the chances that they were related? He’d be long dead by now. Why would they still want her? We were still missing something.
“Shit!” Gigi swore. “What if breaking down that wall exposed her to the wizards? What if it was protecting her the whole time?”
“You mean the spell on the wall?” the girl asked. “It wasn’t protecting me at all. The opposite. The brat cast it because he doesn’t like me.”
“The brat?”
“The old witch’s son. He hates me. That’s why he hid me away and made it so no one could find me.”
“Oh, wow. He sucks ass,” I said.
Gigi was treating her like an adult so I did as well. Technically she was older than either of us, even though she sounded so young.
But those words had been close enough to trigger Triscuit and his ”Focking Socks.”
The ghost girl giggled. “He does.”
“Well, if the spell wasn’t protecting you, then it should be safe for you to go upstairs,” Gigi said. “But I want to be very honest with you. These wizards have been looking for you. They’ve been trying hard to buy this building from us, messing with our businesses and making life miserable in general. It’s why we started searching ourselves. Do you know why they might be looking for you?”
There was a pregnant pause.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Maybe the wizard I was supposed to marry left a clue.”
There was something she wasn’t telling us. But my instincts told me it wasn’t out of malice. It was like when I let Nick believe that my mom wanted to drag me back home to get married. It was out of self-preservation.
“The wizards already know you’re here either way. So it shouldn’t make a difference. At least now we can get you out of here if they end up getting their hands on this place.”
We brought her upstairs into Gigi’s home, and when our ghost girl didn’t turn into an evil spirit, I relaxed. Gigi put the compact in a box on her bookshelf so that our nameless spirit could read to her heart’s content. She could also hang out in the coffee shop if she wanted to, or step outside for some fresh air, something she hadn’t had in decades.
But more importantly, it was more than ten feet from Gigi’s bedroom so that when the door was closed, we’d have some privacy. But still, it felt a bit strange to stay over with a ghost in a compact hanging out at her place. For the first time in days, I decided to go home and unpack the rest of my measly possessions. But not before pulling Gigi into my arms and kissing her forehead.
“Call me if anything strange happens,” I said, holding her in my arms longer than usual. “I don’t trust Arcane not to do something stupid.”
“I know what you mean. I’ll keep watch on my wards.” She reached up and pulled my head down by the horns, pressing her forehead to mine. “You know, right now I really wish there were no walls between our apartments.”
“I could just break down the walls, but I’m not an engineer.” I imagined all her things and her numerous valuable collectibles spilling into my space, coloring it with her magic. It wouldn’t be bad at all. Now that I’d gotten used to being surrounded by pieces of her, my place felt so empty.
She grinned. “Maybe we should wait on that. I think we’ve knocked down enough walls for today.”
“Agreed.”
“Gigi?”
“Yes?” She stood there, her pretty green eyes bright and so beautiful.
“I—” I realized what I was about to say, and the words stuck in my throat. I’d almost told her I loved her. I stood stock-still even as a realization hit me. Minotaurs did have mates. And Gigi was mine.