24 Jasper
JASPER
Almost as soon as the back door shuts, Dáinn appears at my side. His shadows swirl out from him, casting a veil over the windows that plunges the kitchen into an unnatural darkness. He floats before the sink, watching as Hortie and Birdie drive away. “I hate this.”
Stepping around him, I head for the table and sit down in Birdie’s vacated chair, piling her empty plate with breakfast.
Dáinn follows. “She should be here with us. We need her.”
Groaning, I stab a sausage with my fork and add it to the plate.
“Look, there’s nothing she can do this morning to help us plot our takedown of Ludmilla.
If anything, she’s safer away. A house full of scheming witches is no place for a human.
And she has to be free to live her own life, remember?
As long as she stays on the island, she’ll be safe. ”
“As you were safe?” he dares to jab.
Rattling down my fork, I glance over my shoulder at him. “You’re the only creature in Ludmilla’s employ that can pass through my island’s wards, right?”
Slowly, he nods.
“And we’re still holding to the theory that if Birdie can stop you from devouring me, she can stop you from devouring herself too, right?”
He drifts closer. “We should test it—”
“Out of the fucking question! Are you crazy? Now you want to try and eat her? What, just to prove you can’t? What happens if you can, asshole?”
“It was just an idea,” he rasps with a shrug.
That wraiths can shrug still freaks me out. It makes him look way too human. I gesture to the piles of breakfast foods spread across the table. “Eat something. You’re annoying when you’re hungry.”
He lowers his face close enough that I feel his cool breath on my neck. “Are you offering, sweet witch?”
“Touch me and die.”
The asshole just shrugs again. “I’m already dead.”
“Can you even eat mortal food?”
“There’s no point,” he replies with a despondent sigh. “It offers no sustenance. I’m a wraith, Jasper. I eat souls.”
This makes me mindful. “How often do you need to eat exactly?”
Dragging out the chair next to me, he sits. Well, his version of sitting. He sort of just floats. “You ask a lot of questions in the morning.”
“Well, this one is pretty fucking pertinent.” Holding his gaze, I cut into my stack of bananas Foster pancakes. “If you’re gonna be on my island plotting Ludmilla’s downfall, I need to know if I can expect to deal with a curious case of missing hikers or more masked alley muggers.”
Dáinn is quiet for a moment. “It depends on the soul.”
“Explain.”
His bony fingers fiddle with the butterfly placemat Hortie set beneath each plate. “A soul worth savoring can leave me feeling sated for weeks. But those were souls of my choosing. While I’ve been bound, I could only eat the souls Ludmilla offers me, which are little more than gristle on a bone.”
“Until me.” I don’t know what makes me say it. I feel the wraith’s gaze on me from deep within his dark cowl.
“Until you.”
I stab a bite of pancakes with my fork. “Well, there will be no haunting on this island, understood? The mortals of Burr Island are off limits to you.”
“You have an odd kind of morality.”
“What?”
“You have no interest in sparing the lives of any mortals off your island. Only the fates of these mortals matter to you. Why?”
His words sink like a rock deep in my chest, churning up emotional silt better left alone.
I swallow the pancakes in my mouth, stabbing another bite.
“I can’t save the world, Dáinn. Burr Island is my only concern.
And you leaving my mortals alone means I get left alone.
It’s as simple as that—” I flinch as he reaches out, resting a skeletal hand on my shoulder.
“You really are the loneliest witch I’ve ever met.”
Feeling defensive, I shrug him off. “How can I be lonely when you won’t leave me alone?”
Ignoring my jab, he glances around at the mess of flowers covering every surface of the kitchen not taken up by Hortie’s mountains of breakfast foods. “How go the plans for your funeral?”
Groaning, I shovel more pancakes into my mouth. “You’ve gotta cool it with the flowers.”
He glances around at all the bouquets. Reaching out to the closest bunch, he strokes their petals with a skeletal finger. “What’s wrong? Are they not correct?”
I roll my eyes, stabbing a sausage. “When you finally succeed at killing me, you better be ready to send my coven something better than some shitty fucking daffodils.”
He perks up at this. “What would you want? What would be properly mournful?”
I push my plate away from me. “What I would want is to keep living. But I know you won’t make me that promise. So, I’ll just keep helping you get what you want, knowing you’ll probably kill me in the end either way.”
His voice gentles as he leans in. “I don’t want to hurt you—”
Shoving back from the table, I stand. “Yeah, I know. But that’s what happens, right? In the end, we always hurt the ones we love.”
The weight of his gaze keeps me pinned to the floor. I wish I could see the face he keeps hidden within his cowl. Before he can reply, there’s the sound of tires crunching on gravel outside.
Fuck, we’re out of time.
I wave a hand at him. “All right, disappear. I can’t have a wraith sitting at my kitchen table when my coven walks in here.”
He stiffens, clearly hesitant to leave. He looks so ridiculous, all dark and hooded, framed by swirling shadows, sitting at my table stacked with a florist’s shop worth of flowers and enough breakfast foods to open our own café.
“They must know I’m here,” he reasons. “All our plans hinge on them agreeing to work with me.”
“Yeah, and they will. But almost getting eaten by a wraith isn’t something you can just spring on a coven before the coffee is even poured. Trust me.”
Car doors shut. More tires on gravel. Voices. Laughter.
Heart racing, I step over to Dáinn, pulling him up out of the chair. “Come on. Disappear.”
He wraps his bony hand around my wrist. “Sweet witch—”
“And enough with the ‘sweet witch’ crap. Between that and all the flowers, the coven is bound to get the wrong idea about us.”
He perks up at this. “Only in private then? When I lie with you in bed and stroke your hair?”
Groaning, I push on him again. “We agreed we’d never talk about that.”
“Right. Only in private.”
“No. Never.”
“Unless we’re alone—”
“I’m gonna kill you for real,” I hiss.
Chuckling, he disappears.
I tumble forward, hands outstretched, tripping over nothing just as there’s a loud knock on the door.
My coven is here.