Chapter 8 #2
“What about the Thornwood Academy library? Would you be able to get us in there?” Zara asked, tapping the cover of the book in her lap. “Surely there are some books that are more specific than what I could find at the Fernwick library and the online databases.”
“No,” Ramona said firmly. “There’s no way in… any realm that I’d set foot back on that campus. My ex-wife and her girlfriend both work there, and I can’t risk it.”
“Is it not one of the largest witching academies in the world?” Zara asked. “Surely the odds of running into one another are…” She paused as if doing the mental calculation.
“I’m not going back there,” Ramona said, finding her jaw uncomfortably clenched as she bit out the words.
“But you’re an academic. You love libraries and research.”
“And I value my sanity more than something I once loved years ago,” Ramona said. “End of discussion. We’re not going.”
Zara raised her brows. “We can talk more about it later.”
“No.”
Zara had a distinctly we’ll see look on her irritatingly attractive face. She flipped open Ramona’s dissertation once again and pulled a pair of reading glasses out of her suit pocket, settling them on her nose.
“You wear glasses?” Ramona tried to hide her amusement at the sight of Zara sitting in her expensive suit on the hardwood floor, wearing oversized glasses and peering down at Dr. Greenbriar’s dissertation.
“Only when I’m reading at night,” Zara said.
“Those three hundred years are catching up with you, I guess,” Ramona teased, crawling under the covers of her bed.
“You bite your tongue, Mortal. In demon years, I’m still in my prime,” Zara hissed.
“At least one of us is. I think I’m well past my sell-by date,” Ramona half joked.
Zara raised one single, sharp brow. “Well, that’s just factually inaccurate.”
Ramona felt her cheeks heat, her phone’s ringtone disturbing the moment. She fumbled for her phone, hitting the call button with the kind of desperate haste typically reserved for a jailbreak.
“Ramona, I know you don’t want to drive that terrible car all the way home, so Bradford has agreed that we will simply pick you up and drive you ourselves,” Iris said, not pausing for a moment of polite nicety before her demand. Classic Iris.
Ramona rubbed at her eyes. “Iris, I really can’t make it.”
“Nonsense. We’re thinking four p.m. should be plenty of time, but perhaps should we do three p.m. just to be on the safe side?” Iris, Ramona knew, was only talking to herself.
“My girlfriend is visiting from out of town,” Ramona said quickly and firmly, committing herself to the lie yet again, her eyes flicking up to where Zara was blatantly watching, listening. “Mom would panic—”
“Girlfriend?” Iris’s voice lifted at least four octaves in interest.
“All right, let’s take a deep breath,” Ramona said, her own voice lowering in reply.
“You should bring her.” Was Iris clapping on the other end of the line?
“She’s not…” Ramona fumbled for the right word. “Social.”
Zara held a hand to her chest in mock offense.
“We can fit her in the van, too,” Iris said, her voice still rivaling a mouse’s squeak in pitch.
Ramona sighed. She imagined cramming into the minivan with Iris, her husband Bradford, and squeezing in next to the booster seats of her nieces, who historically did not love road trips.
It was a two-hour drive, but nothing could make it feel longer than a toddler screaming in her ear the entire time. “My car can make it.” She hoped.
“Fantastic. Then, bring the rolls. What’s your girlfriend’s name? Mom will want to make the seating chart reflect—”
“Zara,” Ramona interrupted. Seating chart. There were only six of them — why did they need place cards? The kids would be at a small table surrounded by enough plastic to impress a serial killer. “Her name is Zara.”
Iris’s tone was now verging on glass-breaking in its high register. “Fantastic. We’ll see you there, then. I’ll let Mom know.”
Ramona said her goodbyes and hung up, only to meet Zara’s raised eyebrows.
“We need to work on you maintaining boundaries,” Zara said with a deep sigh. “That was honestly shocking in how quickly she was able to manipulate you into agreement.”
“She’s never met a hill she wouldn’t die on,” Ramona said, rolling her eyes.
“It’s like she’s always had a way of dominating everything around her.
It’s probably why she’s such a good curse-breaker.
” She paused, then pointed at Zara. “But we’re not asking for her help. Yet. We can figure this out ourselves.”
Zara blinked, silent for a moment as though trying to come up with a cautious way to respond. “Well, I’m excited to meet such a master manipulator in the flesh. Maybe I’ll find some new inspiration.”
“You’re not going to, like, steal her soul, right?” Ramona asked, flopping back down against her pillows. “Or Bradford’s?”
“Honestly, any man who goes by the entirety of Bradford is kind of asking for his soul to be stolen, but no, I do not intend to do any physical work on this trip,” Zara said.
Ramona buried her smile in the pillow. “Will you turn out the light, please?” She watched as Zara flicked her wrist and the lights went out. “Don’t stay up too late with that riveting dissertation.”
Zara made a dismissive hum of non-agreement, and Ramona closed her eyes.
She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping when the screaming fox woke her up.
No, it wasn’t the fox. Something closer. Something wrong. It was Zara.
Her eyes snapped open in the darkness, heart already racing. The sound was coming from across the room — raw, anguished, a sound she’d never heard a person make before.
Then the pain hit.
It slammed into her like a physical blow. Her chest seized, her lungs burned, every nerve in her body lit up with agony that wasn’t hers. The tether. She could feel it through the tether — Zara’s pain, Zara’s terror, flooding through the connection between them like poison in shared veins.
Ramona threw off the covers and stumbled across the room, nearly tripping over her own feet.
In the chair, Zara was thrashing, caught in the grip of something Ramona couldn’t see.
Her face was twisted, a sheen of sweat on her forehead catching the streetlight.
Her hands gripped the armrests hard enough that the cheap plastic was cracking.
Another scream tore from her throat, and Ramona felt it — felt the echo of whatever was happening in that dream. Fire. Or something like it. Something worse.
“Zara.” Ramona dropped to her knees beside the chair, hands hovering uselessly. She didn’t know if touching would make it worse. “Zara, wake up.”
Nothing. Just another choked sound of pain.
Ramona grabbed her shoulders. “Zara!”
Zara’s eyes flew open — wild, unseeing, reflecting the dim light like an animal’s. For half a second, she didn’t seem to recognize where she was. Her hand shot out, fingers closing around Ramona’s wrist with enough force to bruise.
Then she focused. Saw Ramona. The grip loosened slightly but she didn’t let go.
“Ramona.” Her voice was hoarse, broken. She was breathing too fast, chest heaving like she’d been running. Or drowning.
“I’m here. You’re here. You’re safe.” Ramona kept her voice steady even though her own heart was hammering. The pain was already fading from the tether, but she could still feel the aftershocks of Zara’s panic, sharp and overwhelming.
Zara looked around the room like she was cataloging it. Her dark eyes flicked to the water-stained ceiling. The duct-taped bed frame. The grimoire on the nightstand.
“It was a dream,” Ramona said quietly. “Just a dream.”
“I know.” But Zara’s breathing hadn’t slowed. She was still holding Ramona’s wrist, fingers trembling slightly.
“Come here.” Ramona stood, tugging gently. “Come on. The bed is more comfortable than that terrible chair.”
For once, Zara didn’t argue. She let Ramona guide her to the bed, moving like she wasn’t quite back in her body yet. When she sat down on the edge, Ramona could see her hands were shaking.
“Lie down,” Ramona said. “I’ll get you some water—”
Zara’s grip tightened on her wrist. Not painful, but insistent. Desperate. “Don’t.” The word came out rough. “Don’t leave. Please.”
Ramona’s chest constricted. She’d never heard Zara say please like that, like she was asking for something she needed but couldn’t name.
“Okay.” Ramona sat down beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A knock sounded on the door. “Ramona, you guys okay?” Kashvi sounded worried.
“Yeah, sorry, I had a nightmare,” Ramona called out. “Thanks for checking on us.”
“Let us know if you need anything,” Posey said through the door, and Ramona thanked them again, then heard their footsteps down the hall. She almost smiled at the idea that her roommates had both come to her apparent rescue.
Zara lay back slowly, still holding Ramona’s wrist like a lifeline. She pulled Ramona’s arm across her chest, fingers wrapped around her forearm now, gentler but no less insistent. Like she needed the weight of it. The proof that someone was there. Or that she was here.
“How can I help?” Ramona asked quietly.
Zara’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling, on that duck-shaped water stain. “Just keep breathing.”
“What?”
“Your breathing. I like the sound.” Zara’s voice was barely above a whisper. “It helps.”
Something in Ramona’s chest felt heavy with the weight of melancholy. She let her breathing stay audible, steady and even. In and out. A rhythm for Zara to follow.
They lay there in the darkness, Zara’s fingers wrapped around Ramona’s wrist, neither of them speaking. Gradually, Ramona felt Zara’s breathing start to match hers. Felt the tension in her body begin to ease, degree by degree.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ramona whispered after a long moment.
Zara shook her head once, sharp. Her jaw was set, that careful control sliding back into place even as her hand stayed locked around Ramona’s arm.
Ramona didn’t push. She just lay there beside her, breathing, being present in the only way Zara seemed able to accept.
And for the first time since the summoning, Ramona saw it — saw past the expensive suits and the corporate efficiency and the three-hundred-year-old demon who organized bookshops for fun.
Saw the soul underneath. Someone who had nightmares.
Someone who needed comfort but didn’t know how to ask for it. Someone who was scared.
Someone who was lonely.
A sound broke the silence. Scratching. Frantic and insistent.
Ramona turned her head toward the window and her breath caught.
The fox was there, perched on the fire escape.
Its front paws were against the glass, claws scraping, its pointed face pressed close.
Its eyes were wide, almost panicked, reflecting the streetlight in twin points of gold.
It was making small, distressed sounds — half whine, half keen — that Ramona could barely hear through the glass.
“It’s okay,” Ramona said quietly, not sure if she was talking to the fox or to Zara or to herself. “We’re okay.”
The fox stopped scratching. It stayed there, pressed against the window, but the frantic energy drained from its posture. It settled onto its haunches, head tilted, watching them with unblinking intensity.
Ramona felt that pull again — that recognition, that string around her ribs. The fox had felt something through whatever connection was trying to form. Had felt her fear. Had come.
They both watched the fox, which watched them right back. Standing guard. Or maybe just refusing to leave.
“It’s worried about you,” Zara said.
“Or it just wants food,” Ramona said, though she didn’t truly believe that.
Outside, the fox curled into itself slightly but didn’t close its eyes. Just kept watching through the window like it would stay there all night if necessary.
Ramona turned back to Zara and found her staring at the ceiling again, but her breathing was almost normal now. The trembling had ended. Her fingers had loosened their death grip on Ramona’s wrist into something closer to holding.
“Thank you,” Zara whispered. So quiet Ramona almost missed it.
“For what?”
“For waking me up. For being here.”
Ramona’s throat tightened. “Sure,” she said with an unfortunate lack of eloquence.
Zara’s eyes closed. For a long time, neither of them moved. Ramona could feel Zara’s pulse through the grip on her wrist — still racing at first, then gradually slowing. Could feel the exact moment Zara’s body started to relax, inch by inch, into something that might eventually become sleep.
Outside, the fox remained at its post.
Inside, Ramona lay very still, her arm held across Zara’s chest like an anchor, and watched the demon beside her finally let her guard down.
Neither of them mentioned it when they woke up hours later, tangled together, Zara’s face buried against Ramona’s shoulder and Ramona’s other hand somehow wound in Zara’s hair.
Neither of them mentioned that the fox was still there, asleep on the fire escape.
Neither of them mentioned that Zara had been crying in her sleep — silent tears that had soaked into Ramona’s T-shirt.
But when Zara finally pulled away, sitting up and running her hands through her disheveled hair, and Ramona said “Good morning” like nothing had happened, Zara looked at her with something that might have been gratitude for only a moment before her expression settled back into a familiar bored, assessing look.
“Good morning, Mortal.”
It hit Ramona then, that if she’d felt every knife-slice of terror of Zara’s nightmare because of the tether, that Zara had probably also felt every moment of the explicit dreams she’d been having almost every night, too.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Her face went hot. Then hotter. Those dreams — the ones where Zara pushed her against the bookshelf wall, the ones in her childhood bedroom, the particularly vivid one from two nights ago involving a desk and significantly fewer clothes…
Zara had felt all of it.
Her cheeks flushed, and she sat up abruptly, desperate for a little distance between them.
“What’s wrong?” Zara asked, standing and stretching. Her button-up pulled up over her stomach, revealing a delicious peek of skin. She caught Ramona staring and her mouth curved — knowing.
Ramona made a strangled sound, then cleared her throat. “I’m going to go take a shower.” She stood and hurried toward the door, practically fleeing.
“Take your time,” Zara called after her, and there was definite amusement in her voice now. “Have a nice shower, Mortal.”
Ramona fled. She swore she could hear a low, knowing chuckle as the door clicked shut behind her.