Chapter Thirty Nine • Trial and Error • Lillith #2
“I wouldn’t go with Satoshi on tour because he’s been avoiding me, and I’m not going to reward that behavior by being his walking, talking fleshlight waiting in his tour bus or hotel room while women of the world drool all over him.
” Wren’s expression gets serious. The gold in her hazel eyes flashes hot and frustrated.
“I’m tired of this back and forth with him. ”
“Maybe he just... I mean, maybe he just really likes you, and doesn’t want to fuck it up.”
“Well, he fucked it up,” Wren says, her tone hard—almost warning. I know her well enough to sense I’m pushing too much.
So, I relent. Even though something tells me I really, really shouldn’t.
“I just want you to be happy, Wren,” I say.
“The thing that will make me happiest right now is making sure you’re safe,” she says. “Even if I wasn’t at odds with Satoshi, I wouldn’t be leaving with them. I’m not going to go off galivanting while your life’s in danger. Not when I can be here and helping.”
I heave out a slow breath and lean my head on her shoulder. “Fine. I guess it’s alright that your higher priority is making sure I don’t wind up bound to a mysterious eldritch demon.”
She chuckles and kisses the top of my head. “You’re welcome.”
After that little blip, we carry out Bastion’s plan. We eat the stew he made, and then we read a truly obnoxious amount. For hours we do this. Read and read and read, and it seems like we barely move the needle when it comes to the massive stacks of books and grimoires surrounding us.
We take turns, reading one book for a long time, declaring frustration and trading off with someone else’s. We pause each other’s reading to dissect a challenging passage, or parse out whether a certain ritual might be written in code. We tent books across our faces when our eyes begin to hurt.
Eventually, Aemon returns and joins in on the torture. Eventually, my phone chimes with a notification from Damien.
Can you take a call?
“Guys, you mind if I have a call with Damien?” I ask the room.
“Go ahead. We should probably take a bigger break, anyway,” Bastion says as he pulls a timepiece out of his pocket and clicks it open. “We’ve been at it for... eight hours now?”
“Time flies when you’re facing the possibility of having your life force siphoned out of you,” I say dryly, as I stand and stretch the stiffness out of my body. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
I leave Bastion’s study and go upstairs, finding a little alcove of privacy in the reading spot Bastion favors next to his hearth. Once I’m settled with my legs tucked off to the side, I call up Damien.
“Hey, Sweetheart,” he says when he picks up the call, and the tension wound up in my body unspools by half.
“Gods, it is nice to hear your voice,” I sigh, leaning my head against the side of Bastion’s wingback chair.
“Tough day?” he asks. There’s a crackle of movement from the other side of the line, like he’s settling into a bed. “Tell me everything.”
“I don’t ever want to read a book ever again.”
He chuckles, it’s muffled for a moment by something. A pillow? Then his voice clears again. “Learn anything?”
“A lot of stuff that could be helpful, but nothing conclusive,” I say. “I don’t want to talk about that though, tell me how everything music is going.”
“I’d really love to know if my girlfriend is in danger still,” he says, gentle but firm.
“She is,” I say, “And the moment that changes, I’ll let you know. For now. Your girlfriend needs to not think about the demonic parasite in her bloodstream and focus on the competence porn that is her sexy drummer boyfriend.”
He laughs. “Alright. Fine,” he says. “If competence porn is what you’re after, I have so many good words for you. Stuff like drum technician, and in-ear monitors, and BPM.”
“Mmmn, I love it when you talk dirty to me,” I say.
He laughs again, this time a little more earnestly.
“Honestly, it might be boring. But basically, we went to the venue, I met with the drum technician and kind of ran him through my usual setup. The label sent some new monitor equipment, some of the most expensive in-ear monitors I’ve ever used, honestly. They sound dope.
“Uhhh, what else. I got in an argument with Oren cause he doesn’t want to use a click for this next show. He says he wants some push and pull, and when I told him that I thought that was ass, he told me to stop being an artless loser and to suck it up.”
“Oof,” I say. “What was the conclusion?”
“The conclusion was that he out diva’d me, so we’re ditching the click for tomorrow’s show. And I might be sloppy in the name of art.”
“How do you feel about it?” I ask.
“Not the best, but it’s whatever. It’s one show out of about... mmm... What? Twenty we added?”
He sighs and I can almost hear him smear his hand down his face. “I wish you were here with me,” he says.
“Need a good lay to take the edge off?” I ask.
“I really just want to feel you tangled up in my arms,” he says, not offended by my joke. “I want to go get food with you and watch a stupid movie on the TV and complain about how awful the towels provided by the hotel are.”
I smile, imagining facing him on a strange bed in a new town, imagining running my fingers through his hair and feeling the prickle of his blonde stubble on his face.
“I want that too,” I say quietly. And all the sudden, the defeatist dismay I felt earlier evaporates.
Something buoyant and full takes its place and its shaped faintly like hope.
“Someday soon,” I say. “Soon you’ll be at the point where you hate my guts because I leave hair in your hairbrush and can’t seem to keep track of my underwear between tour stops. ”
“Who needs underwear anyway?”
“You want me to go commando everywhere?”
“I would certainly enjoy it,” he says.
I laugh and when I quiet, I hear the steady gust of his slow breathing in the receiver. My heart squeezes a little and my mind rebels even as I say, “You should get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” he lies.
“Yes, you are,” I say.
“Fine. I am. But I miss you more than I miss sleep,” he says.
I close my eyes, hearing the puff of a slow exhale. “Go to sleep, Damien,” I say softly. This time, it’s not just a directive. It’s a spell. A bit of a hypnotic pull that I place on him from all the way over here in Del Lune.
“That’s not fair,” he slurs into the phone. “I know you’re doing something witchy over there.”
I smile sadly. “I’m not going anywhere, Damien. You can call me when you wake up.”
“There’so much to do tomorrow,” he slurs. “Fuck, I just miss you.”
“We’ll find time. We’ll always find time,” I say.
“Mnh.” I can’t tell if it’s agreement or petulance.
Whatever it is, he doesn’t speak any more after that. And I focus on the steady gusts of his sleepy breaths while I rest my eyes for a little longer, imagining I’m next to him, tangled up in his arms and legs like he wished for.
After a little while, I hang up the call, trying not to feel too dejected by not being able to say goodbye properly. I remind myself of what I told him. We will find time. We’ll always find time.
When I arrive back in Bastion’s study, there’s some energy coursing through the trio I left there. A sort of sharpened focus to their words, a tightness in the way they hold their bodies over a table, staring down at a particular book.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I come up behind them.
Aemon looks over his shoulder at me, as if he forgot I was here. Wren beams at me and Bastion has his hand cupped over his mouth in that way he does when he’s just put something together he hadn’t considered before.
He tucks his hands in his pockets and meets eyes with me.
“We have an idea,” he says. “A pretty fucking good one, too.”