Chapter Two
Once I walked through the front door, I had two demanding orange tabby cats to contend with.
Charlie meowed, pleading for the serious pets he needed because it’d been a whole four hours since he’d seen me, and Carlie meowed, whiny and wispy over the audacity of me leaving her with paté.
The bowl remained full in protest. She’d sooner starve than eat paté, yet the dry bowls—hers and Charlie’s—had been devoured all the way to the shiny silver bottoms.
“It’s not my fault, fat cat.” I retrieved a can from the cupboard, closely examining the label since they looked so similar with paté secretly scribbled under the logo and flavor choice. “It was an accident.”
I scraped her bowl clean, rinsed and cleaned it, then gave her a meal she desperately hopped onto the counter for, too impatient to wait.
After I’d tended to the cats, I made myself a screwdriver and plopped onto the couch to watch television.
Not quite the mimosas Milo had in mind, but I hated the fucking bubbles anyway.
The sugary tang helped mask the acidic bite from my heavy-handed pour of vodka.
The booze dulled my senses, the television muddled my mind, and each kept noisy neighbors out of my dreary head.
A few drinks and hours later, I’d drifted into a dazed delirium. This would be a restless night. I tossed and turned on the couch, Charlie nestled in my neck, swatting me with his tail every time I repositioned.
Milo’s presence stirred nearby. He’d invited himself right the hell in, which I’d told him I hated.
I couldn’t help being reclusive and distant; it was ingrained in my every breath.
But he’d ignored my complaints, which I secretly appreciated.
It was wonderful having him come here because it cut right through the noise.
“Shush,” Milo whispered, stroking bangs out of my face.
Had I said something? No—Charlie’s chirp was what Milo shushed. I was too groggy to open my eyes for certainty.
Milo’s arms gripped me and pulled me up off the couch.
Faded cologne hit with each nasally breath.
I rocked my head, turning Milo’s chest into a pillow.
His hand cradled my back and cupped his other under the back of my knees.
In a few breaths I was on my bed, blanket slung over my head before my fluttering eyes adjusted.
I wanted to wake. The night had been restless enough.
If I resisted a bit more, I’d find myself up and alive, eager to finish the date we’d missed.
The mattress shifted; the blanket tugged.
Warm hands slid under my shirt, pulling it off, and Milo rested with his head on my shoulder.
The skin-to-skin contact was a dose of total silence, and the world vanished.
Wrapping my arm around him, I hugged Milo tightly and fell into his thoughts as his dreams stole him from this world.
Soon, I faded into my own subconscious, thanks to the soft white noise. On dreamless nights when nearby neighbors attempted to keep me from falling into a blissful slumber, Milo’s joy outshined their meddling minds.
This wasn’t a dreamless night, though.
The past seeped in, melting away Milo’s presence like an oil painting hit with turpentine. His thoughts rippled away.
Flames from failures illuminated the dark sky of the street I’d found myself catapulted onto.
My legs wobbled—not mine, but those belonging to my younger self who gasped for breath due to exhaustion.
Tall buildings burned brightly with fiery demonic magic too powerful for someone as weak as I’d been then to banish.
Even now, reflecting on my younger self in the prime of his enchanter career at twenty-two, I doubted I possessed the skills to handle such ferocity.
Debris littered the busy road along with broken vehicles and corpses.
Those left alive internally begged for help or faded in and out of consciousness, their thoughts making each breath challenging.
Some were coherent enough to call for help; they screamed and begged for a rescue I couldn’t offer—not then or now.
This was a horror no amount of closure could have prepared me for.
I recoiled within this awful memory, screaming in my mind for it to end, change, hold some subtle message. It didn’t. All it offered was a carbon-copied memory I’d endured too many times.
My body was mostly numb at this point having overexerted my magic tenfold, so that even the loudest thoughts buzzed in as whispers until I focused everything on Finn. It did no good.
Half a block away, Finn stood tall, taking tired breaths, face caked in dried blood and a shaky smile he refused to surrender. “ Contain the situation. I’ve got this. ”
If I’d listened to his words, a few of the civilians crying out for help might’ve lived. Some of the lesser fiends roaming might’ve been extinguished. Instead, I raced down the street, wincing from the pain in my body, ignoring it all so I could reach Finn .
Back then, I was willing to let the city burn for a chance to rescue him. I would’ve let the entire world drown in blood to pull him to safety.
A black portal opened behind Finn. This dark magic would transport him far out of reach.
I’d seen the ending for this story a thousand times over, relived this guilt in my waking hours with almost as much clarity as now, yet the agony inside my younger self pushed him ahead, desperate but just out of reach, and it always struck a nerve as freshly as the first time I’d experienced it.
I stumbled forward, falling to my knees, crawling.
Deep cuts and blood loss blurred the world around, but I continued worthlessly dragging myself toward Finn.
A secret part of me hoped for Finn’s intervention.
I’d had a few dreams of our past since the warlock incursion at the academy, but none where he spoke to me so vividly, so vibrantly.
I waited for Finn to break the mold as he’d done so many times a few months back.
I wanted him to give me anything. A fleeting word off-script.
A warning of something new. A chance to change this awful moment.
Mostly, I wanted to apologize.
“ I’ll be okay, Dorian. You’ll see, ” Finn thought as he had every single time I relived this nightmare memory.
Nothing had changed. Not a damn thing.
My eyes watered as a sapphire scaled arm reached from within the black hole, long talons cast shadows along Finn’s body.
The demonic palm had a mouth of its own, filled with jagged teeth.
The crooked smile glistened under the light of nearby flames.
In a swift motion, the teeth snatched Finn by the jugular.
Blood gushed down his neck, and his face went white, hollow, and pained.
Still, even as he was enveloped by the portal, his smile never wavered.
“Give him back!” I screamed, my voice hoarse and as broken as the rest of my body that collapsed onto the ground .
The road beneath me vanished.
My heart surged momentarily, startled at a plunge into endless darkness.
I scrambled, waking mid fall and terrified I’d crash out of my bed and into an infinity of desperate flailing.
Memories always hit based on whatever whim my subconscious wished to process.
Whether the fiend from yesterday sent a reminder or some hidden piece of me regretted moving forward, I didn’t care to discover.
Milo’s arm wrapped around my torso, hand squeezing my chest until my heart slowed and my frantic mind collected the dim morning in my bedroom.
My skin was sticky with sweat and Milo’s chest clung to my back, but he remained close, running his hand along the hairs on my stomach and hugging me tighter.
Accepting my feelings for Milo didn’t magically wash away the guilt I held for Finn in those last moments.
It didn’t erase the twelve years I’d lived adrift, unwilling to embrace happiness.
But these memories no longer carved out my insides when they struck.
Not like they used to. I had Milo here; even half-dazed and lost in a dream, his mind reached out and filled that emptiness in mine with his joy.
He’d spent many nights here since I’d accepted what we had, have, and could still have as a pair.
“Wanna talk about it?” Milo nuzzled the back of my ear. His dream-lost thoughts boomed.
“Just demons. Nightmares. Something I’d rather forget.”
“Demons are the worst.” He kissed my neck, sending positive, light, and humorous images. They trailed down my spine until the worst of the memory washed away.
Our minds and magics had synced so seamlessly again, picking up from our youth and elevating to a degree I barely comprehended. Even sleeping in a bit, Milo knew how to predict my day in the best way.
I scoffed. Knowing Milo, even without skimming his groggy morning thoughts, he’d known a dream would hit me soon.
One I wasn’t ready for and prepared accordingly.
Hell, it was Milo. I’d given his clairvoyance too much credit.
Sometimes, he’d know when I struggled just by the stiffness in my muscles, lull in my voice, or change in my breathing.
He was annoyingly perfect that way, and yet I still questioned what to make of us.
“I have to get ready for work.” I kissed him, soft and light as I spun around and slipped off the bed. “I’ll see you this evening.”
“Doubtful. Got that Cerberus thing tonight, remember? Gonna be a long day, evening, long something—and not the long something I like.” Milo kept his eyes firmly closed, refusing to let the outside world take what remnants of his trickling dreams remained.
How I wished that beautiful, playful dream had invaded my slumber, but I wasn’t so blessed it seemed.
“I can stop by, keep you company.” I grabbed clothes to slip on after a shower.
“It’s a silly ceremony. No networking worth your time. Trust me, I got a good sense on stuff.”
Milo had been ranked the number one Chicago enchanter, something he was less enthusiastic about each year.
He didn’t make a big deal about it because he’d held that ranking every year since the Night of the Fiend Massacre.
Not that there weren’t others constantly rotating among the top ten enchanters and closing the gap between themselves and Enchanter Evergreen, but then something would happen, and his popularity would surge again.
Most recently, it had to do with his role in thwarting the warlocks that threatened my homeroom coven and the army of fiends that would’ve eviscerated countless people.
“Thought it was an award?” I paused, rooting through his hidden insecurities for this event.
“What? No. The award was whenever ago. This is like the guilds way of showcasing it happened. It’s completely unnecessary, and it’ll be a real drag for you.” Milo rolled over, tucking his head under a pillow, like that’d quell his thoughts. “I’ll just see you tomorrow after.”
Milo had dragged me to a few Cerberus events over the holiday, but since the start of the second semester, he’d eased up, likely due to my reluctance.
I continued exploring our relationship, what it was, what it could be like, but that was much simpler in privacy.
Prying eyes followed the great Enchanter Evergreen everywhere, and when I’d accompany him or even show up to an event on my own, Milo was often the height of conversation—both aloud and in thought.
I didn’t fit into the industry when I worked in it, and it had become apparent that I belonged even less now.
I wanted to support him because his surface thoughts cycled with excitement for the event, yet he kept quiet and pushed them away whenever I’d brought it up.
Half of me believed it was because he knew today, this week, truly—okay, the next few months—would be grueling considering the testing we had in store for the kids.
The other half of me screamed I’d embarrassed Milo so much, he questioned why we’d ever found our way back together.
Clearly someone so undevoted to his career wouldn’t make for the right happily ever after as he’d so incorrectly predicted a million times over.
I sighed, releasing that paranoid part of myself into the ether, but lingered at the doorway while Milo slept.
He’d buried himself beneath the blanket, drifting further from his dream state slumber—one of the few times when he didn’t carry the world on his shoulders—and toward muddled concerns over demons.
I shuddered. They were fiery and destructive images like the night…
the night we lost Finn. But so many of Milo’s thoughts burst into staticky blobs.
This might’ve been tied to some potential he’d prevented when banishing the fiends yesterday, or maybe Milo dwelled on the horrors of our past as much as I did .
I channeled my root magics before getting ready for my shower, so I could prepare myself to quickly fly to work.
The distance was still fatiguing, and if I didn’t prepare my levitation and telekinesis while getting ready, I found it challenging to maintain flight over several miles.
My stomach burned as the muscles tightened.
Admittedly, I liked how so much constant casting had gotten rid of the bit of flab on my belly.
I wasn’t rocking a six pack like Milo, but all my muscles had toned from constant use of my root magics.
Since everything last semester, I wanted to ensure my four root magics were as sharp— no sharper —as when I worked in the industry. I traced my fingertips along the scar across my neck while the shower heated up.