Chapter Twenty-Six
“Did you know Caleb would show a perfected root magic?” I asked, sitting on the couch and gently petting a purring Charlie while Milo remained in the kitchen.
“No idea. I mean, fifty-fifty, split between um, like two-hundred possibilities. So, not fifty-fifty, I guess.” Milo hummed as he cooked. “Beats the future where he pissed himself, that’s for sure. I was sweating over that one.”
“What’s your endgame here?”
“We have a rule you don’t get to ask work-related things.”
“Unless it involves my students.”
“That rule doesn’t exist.” Milo strolled into the living room, kissed my cheek, and handed me a plate of freshly made gnocchi with a Tuscan sauce. The aroma was inviting and intoxicating, but I focused on Milo’s thoughts. “Try a bite—it’s yummy.”
I took a bite, savoring the pillowy texture mixed with delicious flavors that made my entire mouth water. “It’s okay, I guess.”
Distracted by Milo’s internal singing, I missed Carlie who swatted away and stole several pieces of pasta. She even shared two with her brother.
“I’m teaching her the value of sharing,” Milo boasted.
“We’re not done,” I said, shoveling in a disgustingly delectable bite. Fuck. When did Milo learn to cook so well? “You don’t get to involve my students or put them in danger.”
“I’m not.” Milo joined me on the couch, telekinetically turning on the television.
“I wouldn’t unless it bettered them. This doesn’t.
It helps no one. Please respect that I can’t share a million possibilities with you but know I mean well and have no intention of dragging them into this.
My only goal was to light a fire under the enchanters in attendance, and I’m not even sure it worked. ”
“Oh, it worked. They were quite pissy afterward. Which reminds me…now I’m going to have even more of my work cut out for me in finding an enchanter willing to accept Kenzo as an intern after he told all of them to fuck off.”
“He’ll be fine. But it’s good to know the message landed.” Milo kissed my cheek with sauce on his lips. I groaned and wiped it away. He was insufferable. “See, we’re a dream team of fixing the world. Or at the very least fucking it up less than we found it.”
I quietly sat beside Milo, eating the wonderful dish he’d cooked, ignoring him and my traitorous cats who’d nestled close to him.
Milo passed out on my bed the second his head hit the pillow. Must have been nice, considering I lay there for a good hour, tossing and turning with the wheels in my head spinning toward endless scenarios. The biggest comfort was that his mind was the only one buzzing in my thoughts.
I scooted close to him, twisting him onto his side and hugging him so our magics synced seamlessly. This was truly the best part of having someone I trusted so much and who also trusted me implicitly; it created a bond I never wanted to sever again.
“You’re not listening,” Milo whispered, entirely asleep.
I brushed his curly bangs off his forehead, soothing, gentle, and hopeful it gave him some comfort.
He rarely talked in his sleep, but when at the peak of stress, he’d ramble incoherent conversations.
I’d noticed it more frequently since the demons arrived in Chicago, shattering his protective hold over the city.
Unable to rest and with a fidgety, anxious Milo cuddled beside me, I delved into his thoughts, hoping to alleviate the panic consuming him.
“I don’t know how else to spell it out to you.
This is not going to be resolved by a single guild.
” Milo stood in his office, tossing files onto his desk.
Each one held detailed intel about the recently poached enchanters all signed to enlist at Cerberus Guild.
This memory was fresh and haunting Milo.
The usually bright and colorful walls of his office were painted black with grim portraits of blood, carnage, and death—a clear sign he’d warped this memory due to heightened fear.
“You said you needed the strength of enchanters from these guilds, so I made them an offer they couldn’t resist.” Or refuse, based on the smug smile plastered across Enchanter Campbell’s face as she stood across from Milo.
It was difficult to discern if Campbell was actually this arrogant or if Milo replaced her expression with something more fitting to how he felt in the moment.
“With them, we’ll rise even further, remaining the strongest guild in the state and the most reliable to our citizens. ”
“It’s not about strength. It’s not about the magics.” Milo’s frustration created flickering in the lights. “It’s about collaboration.”
“That ship sailed the second you shined a spotlight on Whitlock Industries,” Enchanter Campbell said. “There’s too much fear for collaboration. Where will the credit fall? Who will land the funding? Will this lead to another corrupt monopoly?”
Milo glowered.
“Look, you wanted my help. This is what I brought you. If you can’t find a solution with ten additional enchanters, some of the damn best might I add, then you’re the one failing this city, not me.”
“Let me put it in a way you’ll understand Enchanter Campbell.” The walls of Milo’s office quaked. “If you can’t find a way to get the other guild masters to work together, you’ll never call yourself Guild Master Campbell, and you’ll never sit on that board you’ve been clamoring for.”
Campbell’s jaw clenched like she’d bit back every word she wanted to say, every question she wanted to press.
“Oooh,” Milo’s voice called from another direction. Not the Milo of this memory but the actual consciousness of Milo.
The fuck?
I quirked a brow, following the small echo. He should very much be asleep. No, he was very much asleep. What was going on?
“This one’s funny but completely unnecessary.”
I stepped away from the nightmare on the surface of Milo’s slumbering mind and deeper into his mind’s core, which was a vast black space, infinitely wide.
The towering wall of screens projecting potential vision stood too tall for me to see an ending.
Given my inability to view his magic, the screens showed only fuzzy static.
“Hmm. Nope. Gotta go.”
I squeezed between the tight space of the screens, having just enough room to wiggle further through Milo’s core. Our link created a succinct connection, and I recalled a secondary location where Milo sorted his visions.
All the darkness disappeared once I reached the white board of interconnected strings. An array of colors filling the entire spectrum weaved along the board like a maze. Fates interlocking, converging, and separating in endless mysteries I would never understand. Milo wasn’t here either.
“Milo?” I called out because I didn’t want him thinking I’d invaded his privacy even if I had—with the best intentions, of course.
“Don’t need. Don’t need. Keep. Keep. Maybe pile. No. Yes. Maybe.” Milo’s voice echoed beyond the wall of colorful fates. “No idea what to do with this one just yet.”
I stepped close, searching for a way around but this room was a circle all leading back to the screens I’d come from. I touched a white part, careful not to hit the strings representing futures, and searched for…I had no clue. A secret button? A knob?
“Milo?”
“Dorian?” Milo’s voice called back from behind the wall. “What’re you doing here?”
“You were sleep talking, and I wanted to help.” I sighed. “Okay, I wanted to obsessively assist because I lack boundaries sometimes .”
“Love it.” Milo’s arms reached out at me from seemingly nowhere, and he dragged me into the wall.
I yelped, bracing to hit the wall. I didn’t, though. Instead, I phased right through it.
Behind his endless screens of visions and his massive board of strings of fate was quite possibly the most outlandish area thus far. A simple, boring filing room with beige wallpaper and a smell that screamed office musk. The filing cabinets stretched forever.
“What is this place? ”
“My deepest core. Sort of a place to organize outdated visions.”
“Outdated?”
Milo guided me to a table covered in stacks and stacks of blank papers.
“These are either old, unlikely, or randomly unnecessary. Some are impossible given other variables that already occurred, or my interference would be questionable, possibly unethical. A few will simply resolve themselves, so why bother?”
“I want to put a pin in what you consider questionable for a later discussion.” I grabbed a blank piece of paper. “But I’m assuming there’s something written here?”
“Oh, right.” Milo smacked his forehead. “It’s all blankety blank blank for you since it’s conjured by my magic.
Yeah, mostly words, but some are images, too.
Depends on the depth of the vision and how my brain sorts the info.
Man, brains and magic are so wild and awesome.
Like they very much know what they’re doing. ”
“And you sort them? Why?”
“They pile up. It gets distracting.” Milo grabbed a stack of papers and shoved them into a filing cabinet. “They don’t fade from my Fateful Viewing of Infinite Possibilities or my Dispatch Board of Destiny unless I file them away in here.”
“You named the screens and that board of colorful strings?” I shook my head. “Yeah, I’m not calling them that.”
“Buzzkill.” Milo grinned. “Point is, once my magic has experienced a vision, it remains tangible, which becomes difficult to navigate even for fates that’ll never happen.”
“So, instead of sleeping, you stay up all night sorting visions?” I scrunched my face, likely frowning but feeling more inquisitive. How did Milo function?
“I am sleeping. Working here while my subconscious sorts whatever the hell I’m worried about at the moment. Plus, I usually only pull these semi all-nighters once a week. ”
“About your current worries…” I bit my lip. “Do you want to talk about it? Not work wise, just so you don’t have to hold onto it so closely?”
“You’re sweet,” Milo said, organizing papers into stacks. “It’s bad. Really bad or semi bad or the baddest of bad. I’m not entirely sure because demons fuck up my clairvoyance and make all this murkier.”
“Is that why you’re here? Trying to lighten the burden of so many potentials?”
Milo kissed me, gentle and endearing, not a long-lasting kiss or a kiss worth savoring, yet I did.
Our bodies outside his mind’s core shifted—hard to say how, but I thought they drew closer, yearning the physical affection of expressed emotion.
“That’s why I keep you around. You’re more than your good looks, Dorian.
Got quite the big head, and your brain is nice, too. ”
Milo winked, casting suggestive innuendos at the head he meant, and my cheeks burned.
Taking full advantage of my flustered response, Milo smirked and went back to working on sorting papers for filing.
I lingered in this space, ignoring the call of his nearby nightmare that made his body shudder in my grasp outside his mind, watching him work to lessen the burden of endless visions so he could prioritize the most important ones as the world around burned.
I couldn’t go to sleep. It was important to maintain boundaries and not involve myself with Enchanter Evergreen’s career. But I could be a part of his world so long as I remembered to respect that professional distance. He didn’t have to remind me, but I constantly had to remind myself.
“Do you need help?” I asked, feigning assistance while knowing full well there was nothing I had to offer here in his deepest core, which likely had another silly name .
“Really?” Milo handed me a stack of papers. “Put these in filing cabinet C-R-S 142.”
“Okay.” I took the papers and strolled through the filing cabinets, reading over the labels on each one.
“Oh, the third drawer,” Milo shouted. “Please and thank you.”
I smiled, here in Milo’s deepest depths, doing my little part to help with the demon threat he worried about.