Chapter 3 #2
If you could call getting your ex-girlfriend yeeted by architecture and giving you at least one day’s reprieve a win.
“She's going to be so pissed,” I muttered.
“Good,” Baz said. “Angry dragons are sloppy dragons.”
The house made its agreement creak again, and I could have sworn the remaining walls stood a little straighter, a little prouder.
My magic had brought a building to life, and that building had chosen violence. For me…
For us.
I probably should have been terrified. Instead, I found myself patting the nearest wall. “Good house. Very good house.”
It purred.
The house purred.
What the hell have I done?
* * *
“Nobody move,” I said, which was ridiculous because Gary never listened to me, and Baz was bleeding all over his destroyed living room. “The house is purring. Houses shouldn't purr.”
“Your wards shouldn't have a vendetta either, but here we are,” Gary observed from his shelf. “I, for one, welcome our new architectural overlord.”
The purring intensified, vibrating through the floorboards like the world's largest, most disturbing cat. I took a step back and immediately regretted it. The floor beneath my foot turned spongy, almost cushion-like, as if the house was trying to make me comfortable.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “It likes me.”
“Of course it likes you,” Baz said, pressing his hand against the weeping claw marks on his chest. “You gave it consciousness, and its first act was violence. That basically makes you its mother.”
“I am NOT a house mother!”
A cabinet door swung open gently, revealing a first aid kit inside. The house was trying to be helpful. That was somehow more frightening than when it was attacking Illanya.
“We need to tend to that wound,” I said to Baz, grateful for the distraction. It was also the least I could do for him, after he’d not only taken care of me but put his life, and home, on the line to defend me. I grabbed the kit and walked back over to him. “Sit down before you bleed out.”
“It's not that bad.”
“Sit!” I commanded as I pointed to a cushion on the couch and glared.
He sat. The couch, which had tried to eat Illanya what felt like all of five minutes ago, cradled him like a concerned grandmother. I knelt in front of him, opened the kit, and immediately realized I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
“Just clean it,” he said softly. “I heal fast.”
I dabbed at the wounds with antiseptic, trying not to notice how my magic reacted to being this close to him.
Every touch sent little spirals of light between us, purple and gold mixing in patterns that made no sense.
I could somehow sense the curse was confused, caught between wanting to punish me for feeling safe and wanting to explode because Baz was hurt.
“Your magic's showing,” Gary commented.
I looked down. He was right. Light was literally leaking from my pores, pooling around my knees like luminescent fog.
As I watched, it spread across the floor, and everywhere it touched, something changed.
The broken furniture started repairing itself, but wrong.
The coffee table grew legs, actual legs, with knees and everything.
A lamp sprouted leaves. The throw rug developed what looked suspiciously like eyes.
“I can't control it,” I said, panic rising. “It's been getting worse.”
“Define worse,” Baz said, then sucked in a breath as I cleaned a particularly deep gash.
“Worse, as in every emotion triggers a magical explosion or fire. Worse, as in”—I gestured around the room—”I accidentally gave your house feelings, and now it's adopted me.”
The ceiling creaked affectionately.
“That doesn't sound worse,” Baz said. “That sounds useful.”
“Useful?” I stared at him. “I turned your coffee table into a centaur!”
We all looked at the coffee table, which was indeed prancing around on its new legs, looking deeply confused about its newfound mobility.
“A very small centaur,” Gary corrected. “More of a mini centpony, really.”
The table-creature heard him and trotted over, nuzzling against my leg. Because of course it did. Everything I accidentally hexed today wanted to be besties.
“This is a disaster,” I moaned.
“This is adaptation,” Baz countered. He caught my hand, stilling my increasingly frantic cleaning of his wounds. “Your magic is chaos. Pure, undiluted chaos. You can't control it because it's not meant to be controlled.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Aim it.”
“I tried aiming! I aimed at Illanya and hit real estate!”
“And it worked.” His thumb brushed over my knuckles, and the sparks literally flew. The curtains caught fire. The house immediately put them out with what I swear was an exasperated sigh. “You defeated a dragon by accident. Imagine what you could do on purpose.”
“Probably destroy the world.”
“Or save it.”
I looked into his eyes. The brown had changed. It now had gold flecks that seemed to glow in the magical light still pooling around us. The curse twisted in my chest, wanting to hurt him for making me feel things, wanting to protect him because those feelings were real.
“The curse is getting stronger,” I admitted. “Every time I'm near you, every time you touch me, it digs deeper.”
“I know.”
“It's going to try to kill you soon.”
“I know.”
“Why aren't you running?”
He smiled, and it was soft and dangerous all at once. “Because I've been running my whole life. From what I am, from what I want, from the fear of losing everything again.” His hand tightened on mine. “I'm tired of running.”
The magic between us took hold, and suddenly, everything in the room was floating.
Not in a bad way, just floating as if gravity were just a memory.
Furniture drifted lazily through the air.
Gary rose from his shelf, revolving slowly like the world's most judgmental spinning top.
We were held in a bubble of golden-purple light.
“Well,” Gary said, remarkably calm for a snail in zero gravity. “This is new.”
“I'm not doing it,” I whispered.
“We all are,” Baz said. “Together.”
The mate mark around my neck grew warm and comforting. The curse shrieked in response, sending needles of pain through my chest, but the floating continued. Two magics at war, with us suspended, bathed in golden-purple light, right in the middle of everything.
“It's beautiful,” I said, watching a book do a lazy barrel roll from one side of the room to the other.
“You're beautiful,” Baz said, then immediately looked like he wanted to take it back. “I mean, your magic is…”
Everything dropped.
Dropped, as in just released its magical hold and let gravity reassert itself with prejudice. We crashed to the floor in a heap of limbs and furniture. The coffee-table-centaur landed on its back, legs kicking helplessly in the air. Gary plopped onto a cushion with an indignant squeak.
“The house is laughing at us,” I groaned from underneath Baz, who had somehow twisted to take the brunt of the fall.
And it was. The walls were shaking with silent mirth. The remaining pictures rattled in their frames. Even the half-door was quivering.
“Your house is a dick,” I told Baz.
“Our house,” he corrected, then froze. “I mean—” He was interrupted by the front door exploding again. This time from sheer embarrassment. The poor, pathetic half-door just gave up the ghost entirely, falling off its hinges with a defeated thud.
We lay there on the floor, magical light still leaking from my skin, and stared at the now completely open doorway.
“She's coming back,” I said.
“Soon.”
“With a plan this time.”
“Probably.”
“We're going to die.”
“Probably not.”
I turned my head to look at him. He was smiling despite the blood, despite the destruction, despite me, despite…everything.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because,” he said, “for the first time in a hundred years, I have something worth fighting for.”
The curse went completely berserk at that. Pain lanced through me like lightning made of acid. I convulsed, and my magic exploded outward in a wild, uncontrollable burst of light.
When I regained my vision, everything in the room had changed.
The furniture was now various colors of the rainbow. The walls had developed a subtle pattern that looked like scales. The ceiling had stars. Actual, tiny, twinkling stars embedded in the wood. And everything, absolutely everything, was covered in butterflies.
Not real butterflies. Magical ones. Made of light and shadow and what appeared to be a six-year-old’s fever dream.
“Tansy,” Gary said slowly. “Why is everything butterflies?”
“I don't know!”
“Why are they all looking at me?”
I turned my head and immediately saw that he wasn’t being hyperbolic. Gary was right. Hundreds of magical butterflies had turned to stare at Gary with their glowing eyes.
“Run,” I suggested.
“I'M A SNAIL!”
The butterflies descended en masse, lifting Gary into the air despite his protests. They carried him in a spiral pattern around the room while he shrieked British obscenities that would have made a sailor blush.
“Should we help him?” Baz asked.
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved. We just lay there watching Gary get butterfly-napped by my rogue magic, too exhausted and overwhelmed to do anything about it.
“Your magic’s weird,” Baz said conversationally.
“You have no idea.”
The house rumbled in agreement, and I could have sworn the butterflies giggled.
This was my life now. Well, today at least. Sentient houses, magical butterflies, a curse trying to kill the guy who’d laid everything on the line to protect me, and my ex coming back for round two.
“We need a plan,” I said.
“We need an army.”
“I can spontaneously redecorate a room in a rainbow color scheme, start random fires, create butterflies out of nowhere. And don’t forget the walking furniture. Sooooo super helpful!”
“It's a start.”
I laughed. I couldn't help it. The situation was so insane that laughing was the only reasonable response.