Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Please be a fluke. Please be nothing. Please—
The smell fills the entire building. Not sewage, thank God, but something mineral and wrong. Like rust and standing water and every pipe-related nightmare I’ve ever had rolled into one.
I flip the light switch. Nothing happens.
“Oh no.” I fumble for my phone, activating the flashlight. “No, no, no...”
The beam illuminates exactly what I was afraid of. Water. Everywhere.
It’s seeping out from under the studio bathroom door, and spreading down the hallway in an ever-widening pool. The baseboards are already dark with moisture. The practice mats I left stacked in the corner are soaked.
And somewhere behind the bathroom door, something is making a sound that can only be described as death rattles of ancient plumbing.
I splash down the hallway, yank open the door, and am immediately hit with a spray of water from a pipe that has clearly given up any pretense of functionality. The wall behind the toilet looks like it’s weeping—brownish water streaming from a crack that definitely wasn’t there yesterday.
“No, no, no, no—”
I drop to my knees in the freezing water, reaching for the shutoff valve under the sink. My fingers find it and turn it, praying desperately. Nothing. The water keeps coming.
“The main valve,” I mutter, scrambling to my feet. “The main valve is in the basement.”
The basement that I haven’t entered in three years because it’s dark and damp and full of spiders and why would I ever need to go down there when everything was working fine—
I’m halfway down the narrow basement stairs when my foot slips on something wet and I catch myself on the railing hard enough to wrench my shoulder.
“Damn it—”
The main shutoff valve is exactly where I remember it—in the far corner, behind a stack of boxes I definitely should have moved years ago, covered in cobwebs and corrosion.
I shove the boxes aside, ignoring the cascade of old costumes and forgotten props.
My hands close around the valve. I twist. It doesn’t move.
I twist harder. Still nothing.
“Come on—”
I’m crying now, which is stupid and pointless and won’t fix anything, but I can’t seem to stop. My studio. My livelihood. Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve built, drowning in rusty water while I sit in a spider-infested basement unable to turn a single goddamn valve.
I pull out my phone with shaking hands.
The screen is wet. The numbers blur as I scroll through my contacts. My mother—not an option, never an option. The plumber I’ve used twice before... I try the number. Voicemail. Of course it’s voicemail, it’s not even six in the morning.
Who else? Who else can I call?
My thumb hovers over Bianca’s name. But she’s a student, not a contractor, and what could she possibly do?
Then I see it Mal’s number. He’d added it after our first private lesson. ”For emergencies,” he’d said. ”Or if you miss me. Either works.”
I stare at it for a long moment.
I don’t ask for help. I’ve never asked for help. My mother taught me that lesson early and often—if you can’t handle it yourself, you don’t deserve to have it. Needing people is weakness. Depending on others is setting yourself up for disappointment.
But the water is rising, and my hands won’t stop shaking, and I don’t know what else to do. I press call.
It rings once. Twice. Then—
“Isadora?” His voice is sleep-rough but immediately alert. “What’s wrong?”
“I—” The words stick in my throat. “There’s a problem at the studio. A pipe burst. I can’t—the main valve won’t turn and there’s water everywhere and I don’t know what to—”
“I’m on my way.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m already dressed.” I hear movement, a door closing. “Stay where you are. Don’t try to fix anything else. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Mal—”
“Ten minutes, Isadora.”
He hangs up. I stand on the cold basement floor, surrounded by cobwebs and water damage, and try to remember how to breathe.
He’s there in eight.
I hear the car pulling into the parking lot way too fast, tires crunching on gravel. Then footsteps, the door opening, and Mal’s voice cutting through the chaos.
“Isadora? Where are you?”
“Basement.”
He appears at the top of the stairs moments later. He’s dressed in what I can only assume is his version of “emergency casual”—dark jeans, a henley, his hair sticking up in about twelve different directions. He looks rumpled and half-awake and absolutely perfect.
“Show me the valve.”
I point to the corner. He’s past me in seconds, crouching down to examine the corroded metal.
“This thing is older than I am,” he mutters. “And that’s saying something.”
“Can you—”
“Hold this.”
He shoves his phone at me, flashlight already on, and I aim the beam at the valve while he braces himself. His hands wrap around the metal, muscles tensing beneath his shirt, and for a moment nothing happens.
Then, with a groan of protesting metal, the valve turns. The sound of running water from upstairs stops, and a huge sigh of relief escapes my lips.
“That’s the immediate crisis handled.” Mal straightens, wiping rust from his hands. “Now let’s see the damage.”
We climb back upstairs together. In the growing dawn light, the studio looks even worse than I feared. Water has spread across nearly half the main floor although only the edges of the main studio floor are wet. The baseboards are warped. Several of the floor panels are already buckling.
“The bathroom wall will need to be torn out,” Mal says, examining the crack. “The pipes behind it are completely shot. This wasn’t a sudden failure—it’s been building for a while.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve lived in a lot of old buildings.” He doesn’t elaborate. “Do you have a restoration company you work with? Water damage specialists?”
“No. I’ve never needed—”
“I know someone.” He’s already pulling out his phone. “They handle supernatural-adjacent disasters, but they do regular plumbing too. Very discreet. Very fast.”
“It’s six in the morning.”
“They owe me a favor.” He steps away to make the call, and I hear fragments of rapid conversation—something about water damage, something about today, something that sounds suspiciously like “yes, I know it’s early, Martin, but remember Vienna?”
I should be doing something useful. Mopping. Moving equipment. Salvaging what I can. Instead, I just stand there, watching Mal handle my crisis like it’s the most natural thing in the world. When did this happen? When did I start relying on him? When did I start wanting to?
He hangs up and turns back to me. “They’ll be here in two hours. Full team. They’ll have the water extracted and the drying equipment set up by noon.”
“Two hours?”
“I told you—they owe me a favor.”
“What kind of favor involves water damage at six AM?”
“The Viennese kind.” He grins, but it fades when he sees my face. “Hey. Come here.”
I don’t move. If I move, if I let him hold me, I’m going to cry again, and I’ve done quite enough of that this morning. But he moves instead. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me against his chest, and that warm, smoky scent surrounds me. His hand comes up to cradle the back of my head.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says quietly.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. Because I’m going to make sure of it.”
I let myself lean into him. Just for a moment. Just long enough to feel his heartbeat against my cheek, steady and strong.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For coming.”
“You called me.” His voice is strange, thick with something I can’t identify. “You actually called me.”
“You gave me your number for emergencies.”
“I know. I just didn’t think you’d use it.”
I pull back enough to look at his face. In the gray morning light, his eyes are very dark, and something in them makes my chest ache.
“I don’t usually ask for help,” I admit.
“I know.”
“I hate asking for help.”
“I know that too.”
“But I called you. Because I—” I swallow hard. “Because I wanted you here. Not just because of the pipes. Because... I wanted you.”
Something shifts in his expression. His gaze drops to his wrist, to the leather bracelet with its three ruby stones, and even in the dim light, I see the fourth stone begin to glow. The black fades and red seeps in, spreading through the stone like wine through water.
Another ruby. Another invitation.
“Well,” he says softly, watching the transformation. “That answers that question.”
“What question?”
“Whether you actually trust me.” He touches the new ruby with his fingertip. “Apparently you do.”
I should be thinking about what this means.
About contracts and consequences and the complicated mess of feelings and magic that’s binding us together.
Instead, I’m thinking about how much lighter I feel.
How the panic that was crushing my chest has eased.
How standing here in my flooded studio, watching the dawn break through the windows, I no longer feel alone.
“Four down,” Mal says. “Three to go.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
His smile is crooked and warm. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The restoration team arrives at 7:43 AM. They’re efficient, professional, and entirely unbothered by the chaos they walk into. Within an hour, industrial fans are humming, dehumidifiers are running, and most of the standing water has been extracted.
Martin, the team leader, corners me by the front desk with a clipboard full of forms.
“The good news is, your floor’s not as bad as it looks. Caught it early. We’ll have the damaged sections replaced within a week.”
“And the bad news?”
“The bathroom’s a total loss. Pipes, walls, fixtures—all of it needs to go. You’re looking at a full rebuild.”
I close my eyes. “How much?”
Martin names a figure that makes my stomach drop.
“I can get you references for contractors,” he continues. “Good people. Fair prices. But you’ll want to move fast—water damage doesn’t wait.”
“No,” I agree numbly. “It doesn’t.”
Mal appears at my elbow. “Put together a list. I’ll make some calls.”
“Mal—”
“You have classes to run.” His voice is gentle but firm. “Let me handle the logistics.”
“I can’t ask you to—”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.” He takes the clipboard from Martin, scanning the forms. “Besides, I have very particular opinions about bathroom tile. This is really just an excuse to impose my taste.”
Despite everything, I feel my lips twitch. “Your taste?”
“Which is impeccable. Obviously.”
Martin looks between us with barely concealed amusement. “I’ll leave you two to it. Call if you need anything.”
He disappears back into the chaos of his team, and I’m left standing in the middle of my disaster area, watching Mal make notes on a clipboard like this is the most normal thing in the world.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
“I know.”
“This is my problem. My studio.”
“Also know that.”
“So why—”
He looks up. His eyes are warm in the morning light, the red barely visible, and when he smiles, something in my chest expands.
“Because you called me,” he says simply. “And that means something.”
I don’t have a response to that. So I just nod, and go to see what can be salvaged from the storage closet, and try not to think about how much I like having him here.