Chapter 7
Kit
It might not be anyone’s idea of a good first date, but I can’t say there’s anywhere else I’d rather be than checking out the old coven house with Reva.
She didn’t even question our coming here, not for a moment. As soon as we stepped out of the café, having downed our drinks in record time, she looked at me with a wry grin that had my insides rioting.
“So, we’re heading to the old orgy house then?” At my nod, she held up the bag of cinnamon rolls between us. “We need to head home first, to let the others know where we’re going and pick you up some shoes.”
We head home and find Aster fast asleep on the sofa. Reva checks in with Frannie while I dress myself properly. Thankfully, Frannie is more than happy to stick around while we head off. I also left a note in the shop window, letting everyone know we’re closed for the day.
Fifteen years in this place and I’ve never once opened late, so they’ll forgive me for taking the day off.
I usually love immersing myself in my customer’s stories of their lives, their chatter filling the shop every minute it’s open. Typically, I’m not a big fan of silence, or being stuck with my own thoughts. Takes me back to times that I’d rather forget.
But it seems like I’ve found a new favourite sound. Reva’s husky voice simultaneously ruffles and soothes something inside me, like a springtime breeze or a wayward caress down my spine.
We head through the back streets of Port Yarrow, aiming to avoid getting waylaid by anyone I’d usually be happy to chat to. Today, I only have time for Reva.
“What’s that noise?” Reva asks as the air fills with a high-pitched whizzing. A machine the size of a large sofa flies overhead, propellers spinning at a furious pace right as we’re crossing the road that leads out of town.
“A flotterbug,” I reply. “Piloted by some idiot who doesn’t seem to have a clue of how to fly the damn thing.” At her confused expression, I add, “They’re essentially homemade flying machines run on magic.”
And this one is flying low enough to ruffle our hair.
I grab onto Reva and yank us toward the ground just in time. The flotterbug soars barely six feet from the pavement, its propellers spinning wildly. Blades flash just over our heads as my heart somersaults.
“Holy Mother Ocean, that was close.”
“Too close.” My heartbeat’s a pounding bass in my ears as I cup Reva’s cheek, running my hands over her arms as I confirm she’s still in one piece. Shakily, I push up to standing, bringing Reva with me.
Mrs Lane from the butcher’s is across the road, making an unimpressed gesture at the sky. Warding off the evil eye right as the flying machine passes by.
“Did she... just tell whoever’s flying that thing to go fist themselves?” Reva asks.
Her words take me by surprise so much I bark out a shocked laugh, earning me another glare from Mrs Lane.
“Not quite,” I reply. “She was warding off evil. Some people are pretty superstitious around here.”
“They don’t like to see homemade, rickety flying machines zooming about the place?” Reva replies drily. “Whyever not?”
“It’s more that most of the machines are fueled by magic that they don’t like,” I admit. “That looks like Clive Morton up there. I didn’t know he had enough magic to fill a thimble, let alone to fuel that thing.”
As if proving my point, the propellers sputter and then go silent. The machine thumps to the ground, and Clive goes flying over the front, landing in a sprawled heap on the pavement.
“He’s got a garage just down from the shop. He’s constantly tinkering with things and buying bits and pieces from me to add to them,” I tell Reva as we watch Mrs Lane hurry over. She immediately starts laying into him, going as far as to tug on his ear like he’s an errant puppy.
“Do you think he’s all right?” Reva asks.
Clive sits up, adjusting the hat and goggles on his head that seem to be more for appearances’ sake than anything practical. From the arm-waving and yelling he’s doing, I’d say he’s had no lasting effects from his little tumble.
“He’s fine.” I check her over, hands on her shoulders as I inspect her from head to toe. “Are you?”
She gives a low laugh, brushing off my hands and my concern. “All in one piece. Does that kind of thing happen often around here?”
“More than you might expect. Perils of living amongst a bunch of magic users.”
Reva hums under her breath, and I have no idea what she might be thinking. Does she like it here? Would she consider trying it out? Or will her instincts to keep moving mean we’ll need to move to somewhere new?
Continuing along, we reach the narrow road that leads out of Port Yarrow without further incident. I’ve got everything crossed the coven house is just as uneventful, or I’m not sure my heart will cope with the strain.
“What do you think we’ll find?” Reva asks.
“I have absolutely no idea,” I say. “Hopefully something that’ll tell us these sorcerers of Aster’s have gone far away.”
She nods distractedly and I reach down to give her hand a quick squeeze. “Now, tell me about where you grew up and everywhere you’ve lived since.”
“You want me to rank them too?” she teases. I nod eagerly, unable to hide my enthusiasm. “It might take me a while. How far is it to the house?”
“It’s maybe a mile and a half,” I reply. “Some of it’s uphill but it should take us less than an hour. You don’t think you’ll run through them all by the time we reach it?”
“If I give you the short version, sure,” she replies. “Then on the way back, you can repay the favour.”
It’s odd. I know so many small things about her.
Like how she doesn’t naturally gravitate toward people like I do and that she could easily be happy with her own company.
I know she always gives the shiniest things in the shop an extra stroke for luck whenever she passes them.
I know how she takes her tea: strong with a dash of milk and a few extra spices if there are any to spare.
And how she gets antsy if she’s not able to swim for more than a couple of days.
She’s handy with a needle and thread and has a steady hand under pressure.
I know it’s a major honour for her to entrust her skin to me, and for her to come to me for help. Honours I don’t take for granted.
All that, yet her past is a murky mystery.
Not that I can talk. My own isn’t something I’ve been upfront about.
I’m not used to talking about it or sharing those parts of myself. For all the time I spend talking to people, it’s rare they get more than the surface-level version of me. But I silently swear to myself that I’ll do better with Reva.
The day is clear and cool as we stride along the winding lane that reaches the foot of the hills where the coven house sits as Reva begins to speak.
“I was born in a place called Little Wyverton. It was a rundown place in the North.”
She goes on to tell me how she flitted from place to place, never staying in one place for longer than a few months at a time.
“My mother worked odd jobs here and there, but it wasn’t exactly a good way of making a living,” she says. “She was paranoid. Superstitious too.”
“And how about school?”
Reva shrugs. “I never got registered. One of my mother’s issues was that if we were documented anywhere, someone would discover what we were.”
“You never went to school?”
I’m usually a level-headed guy, so I’m taken aback by the visceral reaction I have to her words.
It’s like I can’t quite breathe right, what with the sudden surge of irritation pumping through my veins.
Not at Reva, of course. At her mother for dragging her away from any sense of stability, and at the people sick enough to hunt her kind.
“You speak eight languages and you never learned any of them formally?” I’m astounded and impressed, and more than a little turned on at the sheer size of her brain.
I’ve seen her in action too, speaking to some of my customers when they’re visiting from far-flung places and struggling with the local language.
The words trip off her tongue effortlessly.
Unlike me, it took me two years of constant conversation before I became anything close to fluent in the local language here.
“How long have you been doing what you do?”
She tosses her head back, that magnificent mane of hair trailing down her back, catching the light and leaving me slightly tongue-tied. “I’ve always been good at finding hiding places,” she says.
“I’ve always been good at finding hiding spots.
I never lived in desirable areas, so I had to be good at hiding any valuables.
Then, when I was almost sixteen, I was working at a pub as a pot washer, and someone happened to mention that the big boss needed something to be kept safe.
He was offering cash, and I needed the money.
” She shoots me a chastising look. “Don’t give me that look. ”
“Which look?”
“The one where you’re wondering where my mother was in all this.
I was on my own by this point, making my own money.
” She shrugs as though it’s nothing. “Anyway, it worked out. The pub got raided one night, and even though a few of the punters got taken away, the owner had nothing on him. I got paid and then stuck around for a little while longer, did a few more jobs and then when things got uncomfortable, I moved on.”
Her shoulders have a tightness to them that wasn’t there a few minutes ago, and even though I want to ask her what happened next and on the day after that and after that, I’ll hold fire on my questions for now.
It feels like I owe her something. An equivalent truth for the hollow I just opened up inside her. My issue is, there’s a whole ocean of terrible details of my past I could tell her. But I don’t want to drown her with them. This is supposed to be a happy day.
I never expected to find a soulmate. Certainly not one whose heart I can feel beating alongside my own, who I’ve been a little bit obsessed with for months now.
“Wow, is that the house?” Reva asks.