44. Chapter 44
Evie
The house falls silent, leaving only the storm and a few surprised gasps.
“Everyone stay calm.” I step into the kitchen doorway and pitch my voice down the hall. “This is what I prepared for. Milo’s bringing the candles.”
He reaches the counter before I turn back, sweeping the matches into one hand and gathering an armful of candles against his chest. The beam from my phone catches him as he crosses the hallway, steadying each step with his fingertips along the wall.
A moment later, amber light begins to spread through the sitting room, first across the mantel, then the side tables, until faces emerge from the dark and the guests settle again.
The outage might be nothing more than a tripped breaker, or the storm could have taken out the entire road. I glance through the kitchen window, but the rain has swallowed everything beyond the garden, leaving no neighboring porch lights to tell me which.
“I’m going to check the panel,” I say to Milo, keeping my voice low. “If it’s only the inn, I might be able to get the power back on.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t have to.” The answer is automatic, one I’ve been giving people my whole life.
Don’t worry about it.
I’ve got it.
I’m fine.
A vocabulary built to keep people at a distance where they can’t disappoint me.
Today, the words seem especially flimsy. One more thing goes wrong, and I may set the breaker box on fire despite the minor inconvenience of taking the inn with it.
I should’ve asked him to come.
“I know.” He’s already grabbing a flashlight. “But I’m coming anyway.”
My fingers loosen from the edge of the counter. “Thank you.”
The basement door sits tucked under the main staircase, camouflaged by the same cream paint as the surrounding walls. I’ve lived here long enough that I could find it blind, but guests usually walk past it without noticing.
I grab the brass knob and pull, but the door won’t budge. The frame has swollen in the rain again, and it takes the full weight of my shoulder to wrench it open. Its hinges groan as a rush of cold air spills into the hallway. I pull it shut behind us to keep the cold out of the hall.
Original to the house, the stairs are narrow, steep, and almost certainly illegal by modern standards. The railing shifts beneath my palm, earning itself a place on a repair list already three pages long and several thousand dollars beyond my reach.
Milo’s flashlight beam cuts through the darkness ahead of me, illuminating the descent. Cobwebs stretch across the corners where the walls meet the ceiling.
My foot lands on the third step, and it groans under my weight.
“Should I be worried?” Milo asks.
“Only if you weigh more than two hundred pounds.”
“I don’t.”
“Then you’re probably fine.”
“Probably?”
“I make no guarantees about structural integrity.”
He laughs, and the sound fills the stairwell, chasing back some of the oppressive darkness.
The basement extends under most of the house’s footprint, divided by support beams that I have recurring nightmares about failing.
Cracks wander across the sloping concrete toward a drain in the center, while the fieldstone walls shed mortar from seams that have endured more than a century of Vermont winters.
Milo’s light sweeps across the space, taking inventory. “This place is enormous.”
“Most old houses have sprawling basements. Something about root cellars and coal storage. I avoid it mostly.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s creepy, cold, and full of spiders.”
“Are you afraid of them?”
“I’m not afraid of anything. I just prefer my living spaces bug-free.”
His light catches on a particularly impressive cobweb stretched between two beams. “Looks like that one’s been there a while.”
“That one has a name. I call her Charlotte.”
“You named it?”
“If I’m going to live with her, it seemed polite.”
The breaker panel is mounted beside the furnace. I lift the rusted latch, pull open the gray metal door, and sweep my flashlight over the rows of breakers.
Each one is labeled in my neat handwriting. Kitchen. Dining Room. Guest Rooms 1–4. Water Heater. HVAC. Exterior Lights.
None of them have slipped into the middle position. I run the beam down the panel twice anyway, searching for a breaker I might have missed.
“That’s not good,” I mutter.
“What’s wrong?”
“The breakers are fine. The problem isn’t here.” I close the panel harder than necessary and turn toward the stairs. “I need to call the power company, and my phone is upstairs, where I stupidly left it.”
We cross the basement and climb back up the stairs. I reach for the doorknob.
It doesn’t turn.
I pull harder, but the door stays sealed in its frame.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I throw my weight against the wood, and it doesn’t budge.
“Let me try.”
Milo steps in, closes one hand around the knob, and braces his shoulder against the door. He pulls hard enough for the frame to creak. Still nothing.
I step back and stare at the solid oak separating me from my phone and any hope of taking charge.
“Can you do something demon-y and get it open?” I ask without looking at him.
His jaw tightens. “See those black fittings?”
I look at the doorframe. Wrought iron curls over the hinges.
“It disrupts demonic energy,” he says quietly.
“I can’t push my power through it without burning myself, and the iron would kill whatever effect reached the lock.
” He studies the door for another moment, as though a solution might present itself if he looks hard enough.
“I’m sorry, Evie. I wish I could fix this for you. ”
Of course, the one time I need his supernatural intervention, there’s a perfectly logical reason he can’t.
“Can anyone hear us?” I pound the heel of my hand against the door. “Hello?”
My voice barely clears the wood before the storm swallows it.
“Someone will notice we’re gone eventually.”
“And how long does that take?” I try the door again, jerking the knob hard enough to rattle the latch. “An hour? Two? What if something happens upstairs while we’re trapped down here? What if someone needs help, or the candles start a fire, or—”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that!” I drive my foot into the door. Pain tears through my ankle and races up my calf. “Something always goes wrong.”
“Stop.” Milo catches me around the waist as I draw back to kick it again and pulls me against him. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
I pull free, grab the knob with both hands, and twist until the ridged brass bites into my palms. I welcome the pain because at least it’s concrete and real instead of the panic building behind my ribs.
I inhale and make it halfway before my lungs seem to stop cooperating. I try again, but each breath comes shorter than the last.
“Come on,” I gasp. “Open.”
“Evie.” Milo’s voice sounds distant. “You need to breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re hyperventilating.”
He’s right. My lungs are working double-time, pulling in air that doesn’t seem to reach where it needs to go.
“We’ll be fine, Evie. Just take a breath.”
“Don’t tell me it’s fine or to calm down.
” I turn on him, one hand pressed hard beneath my ribs.
“I’ve spent years keeping this place standing when it had every reason to fall apart.
I fix what breaks. I find the money. I make sure everyone else is comfortable, even when I’m barely holding it together.
” The last word tears out of me. “Now I’m trapped in my basement while my guests sit in the dark and I. Can’t. Do. Anything.”
“You’re not alone,” Milo says quietly. “I’m here.”
“For how long?”
“Evie—”
“You showed up and suddenly things got easier.” I look away, jaw clenched, and drag both palms over my face. “Letting you stay here was a mistake.”
His expression tightens. “Needing help isn’t a mistake.”
“Getting used to it is.” My hands fall to my sides. “I know exactly how empty this place will be without you in it.”
“You won’t be alone when I leave.”
A humorless laugh slips out. “Right.”
“You’ve got Daisy. Maddie. Half this town would come running if you called.”
“Because they’ve got nothing better to do than rescue me?”
“Because they care about you.”
“They’ve got their own lives, Milo.” My voice rises despite myself. “Their own jobs, families, and problems.”
“Asking someone to stand beside you doesn’t make you a burden.”
“That isn’t your call to make for them.”
“It isn’t yours either.” His voice stays maddeningly gentle. “You don’t get to decide that loving you is an inconvenience.”
“I’m not asking anyone to love me.” I press my fingernails into my skin.
“That doesn’t stop them.”
Somewhere in the argument, I lose track of what I’m defending. I’m just tired of all of it.
Milo reaches for me, then hesitates. “Come here.”
I shake my head. Then the solution I’ve been trying not to think about all day comes back to me.
“In a few days you’re gone, so let’s just solve it.”
“Solve what?”
“All of it.” I plant myself in front of him.
“You’re a demon who makes deals. You need a completed bargain or Hell punishes you again.
Make one with me. You get your contract, and go back with something to show for it instead of getting dragged into that furnace, and I get an inn that doesn’t fall apart around me. Everybody wins.”
“No.”
“Why not?” My voice splinters. “You said you wanted to help me.”
“We’re not having this conversation.”
“Yes, we are.”
“You’re panicking and not thinking clearly. I’m not taking your soul.”
“Maybe eternal damnation is worth it if it means I get to stop struggling now.”
Horror crosses his face. “You don’t mean that.”
“It’s the cleanest thing in the world. You keep telling me not to sign with Krell. Fine. If it has to be someone, let it be you. At least with you, I’d know it mattered. That’s better, Milo, so why won’t you just—”
“Because I’d feel it.” The answer is out before he can stop it.
“What?”
“I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Feel what, Milo?”