Chapter 24
Brother Bear
E
Nick carries our newfound treasure out, and we return from Devi’s in stilted silence, but none of us is calm. Whatever that spindle is, I’d wager it’ll bring us far more trouble than it’s worth.
Gloomy midday light filters through the double French doors, reflecting off the puddles gathered on the limestone. Beyond them, natural mist drifts through the garden, weaving between the soaked hedges and the leafless trees as rain taps softly against the windows.
Nick sits at the dining table, freshly done packing his grimoires, survival gear, and whatever supplies he thinks will keep them alive in Faerie. He studies the space where I stand the way generals do when they’ve found something dangerous but potentially useful.
“All right,” he says at last, squinting at me like the intensity of his gaze alone might force me to materialize. “You can come with us.”
“You’re too kind.”
He presses his lips together at my flippant answer, but I couldn’t resist antagonizing him a little more.
Ever since we found the artifact the Mist King is after, he’s been strung tight as a live wire.
I can tell he’s used to being the smartest person in the room—the one who makes the plans and sees them through.
I scored a few points by disclosing the location of Devi’s secret stash and bought myself a sliver of goodwill.
I don’t expect it to last.
Nick and I are far too alike, I think, and that’ll only make it harder for us to get along.
“I’m only allowing you to come because a ghost might come in handy in Faerie.
” His gaze flicks toward the staircase, then back to the empty space where I stand.
“But don’t get any ideas. Max isn’t something you get to drag down whatever rabbit hole you crawled out of, nor a toy to dull the sting of nothingness. ”
I grimace. “We agree on that, at least.”
“Do we?”
“Absolutely,” I reply without missing a beat.
His mouth quirks. “Funny. From where I’m standing, you look awfully comfortable…hovering.”
I step closer, just enough for him to feel it. “And you look far too eager to charge headfirst into a potential trap. Faerie is not a playground, yet you’re approaching our departure with the breezy optimism of a weekend hunter skimming an outdoor life magazine.”
That gives him pause. “You think I’m reckless?”
“I think you’re desperate,” I reply. “And desperate men mistake momentum for advantage. Monsters don’t always bare their teeth before they feed, you know. Some smile. Some even crown themselves kings.”
I know it the same way I know I despise shellfish and would die for Max. Instinct. The same instinct screaming at me that this half-assed plan could get her killed and that, whatever happens, she shouldn’t touch that damn spindle again.
“You don’t get to lecture me about danger,” Nick snaps. “I grew up in it.”
“So did I.”
His eyes narrow. “I thought you didn’t remember anything about your life.”
“I don’t. But I have instinct,” I deadpan.
“Convenient,” he mutters. “To have just enough instinct to form opinions, yet not enough knowledge to be useful.”
The legs of his chair screech along the hardwood as he stands, squinting at me with that strange intensity again.
He lays his palms on the table. “I warn you. One wrong move, and I’ll throw your lantern into the deepest, darkest hole I can find.”
I bite my tongue not to ask if that’s supposed to scare me.
Nick is an impressive man by any mortal measure.
He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and built like a boxer who favors power over grace.
There’s a physicality to him—the kind that comes from years of solving problems by hitting first. He probably gauges people by the way they shrink or square up when he enters a room, judging their trustworthiness through their posture and flinches.
He’s clearly accustomed to being the alpha through sheer force alone, but none of his tricks work on me.
His punches would pass straight through, and I suspect that, for perhaps the first time in his adult life, he’s facing someone he can’t size up, can’t intimidate, can’t lay hands on if things go wrong.
He paces the kitchen back and forth without a clear angle of attack, wearing a wary expression that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with unfamiliarity.
“Is that clear?” he insists, mistaking my silence for submission.
I can’t resist poking dear brother-bear, even though Max wouldn’t approve.
“Before you accuse me of being a threat to Max, you should look in a mirror,” I quip.
He scoffs. “You crack me up, Casper. Everything I do is for Max, for us to have a real chance at life.”
Bullshit.
“How is avenging your mother’s death supposed to help Max? She told me you’re all about revenge,” I taunt him, unable to keep the mockery from my voice while he stands there radiating moral superiority. “Is she right?”
He balls his fists, and for a second, I think he actually might swing at empty air.
“I bet you’re a good listener,” he seethes.
“Polite and sly enough to drink in her confessions without arousing her suspicion. Tell me, Casper. Does Max know you’re ready to blab her secrets away to win an argument? ”
I falter at that, and a flash of shame cuts through me. He got me there. Max told me that in confidence, and I used it to strike at her brother. Even if it felt good, it wasn’t smart.
“I don’t trust you one bit… A friendly ghost who only remembers things when it suits him? Or when it gives him an advantage?” He huffs again, the sound grating my temper. “Try my patience, Casper, and I might withdraw my invitation altogether.”
“Who says you get the final word?”
A sharp exhale grates through his throat, and his voice drops. “I see right through you. Ghost or not, you want my sister—and she deserves more than a dead soul. Lust after her all you want if that’s what motivates your phantom prick, but she’s not for you. Deal?”
The accusation cuts deeper than if he’d managed to shiv me in the gut. Max deserves the world, and here I am, fighting with her brother as though we’re two teenagers with too many hormones and not enough brains.
“What she needs out there is protection, and I can give her that,” I say quietly. “I’d die for her. Or rather, die again,” I add before he can correct me. “Whatever it takes.”
He tilts his head to the side. Then, unexpectedly, he nods.
“I think I believe you. I’m ready to fight for what’s right.
And what’s right is giving Max, myself, and every witch still breathing a chance at a life without fear.
At freedom. So Max can actually live instead of constantly being stalked by death—and that includes you. You get that, don’t you?”
“I do.”
I chew on that truth, not liking the way it tastes. Max deserves a future with a living, breathing man, someone who can stand beside her in daylight and hold her through the night. Someone with a body. A name.
Instead, she got a dead thing clinging to her with greedy hands despite having nothing to offer in return. A ghost with a black hole for a past and just enough selfishness not to give her up.
Nick and I part on that fragile truce, and I’m left stewing in my unease. Max and Nick were born in Faerie—as I probably was too, and I understand that they don’t have many options besides returning, but I’m nervous.
The thought of Faerie doesn’t bring specific memories to the surface of my amnesia, no faces or names, just the sensation of going home—if home were made of longing and regret instead of walls.
Nostalgia without context, the kind you get when you return somewhere too late.
Does anyone there still mourn me? I wonder if my name is still spoken at all, or if perhaps I was easy to forget.
I wasn’t easy to love, I’m sure. My gut tells me I’m the sort of man who left more enemies than friends behind, the kind of soul that burned too bright and scorched whatever got too close.
I suspect whatever life I had in Faerie was complicated and unfinished, much like Max’s King of Wands.
I fear the answers to these questions could drive a wedge between us, but a tiny, secret part of me longs for them anyway. As though my soul remembers paths my mind cannot. As though grief itself is a landmark on the horizon.
Maybe that’s what home is, in the end. Not comfort or belonging—just the place where your absence still matters.