I sighed, wishing Diana were here. I wanted to complain to a girlfriend. But all I had was Austin. So, in a gush I’d totally regret later, I unloaded on him. I told him exactly what I was feeling.
“Heard,” he whispered when I was done, rubbing my back. “I feel age, too, if that helps any. Dicks might get to be distinguished when they’re older, but shifters become vulnerable. Many magical types are the same way. Edgar was completely pushed out of his clan for being too old. He wasn’t wanted anymore. If I get slower, weaker, less agile, then my position is compromised. Many of us do actually know how you feel, but for me it’s less about looks and more about ability.”
“Isn’t that always the case, though? I mean, I know what you’re saying, but people tend to judge women on looks even if we’re successful. We’re not known for what we’re good at, we’re known for how we look. What we wear.”
“I suppose that is true, yes.” He fell silent for a moment. “I’m not trying to one-up you, but when you get older, you are ignored. When I get older, I could be killed.”
“You’re talking about a job that you can retire from. That you can walk away from. I’m talking about my life.”
He brushed the hair from my face and gently tucked it behind my ear. His breath dusted my eyelashes. “True again,” he murmured, his gaze taking me in. “But at least you’re not cracked like your cape-wearing butler.”
I spat out a laugh as Mr. Tom cleared his throat somewhere behind us.
“Sorry,” I said, running my fingers across his cheek to get any errant spray. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Now you know how it feels.” His soft lips pulled into a smile underneath my touch. He reached up and slowly took my hand away before placing it in my lap and giving me a little space. “You’re not invisible, though. I want you to know that. Here, in this town, you are not invisible. I see you. I see you for what you are, and what you’re trying to be. I admire you for both. Download that magic, if you want. Get young again. We can figure out the town.”
“I don’t want youth to be the solution for something I don’t think is a problem.”
“Then don’t grab that magic and own your life choices. Raise your voice until you are heard. Look however you want, be whoever you want, and demand people pay attention to you. Stop taking what you’re given, and demand the space in life you want.”
I lowered my head, silently crying. He was right on so many levels. I needed to hear this. Over and over, spoken with the assurance and conviction that came so naturally to him. Because I wanted to do it, I just needed a little courage. I needed to feel like I wasn’t alone when I stood up for myself.
We let the night softly move in around us. Minutes came and went, yet I didn’t feel the need to fill the gap with speech. It was nice, just being able to co-exist for a moment.
But finally my mouth caught up with my brain.
“Those daggers in the house…those were real silver, right?”
“Most. And the spike you were holding,” he answered.
“And…the gold? The gems inlaid in the hilts?”
“Unless Earl has been systematically switching out the stones to pay for his clever disguises, all real.”
“Wow,” I said on a release of breath. “That’s… Some of those stones were huge. And all that silver? That’s a lot of money. Why wouldn’t it be in a safe?”
“That treasure trove is nothing compared to what you’ll be offered if you download that magic.”
“You keep saying download—am I like…plugging in? Like a cyborg?”
“I don’t really know the term to use.”
Honestly, it still sounded like fantasyland talk. It probably would until I got more proof. But there was one thing I was sure of.
“Matt—the ex—and I were doing well. I mean, he was doing well. I was mostly taking care of everything in his life, usually at home alone with Jimmy in the evenings while he worked long hours so he could crush it. We as a couple were financially doing great. Emotionally, though, we were bankrupt at the end. I don’t want someone else’s money. I want their time. Their good moods. Their jokes. Their companionship. I don’t want a cupboard full of silver and gold, I just need enough to get by and great people around me.”
“Well if you’re going to hang with Mr. Tom, you’d better have enough cash for odd disguises.”
I bent over, laughing. “Didn’t you hear? He said I could call him Tom now. I’m in.”
“Unlucky you,” Austin said.
Mr. Tom’s disembodied voice came out of the growing darkness. “I can hear everything you are saying. I am not amused, just so we are clear.”
I laughed harder. “What does it say about my frame of mind that I somehow don’t find it strange that an ex-butler is hanging around in the darkness, listening to everything we say?”
“It does not say good things,” Austin replied somberly. “I don’t think you should go too far down that dark path.”
A harrumph drifted out of the darkness.
My laughter increased and my world swam pleasantly. But I knew I was on the cusp. Without Niamh to push me over the edge, I was capable of knowing when enough was enough. I was almost there.
“Let’s head toward home,” I said, finishing my glass of wine. “I don’t want to drink too much and do something foolish.”
“Like kiss a friend in public?”
“Exactly, yes. I wouldn’t want to do something so foolish as that.”
Austin stood and helped me up. He squeezed my shoulders, his face nearly covered by shadows now. “I actually had a lot of fun today. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, you’re walking me home. I don’t know what kind of riff-raff we’ll meet on my way.”
“I mean, I could, but I have a series to binge on Netflix, and it’s a couple of miles out of my way…” He chuckled and took his hands away. “Of course I’ll escort you home.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have Mr. Tom fly you home after.”
“I take my joke back. It was in poor taste. Please don’t ever suggest that again. That’s not a man I want to share a space bubble with.”
“You don’t want to kiss that friend, huh?”
“I am still in hearing distance,” Mr. Tom called. “And I find this chatter highly insensitive. Like a bunch of crude barbarians carrying on.”
The walk home didn’t take long, and as the night wrapped around us, I kept looking back for Mr. Tom to see if I could spot him. In town, it was impossible. I never once caught a glimpse. It wasn’t until the wood overtook our route that I noticed him, a dark shadow within the cascading moonlight. Slight of form and old of body, he still glided like he was made of air. His cape—no, his wings—fluttered out behind him, and I remembered various times when they’d fluttered without a breeze.
“This is all still blowing my mind,” I said into the hush, peering into the deep sheets of black between the somewhat swimming trees. The wine had a tight hold on me. “Like…it is blowing my mind.”
“I imagine. Your perception of the world has changed in the space of a day. I didn’t know that you would take to the idea so fast.”
“I saw a woman turn into a rat. And I have a lot of genre fiction to back that up. It’s just…believing my eyes. Believing something like this is real! It is crazy! But let’s face it, magic is a much better explanation for the amount of weird that goes on at Ivy House. I constantly half wonder how long it will take me to end up in an unmarked grave.”
I thought back to my first visit to O’Briens, back when I was ten. Even then, the house had spoken to me. I’d felt drawn to its dark mysteries.
“I think all kids secretly hope there’s some magic curling through reality,” I mused. “That if we look hard enough, one day we’ll find it. I haven’t ever grown out of that. And I did find it, in books mostly, as I said. In daydreams.”
“Now you’ve found it in real life, and I have to be honest, your situation, whatever you decide, is going to be a lot more dangerous than most.”
I blew out a breath as Ivy House came into view, the windows glowing like a beacon, welcoming us home. Niamh’s rocking chair was empty as we passed her house, but her rock pile was steadily growing. Edgar was nowhere to be seen, and I made a note to find him at his residence, wherever it was, or maybe his labyrinth, just to check in. If I was going to choose this as my new residence, I needed to work harder at establishing the community I so badly desired.
“Well.” Austin stopped next to me on the porch, scanning the grounds. “You made it. No boogeymen.”
“Do you want to have a glass for the road?” I jerked my head at the door. “No foolishness, don’t worry.”
“No.” He traced the doorframe with his gaze. “The house allowed me to hang around earlier. I don’t want to tempt fate.”
“Yes. It did allow you to hang around earlier,” Mr. Tom said, waiting behind us. “Why, I wonder. Now that I am on independent ground, I will say that I was surprised and troubled by that. You overstayed your welcome by some time.”