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Willow chuckles. “Because, Pollux is the kind of spoopy Zy isn’t allowed to hit. You know how cats can be. Natural-born killers. Either terrified or murdering. Pollux isn’t a bad scary, so poor Zy can only be afraid.”
My brows knit. “Mrs. H—”
“Call me Willow.”
“Willow. Meda told me that she has a complicated relationship with your husband and her father doesn’t want her talking about it. I don’t really understand the full situation, by any means, but when you came to look at the school with her, it seemed like you genuinely cared. Please. If you know anything that can help me help her… I…” I clench my fist against the table. “I haven’t been able to get any help from CPS. All I know is that she works late with her father, and—”
Willow, and her cat, are staring at me so horrified I bite my tongue. Willow blinks, shakes her head, and lifts her hand. She swears. “Wow. Okay. Zy?”
Her cat meows.
“Right. Okay. But, like—”
Her cat meows again.
“Okay, okay.” Folding her hands together, Willow presses her fingers to her lips. “Kass. Where to even begin…” She watches me, eyes calculating for long moments. Finally, she blurts, “Zy’s obsessed with me.”
Her cat nods.
For some reason.
And my brain immediately reminds me that Andromeda says Zylus is a vampire cat.
But I shove that unhelpful and insane thought far, far away.
Willow continues, “Like, you don’t even understand how little room there is in his brain for the kind of relationship you’re assuming. This man forgets to eat but never forgets to feed me. It has been three days since my last outing without him. In that time, I don’t think we’ve been outside the same room. We basically breathe each other’s air. Against my will.”
Her cat begins to purr and nuzzle her chin.
She ignores him in favor of leaning forward and splaying her hands. “He has issues.” She flicks her fingers toward herself. “Me-centered issues.” She snaps her fingers. “You know what? Just come to movie night. Bring Pollux and Meda. Let the crap storm hit the fan so they can clean it up and put your nerves at ease. Because, oh my word, no.” She looks down at her cat. “My word, I thought you were bad in the way you handled things. And then Ollie was a little bit of a nightmare, but—” She curses. “—I guess we can’t exactly rob Pollux of being the most disastrous nightmare of them all.”
Her cat lifts its head and whines.
She shushes it. “Movie night is every Thursday at eight if you’re good about time, seven if you aren’t. Water and popcorn are always available. Snacks just appear. I live in the woods past downtown. Follow the sound of the chickens, and you’ll get there. Pollux also probably knows the way. Even though he doesn’t love me enough to visit. For legal reasons, that is a joke. Don’t you dare add love triangle thoughts to this mess.” She stands, and the cat melts off her shoulder to sit behind her on the floor. “I will see you then. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go punch Pollux in the face. Bye.”
Her platform shoes pad past before I understand what in the world just happened.
?
Pollux stared at himself in the mirror. He’d been doing that a lot today, in between making Andromeda a lunch. After last night, he knew he had to reassess what happened during his first meeting with Kassandra in a little more detail, so he put together a few spells and viewed those moments in his own memory through a somewhat clearer mind.
She’d wanted Andromeda to have a lunch, so he’d made her a lunch and asked Alexios to drop it off earlier.
He would do nothing about what Andromeda chose to wear each day or keep her from drawing or tell her to stop sharing her life, but at least he could give her a lunch, then try to explain the reasons behind everything else in a way that a human who seemed to be rejecting what she had already been told might accept.
He could not undo the fact he’d mentioned autopsies in his first conversation with his soulmate. That would have to be something that remained forever unaddressed. Or perhaps he should address it just to clarify that he didn’t kill anything for research. He had humane sources.
Would a human find it creepy that he had sources at all, though?
That was indeed the question…
Closing his eyes to block out the sight of the form he rarely ever wore outside the dream plane, he pressed his palms against his face with his nails pulled back to keep from scratching himself. He was utterly out of his depth.
If Kassandra didn’t believe Andromeda’s “stories” when she adored Andromeda, how was he supposed to tell her in a way that she’d believe him? Did he take her aside and change his form to this monstrosity? Or was she clinging to her humanity for other reasons?
She had seemed more real in her dreams than she allowed herself to act in real life.
He could not ignore the fact that sandmen were terrifyingly powerful creatures.
