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I sighed. “Tell me about it. Things are weird around here. Does that affect you, too?”
“What?” He looked like he had no idea what I was talking about.
“The magic. Now that I know about it, I feel it all the time and it feels… different. Weird. Like it’s unstable.”
“It’s getting closer to All Hallows’ Eve,” Ash said.
“Does that change things?”
He nodded.
I got the feeling that something was wrong. Something that had nothing to do with Halloween and the strange magic that seemed to come with it.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I said.
“I don’t know who I can trust anymore,” Ash blurted out. He marched to the couch and dropped himself onto it as if he was tired of holding himself up.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
I walked to join him and sat down next to him. Ash scrubbed his face and looked at me with a weary expression.
“Rowan and I have been friends for centuries, but lately, I don’t think he gets it. Dolus wants to help me, but he’s dangerous.”
“Dolus?” I asked, confused. I’d never heard the name before.
Ash studied me as if trying to decide how to put it into words. Finally, he shook his head.
“It’s a long story. I just… I needed someone to confide in, and the small circle I thought I once had seems to be even smaller now. I’m alone.”
I took Ash’s hand and squeezed it. “I know what that’s like.”
“Yeah?” He turned his bright eyes to me, his brows knitted together. “How?”
“I had people in my life I could lean on, too. My parents passed away a couple of years ago. I was always able to turn to my mom, and when she was ripped away… I guess the pain you go through when big things happen starts to set you apart. The people who used to be there for me just didn’t understand what it was like anymore. I have Cat now. And?—”
I cut myself short. I’d nearly said I had Oscar, but that wasn’t true. Oscar had never been there for me.
I just hadn’t known it until it was far too late.
I took a deep breath.
“You’re right,” Ash said. “When big things happen, fewer people understand, until no one does.”
I nodded. “That’s how it goes sometimes. You just have to find the people who do know, you know?”
“Like you.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I didn’t know anything about Ash, about the pain he was going through. All I knew was the few things Philippa had told me, and I knew she’d just scratched the surface.
“I thought I could trust her,” Ash said.
“Your ex?”
He nodded.
“I thought we were on the same page. I was willing to give it all up for her, and when I did, she changed her mind. I don’t know what she had that she thought she lost when I gave everything up for her, but she walked away, and I was left with nothing.”
“She didn’t deserve you,” I said.
