Page 115 of Woods of the Raven

“He’s bi,” I corrected her. “Not that you should care.”

“I was just confused,” she snapped.

He had been sent to get close to me, but it turned out that it was Kimberly O’Neill he adored. I was thrilled for him.

I went back to work at the library. When Mrs. Latham stopped by to ask for my number so she could pin down a time for me to come speak to her class about Yule, I saw that she kept touching her belly.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Yes!” She beamed at me. “It’s so funny, my husband and I had been trying for so long, but after the fall festival, a week later—baby. Like magic.”

Or simply good timing. People always forgot that if you manifested happiness, it would come. And a good spell bottle was always helpful.

Argos, who had been missing for weeks, and who I was honestly glad had not gotten into Threun’s sights when he was there, turned up the second week of December, walking through the snow to the back door. Once inside, he went immediately to his usual place by the hearth and slept for three days.

Lorne came home on the second day with a police report for me to read about a little girl who had been rescued from the man who kidnapped her, she reported, by a black cat.

“You’re kidding. Argos saved a little girl?”

“Yeah, but now they can’t find the guy who took her, whom they suspect of killing four other girls,” he ranted. “And I’m here telling you this and blaming your housecat.”

“Do you feel like a crazy person?” I asked him, lifting up to kiss his cheek.

“Yes! I feel like a crazy person!”

The next day, Saturday, when Argos woke up, he jumped up on the table where I was sorting Yule ornaments and walked over to Lorne, who was helping me, and rubbed his face on the scruff Lorne was sporting on his chin.

“Can I ask him if he ate the suspected serial killer?”

“Just assume he did.”

“I do agree that it was probably worse than prison, and the little girl was saved before there was any more trauma than the kidnapping, so that’s a blessing.”

“You see,” I said, as Argos batted a felt gnome off the table, watched it fall, then looked to Lorne for praise. “He’s a good boy.”

“He’s a very good boy,” Lorne told the daemon masquerading as a housecat.

It was terrifying when Lorne’s mother and grandmother showed up for Christmas. We drove over to James’s, where they were staying, Lorne holding my hand the entire way, smiling at me whenever he glanced away from the road.

When we got there, more people had arrived than we’d anticipated—Lorne’s mother’s new boyfriend, Gerald, and his two adult children, Lacey and Mark, and their families as well. The house was noisy and warm, and I was thrilled with the energy, not to mention the fact that the front-door mat now only said Merry Christmas.

“You should get one like I have,” Gloria, Lorne’s mother, said. She was funny and kind and couldn’t seem to stop holding my hand. “It says, Come in and be merry.”

“Oh no, Gran,” Cass told her. “You don’t want to welcome everything in. Not everything is welcome.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cass explained everything, including all about Mr. Ira Kleinman, the gentleman who left that night we cleansed the house. She had gone to town hall herself and found the records and done the research. I was so proud of her. As she told the story, everyone was riveted.

“You don’t believe any of that, do you?” Mark scoffed, looking at Lorne, expecting a quick response from the man I adored.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Gloria interrupted cheerfully, beaming at everyone. “It’s magic, after all. You have to believe in that.”

Lorne only smiled in response.

“Magic is all around us,” James said, making a sweeping gesture. “And dinner is served.”

On the way home, in Lorne’s Jeep, he gave me a small box.