Page 144 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

“Could you make yourself scarce?” I ask Aemon. “I think Damien and I are going to need a bit of privacy when he gets here.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Aemon drawls. I wonder what must be so interesting on his fingernails with how he goes back to admiring them.

“Seriously. Please?”

Aemon meets my gaze and sighs at something he sees in my expression. “Fine,” he says. “But I’m going to go say hello to Wren, and you can’t stop me.”

I inhale to retort, but between one blink and the next he’s gone. Just gone.

“Asshole,” I grumble to myself as Gloam comes to perch on my shoulders.

I busy myself with cuddling the cat and changing into something a little cuter while I wait for Damien to show up. My stomach feels like a macrame project as I wait. It’s not his fault I can read him so well, but it still feels like I got a “we need to talk” text. I wind up changing out of my scummy pajamas and into a pair of lounge shorts and one of my comfiest oversized sweaters in the hopes that Damien will find it as endearing as he usually does.

When Damien does finally appear in the doorway, he doesn’t look angry. He just looks sad. His shoulders hang a little too low, his head slumped forward as he walks over to the couch. He takes Gloam out of my arms, and for a moment I think he’s going to snuggle with her before he puts her down on the ground and lays on his belly on the couch, his arms constricting around my waist, his face nuzzling just beneath my breasts.

He inhales deeply and lets out a slow, steady exhale as I slip my fingers into his hair. His roots are starting to come in, a mousy sort of brown color that’s hard to picture on his whole head.

“What’s wrong?” I ask softly.

“Nothing,” he says. “I just have to quit the band.”

“Uhm...” I take a moment to process that sentence and then blurt out an incredulous, “What?”

“I thought we were just practicing today, but it was actually a call with the label. The explosion of our popularity with that stupid thirst trap has them wanting to expand the tour beyond the west coast. They want to send us all across the country now.”

“Damien—that’s excellent news. Why would you want to leave the band over that?”

“I’m not leaving you alone here while you have some demon-fuck-head breathing down your neck,” he says. “We all got in a huge fight over it.”

“Damien,” I say, cupping his face in my hands and making him look at me. “You have to go.”

“It would take me away from here for two weeks.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “And maybe it’s for the best. You’re pretty vulnerable staying around here while this thing is hanging like a guillotine over my head. Being on the road would be good; it gets you out of harm’s way.”

“No,” he says. “Are you fucking insane? Lillith, it hasn’t even been a week since you almost died. Shit, you did die.”

“But I’m in the shop now. Even Aemon says he can’t get to me here.”

“I’m not going,” Damien says. “No.”

“Damien, it’s not as if you’d be able to do anything even if I did get attacked by this entity that’s pestering Aemon.”

Damien sits up and back, withdrawing from me. He looks at me like I suddenly developed aphasia.

“That’s a low fucking blow, Lillith,” he says. He’s fucking pissed.

I’m genuinely confused as to what I said to piss him off. But the anger in his face isn’t one I’ve seen before. His eyes shutter, his lips press into a tight line that blanches the skin around his piercings. He looks away, leaning against the back of the sofa.

“Damien. This should be a good thing. Don’t you remember how much of a sad bitch I was when you went to the mountains? This is character growth. You know?”

“Sure. Character growth. Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Why are you being like this?”

“It’s just a coincidence that you’re hanging out with Aemon all the time, and suddenly it’s not so heartbreaking that you can’t be around me twenty-four hours a day?”

I quiet, shocked by what he’s implying. This... this doesn’t seem like him. This isn’t normal. I take his wrist in my hand, focusing on his energy.