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“Twodays, girl.” His frown became more pronounced. “Almost three now.”
“Worried about me?”
“Still got the Slayer with you?” he asked, blocking her from entering the kitchen.
The tapping of multiple feet announced his agitation. The spatula he held spelled bad news if she didn’t answer fast.
Too tired to play games, she nodded.
His frown smoothed out.
“You really shouldn’t call Westvane that, Earl.”
He shrugged. “Don’t care about him, care about you.”
Nice.
A compliment. Not a bad way to come home after two long days of fighting to stay alive.
“Where’d you get the hat?” she asked, using distraction to take him off course. Always the best strategy when Earl sank his teeth into something.
A gleam in his eyes, he straightened the chef’s hat on top of his bushy hair. “Closet. I made myself at home.”
“Good,” she said, glad he had, but… “Though, gotta say — you don’t have to cook or clean to live here.”
“I don’t see to the cleaning.” Earl’s feet shuffled like dominos, cascading over the floor runner. “House cleans itself.”
Well, that figured. The instant she stepped inside the place, she’d known it wasn’t normal. Shut up for years and yet, the interior had been unnaturally tidy. An anomaly, just another in a long line of them after meeting Minador. Century-old homes usually needed a lot of work. Most were money pits. The fact hers wasn’t both pleased and annoyed her.
She’d wanted a project. A place to call her own by putting her stamp on it. What she’d gotten instead was magic.
“Good to know, Earl, but no matter what, you’re welcome here. No need to earn your keep by cooking,” she said, eyes on Earl, focused on the open door behind her.
Sensing movement, Truly walked further into the hallway. A shadow fell across the threshold. TheEcotoneflexed. The silhouette shifted, the magic-driven glow dampening as Westvane appeared in the doorway.
Black eyes alert, he scanned the interior, saw her, and stepped into the house. The second he cleared the threshold, she closed the door behind him with her mind. No need to repeat mistakes. She didn’t want anything else unsavory escaping from Azlandia into Philadelphia.
“You hear me, Earl?” she asked, driving her point to the Mantipede home. “No need for you to —”
“I’m not earning my keep, girl. I’m taking care of you. There’s a difference, you know? And honestly, numb-nuts there…” Brandishing the spatula, he pointed the silicone tip at Westvane. “… needs all the help he can get when it comes to you.”
She snorted in laughter.Numb-nuts —seriously? Earl must have a death wish. One that would come true if he continued to call Westvane insulting names to his face.
Truly glanced at Westvane out of the corner of her eye.
Citrine light firing in his gaze, he scowled at Earl.
Racking her brain for a way to smooth over the insult — and keep Earl alive — she watched him searched the hallway behind her, looking for something.
When Earl didn’t find it, his attention snapped back to her. “Where’s Montrose?”
Her heart sank. Her nose started to sting as tears threatened. She locked the waterworks down, refusing to acknowledge how much she already missed the bad-tempered gargoyle. No matter what Montrose said, leaving him behind felt wrong. As though she’d abandoned her friend in the middle of a battle, instead of protecting his back.
She cleared her throat.
Earl frowned. “What?”
“Montrose stayed,” she said, the admission tasting like sour milk in her mouth.
