Page 46 of Seduction of a Psychopomp
Lysander gasped as he took the seedling in careful fingers. “Momma, do you think Rafe could help it grow here?” he asked in a whisper, as if too much noise might disturb the baby tree.
She grinned at him. “I bet he could. Why don’t you go put it in a little pot for now. Then when he comes again, he can tell us the perfect place for it.”
He cautiously climbed from the couch, balancing the little cloth-bound root ball in his cupped hands, and left the room with determined steps.
“He’s going to plant it and then re-pot it in every empty pot he can find just for fun,” she said, shaking her head, making the chains in her hair sway with the movement. “Luckily, Rafe can repair the root damage.”
“Elara, Sidney’s talking in code again,” Levi said when they returned. “I have no idea what a Linus blanket is.”
Sidney huffed at him. “I am not! You lived in the Void for years and you don’t know who Linus from the Peanuts cartoon is? I know my references are lost on most Boundlanders, but you guys spent even more time in the Void than I have.”
“Sorry, we weren’t really spending our time sitting around watching kids’ cartoons.”
“Oh, right, my bad, you just sat around playing kid’s video games. That’s totally different and less strange for a siren and his vampire and reaper besties.” She smirked at him. “We should marathon a bunch of shows before Grim ends his lease on his apartment. Add Scrubs to the list. I need to be able to make Turk and JD references, and you guys are ruining my vibe.” They were still bickering when Sidney flopped back onto the couch and Levi started to pass out drinks.
Elara—knowing better than to feed the conversation—asked about our travels and frowned in thought as Celeste explained the encounters we’d had with banshees and demons.
“Uh, I don’t know anything about demons, but banshees are an easy fix,” Sidney mumbled around a mouthful of the nuts that we’d brought.
Elara turned her frown on her. “Banshees are easy?” she asked in disbelief. “Even exterminators have problems getting them out.” Levi settled onto a seat next to her.
Sidney waved her off as she swallowed her food. “Solandis’s whole study in college was on those little mushroom sentinels she keeps. You know the ones that Alistair is always ranting about taking over his plant pots? They keep all kinds of bad spirits away.” She turned to Celeste. “I have friends with an abundance of magical mushrooms. They’re a little bitey sometimes, but you could keep some in your house and they’d keep the banshees away. No problem.”
Celeste’s magic was returning quickly, and I knew she would soon be able to defend herself even if I weren’t around, but if we were going to be staying here for a while, it would be good to have a defense in the home to protect the other inhabitants as well. The last thing I wanted was for our presence to attract something that could harm my friends. My wife glanced at me, her mouth silently moving as her lips formed the word “bitey?” but Sidney was already discussing the logistics of how to travel with the mushrooms to get them here from Golden Laurel, where her friend Solandis lived.
The conversation began to drift, and I could tell Celeste’s attention was waning as she melted against my side. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, and I was about to excuse us to the guest room when I heard Elara mention the Phantoms in an offhand manner. I was immediately on high alert. It was a group of people who had tried to harm her in the past, and she had relocated her home out here in the desert partially because of the privacy it afforded.
“No, don’t worry, Grim,” she reassured me, noticing my shift in focus. “I was just saying that this is a good place for Celeste to be, since my home is so defensible. Once we get the mushrooms established in the area, anyway.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Have you had more problems with the Phantoms?” I asked.
Sidney shook her head and swallowed her food this time before answering. “She’s fine. Do you think Huckor Ior Jordan would let anyone onto this property without her permission?” She had a point. “Anyway, Jordan’s team mostly wiped them out,” she said, referring to the group of enforcement officers that he—and occasionally Sidney—worked for, “but we’ve brought in what we think are the last of the stragglers. It’s been really quiet around here. Huck hasn’t even had to eat anyone lately.”
Levi choked on his drink.
“I’ve warned you about drinking when she’s talking,” Elara told him, patting him on the back as he coughed.
“I never learn.”
Elara shook her head. “I am safe here, and Celeste will be too,” she told me confidently. “Why don’t you two go take a nap now? We’re not going anywhere,” she said kindly to Celeste. “We’ve got loads of time to get to know each other.” Her smile and words were genuine and warm, and they made my heart ache in a wistful way that my mortal friends’ words always did when they talked about time, but I resolved to exist in the moments I was allotted with them and stop looking forward into eternity.
Lysander burst into the room with a happy grin before remembering there was a “stranger” with us and skidding to a halt at the door. My wife cast him a shy smile of her own.
Sidney tutted at him. “Aw, buddy, you don’t have to be shy with Celeste. She’s a de facto member of your godparents’ club now.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he whispered.
“It means she married in. You’ve got a new auntie,” Sidney explained, straightening from the couch. “Elara, you and Levi should take a nap too,” she told her friend with a suggestive eyebrow waggle. “I’ve got some Official Auntie Business of my own with this one.” She reached for Lysander and scooped him up, tossing him over her shoulder and making him squeal with delight, completely unconcerned about the fact that he was streaked in potting soil up to his elbows. She carried him from the room, and I heard their conversation as they exited through the kitchen. “You know what I found outside? There’s ahugeboulder at the top of the hill. I bet we could dig it out and roll it down the cliffs for Huck to fetch. I’m going to need your super strong muscles to help me push it, though. Wanna help?”
“Yeah!”
Elara already had Celeste on her feet, leading her down the hall to the guest rooms, but Levi caught me by the elbow.
“Hey, congratulations, Grim. We want to have some kind of celebration for you and Celeste once she’s rested, okay?”
I nodded as I watched the two women walk away, chatting amiably with their heads bent together. It was a measure of my trust in Elara that I only fretted a little bit about Celeste going on ahead of me. Would they get along? Did Celeste feel safe? Should I have said something different? Is this what love feels like? What strange alchemy had she caused in me? My heart felt like it had been turned upside down and spun around a few times. My emotions had somehow become entirely foreign to me.
“It doesn’t get better,” Levi said with a low chuckle.
