Page 72 of A Shade Too Far
“I want to be there when the vampire wards up our house,” she said. “Jude said that the more I see magic firsthand, the less it’ll feel weird or scary.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Eli said.
I kept my smile on my face, but under the table, I dug my nails into my thighs. Jude got to be the voice of reason when all I got was pushback and animosity? “No problem. What else did Jude tell you? Did she explain the work I do for Tatiana?” I was torn between hoping she had since Sadie was accepting this new reality easier from Jude and praying she hadn’t because I could spin it much better.
Sadie shrugged. “Not really. She said you had to tell me. Dad, do you know?”
“Not everything.” Eli mirrored his daughter’s body language, the two of them angled toward each other and away from me.
Thank you so much for the support and backup, coparent of mine. “Tatiana’s a fixer for the magic community,” I said.
Sadie screwed up her face. “What’s that?”
“It’s someone who takes care of problems for people who don’t want to go to the police,” Eli said.
“Criminals,” Sadie said, crossing her arms.
Eli shot me a “she said it, not me” smirk.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Some clients have specialized needs that they trust us to carry out.”
“Is the part about Tatiana writing her memoirs even true?” Sadie said.
“It is. And I am doing all the documentation for that as well.” I ignored the texts lighting up my phone to stay focused on Sadie, but when it began ringing, my daughter rolled her eyes and told me to answer it.
“Emmett?” I said. “What’s wrong? Is Tatiana okay?”
“Emmett’s a golem that Aunt Jude made.” My daughter drank the rest of the milk directly out of the bowl.
“Uh-huh.” Eli sighed, then picked up another fork and more cantaloupe.
“We got a call,” Emmett said. “On the enthrallment hotline. Our first.”
“Text me the details.”
“Will do. Later, gator.” He hung up.
Sadie put the cereal bowl down. “The details of what?”
I appreciated her wanting all the facts, but I also wanted to wrap this conversation up and go check out that situation. If a person had been inhabited by a dybbuk, the sooner I got it out of them, the better for all concerned.
“Hang on,” Eli said. “Miriam, you told me that your other jobs had been small caliber stuff. Driving people, retrieving belongings. I assumed the murder was a one-off—”
“Murder?” my daughter squeaked. “You were in that case that Dad worked?”
“Great job keeping things under wraps, Eli,” I muttered. “Someone impersonated a client, and he got killed. I was in no danger…”
Two sets of eyes stared accusatorily at me.
“You don’t demand that your father tell you every detail of his cases.” I threw down my fork. “Why am I expected to?”
“Dad is a trained cop with a whole police force behind him.” Sadie hugged her knees to her chest. “You’re just some mom with…I don’t even know what.”
I stood up, shadowy tattoos swirling over my skin, too angry to feel guilty at my daughter’s flinch. “Guess what? I have an entire identity that doesn’t involve being your mother. I’ve had magic since I was fourteen, but I cut it off. Now I’ve let it back into my life. I work with powerful people and I’m not an idiot.”
Sadie stared at me wide-eyed, like I’d grown a second head.
I gentled my tone, doing my best to recall my magic. “I’m sorry that I didn’t raise you with this knowledge and that you had to find out this way, Sadie, but I’m not helpless or useless. This is how things are. I love you more than anything, kid, but you’re growing up. You have a boyfriend, and in a couple years you’ll be off to university. You’ll be living your own life, which is exactly how it should be, but I want to live mine.” I shrugged. “Yes, it’s a bit unusual, but some would say our family unit is unusual.”
