New Winslow S7E34
Andrew didn’t feel right. If Iris had been at her house, he would be over there right now. And since he couldn’t go to the hotel, that meant that she was all alone after what had just happened. So as soon as he was alone in the kitchen again, he called her mobile.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” Andrew said softly.
Iris took a shuddering breath. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing new,” he said. “I just figured you could use some company.”
He wondered if he’d overstepped as she paused, but then she whispered, “I put up wards.”
“What?”
“Against Vivien. I just put up protection so she can’t…so her ghost…”
Then Iris was crying, something Andrew had never actually heard before. And hearing that voice he was so used to hearing filled with (sometimes too much) confidence made him sure he’d made the right decision calling again.
“That’s good,” he said gently. “I mean, that’s what you should be doing.”
“I didn’t even think of Roland until right before you called me,” she said thickly. “Or Rosalind. I was so focused on her. She was scared at the end, I think. I think she knew she messed up. And I tried to get to her, I swear! Celine did too, I don’t know how she knew to be there, but she was. The circle didn’t break until she was dead. And Celine tried not to let me see, but it was there. She was completely burned up.”
He wanted to be there with her right now, but even that morning he’d been stuck at the town line, so he knew there was no way it was going to happen right now. “You’re safe now, right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Iris said. “Everything’s locked.”
“Including the deadbolt?”
She laughed a little at that. “Even the deadbolt.”
“Did you take a bath?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright, you should get some sleep soon.”
“I don’t know where she went.”
“I know,” Andrew said. “No one does. But you can’t do anything right now except try to get some rest.”
“I have to purify the property tomorrow.”
“Do you need help?”
“I can,” she said. “It’s my home, I need to do it.”
Not quite an answer to his question, but he wasn’t going to start a fight yet. They could have it tomorrow. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll let you get some sleep then.”
“Can you stay?”
He could almost hear her realize what she’d said. But before she could get flustered and backtrack, he settled into the nearest kitchen chair. “Of course.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Iris said. “You don’t have to.”
“I don’t mind.”
He looked around the kitchen, casting around for something to bring the conversation somewhere safe and comfortable. “So I tried that summer energy spell we found the other night,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It, erm, did not work.”
She laughed a little at that. “But the funny thing was,” he continued, letting himself fall into a soft storytelling rhythm, “was the glitter. I finished, closed my eyes, and it was just glitter behind them. Just everywhere in the darkness. Like I’d been hit by a cartoon anvil and was seeing stars. Have you ever had that happen?”
“Yeah.”
He continued on that track for a little while, detailing little spells and charms he’d tried, hoping to distract her from the horrors of the night just temporarily. Liv walked into the kitchen at one point and started putting away dishes, clearly aware of who he was talking to.
“I’ll let you go,” Andrew said finally. “But I’ll come by tomorrow to help with the purification.”
There was no answer on the other end. “Iris?”
“Hmm?”
“Nothing, go back to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.”
He hung up the phone, then looked over at Liv, who was scrubbing pasta sauce off the stove. And he realized how the past thirty minutes must have looked to her.
“Liv,” he said, having no energy to start a fight, but needing to address it.
“You’re a good friend.”
There was no sarcasm or bitterness in her voice. She set down the sponge, surrendering to the hardened marinara, then came over and sat down next to him. “I already told you how I feel.”
“I know, but-“
“No,” Liv’s voice was firm as she shook her head with a sad smile. “She needs a friend, right? And I can’t do that, I can’t be the bigger person here. But I’m also not out to ruin her life. So…”
She shrugged. “Want me to take the opening shift tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’ll do it, I was supposed to work at Forest Charms at noon, anyway. So I should go back and go to bed.”
The fifteen-minute walk back to his flat was unappealing, but he should go. Liv wouldn’t complain about him on her couch yet again, but he really needed to give that place more of a chance. At the very least to help him detach from this home a little more easily when the time finally came to leave.
——–
Noah waited until he was alone in his apartment to collapse onto his couch, holding his head in shaking hands. Vivien had died. It had been reckless, arrogant, and completely avoidable. She’d taken on a doomed mission purely out of spite. And it all might have been avoided if he hadn’t ever crossed paths with her.
Noah knew logically it was ridiculous to blame himself. She was the one who messed with powers bigger than she was. But she’d survived up until now, when they’d exposed her weakness in order to help him.
Maybe he should have just left it. After all, if he’d given her permission to do whatever it was she did, then going back just put her in the line of fire. He could have said no to her original offer or he could have gone somewhere else. He could have avoided this altogether if he’d just stayed at Iris’s shop and worked through his shock there instead of taking off.
Obviously, it was her actions that had led to her death. But his involvement had linked her closer to New Winslow. Had she known about the curse before? She must have, she was magic and they all fucking knew about this weird shit better than anyone else.
He wanted a drink. Not that it was anything new, but with the way the guilt, fear, and anger were churning inside of him right now, he knew that the numbness that came with whiskey was exactly what would settle that. But that wasn’t going to happen. If he was going to live with the guilt of everything else, then he’d live with this too.
But he could have done something differently. Anything. And now this woman was dead.
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