Spirit - Part Seventeen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
The air smells like sea salt, rain, and the sweet fragrance of wood.
Charlie’s old bedroom is warm and clean, simple. He hasn’t lived here for a long time, so it’s mostly empty of his things. Only a few small items are left; the model rockets and spaceships on the dresser, a pennant from his university, old trophies from robotics competitions.
Despite the lack of stuff, Charlie’s room has a natural coziness to it. Maybe it comes from the deep green color of the walls, or the way they’re slightly curved, making the room feel more like a den. There’s a lot of stitched artwork hanging up, and the bed is piled high with handmade blankets of warm, soft fleece.
The rushing sound of the rain spilling into the sea drifts into the room through the window I cracked open for Aiden.
He’s curled up facing me on the bed. Looking at me with his soft, beautiful blue eyes, slowly stroking my cheek with his thumb. Thinking, and listening to my note.
Leyla and Rose may go to bed early by my and Aiden’s standards, but it’s been a long, full night. We’re tired, too. It was hard for me to keep my eyes open as soon as I sank down onto the sheets. I’m only still awake because of the thoughts rushing through my head, pulling my attention in a hundred different directions. Tonight left us with a lot to process.
Aiden is submerged deep in his thoughts, too. He silently draws me to him and nestles me under his chin. Wraps a muscled arm around me, pinning me perfectly beneath its warm weight.
He’s been so quiet since dinner, but that’s okay. I know that he’s happy. He left a soft trail of golden light after himself when he walked around the room getting ready for bed.
“Why’d you ask Rose about that thing you sensed at the farmhouse ruins, babe?” I whisper, snuggling my face into his chest. “You told me you just imagined it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Aiden whispers back, his heart beating softly against my cheek. “The place was haunted. I figured that aspect of things was probably messing with my senses, but - now I’m not sure. The more I think about it… maybe I did sense something? It felt different from the ghost moments. Much more, um… substantial.”
Okay… “Substantial how?”
“Felt like something with its own living energy.” Aiden hesitates, struggling for the right words. “Something with its own spirit.”
I lapse into silence again, taking deep breaths of vetiver, my nose pressed to Aiden’s shirt.
“Rose said she’s never sensed anything like it,” I point out.
“Yeah, I know.” A new tone of brightness suddenly comes into Aiden’s voice. “Hey - can’t put this one down to my lack of training, right? Rose has no idea what the thing is, either. Feels good to know that.”
“Plenty of benefits from having a Guardian friend, aren’t there?” I ask, smiling against his chest.
Aiden breathes out a soft rumble of laughter that vibrates through me from head to toe.
“Plenty,” he murmurs softly, smoothing his fingertips through my hair. “Now that I have one, I’m real glad that I do.”
I knew that already, but hearing him say it makes my smile widen until it aches.
“We have so much to tell Will and Kasey,” I whisper, nestling my body up against the firm warmth of Aiden’s muscles. “I feel like we’ve had information cascading over our heads nonstop since we set foot in this cottage. Where are we even gonna start with filling them in?”
“I know! Even just talking to you about it, I don’t know where to start. There was so much - so much. I have a million thoughts.”
“I do, too, and I’m gonna start by pointing out that Scholz-”
“You’re starting with Scholz?” Aiden’s eyebrows fly up in surprise. “Wow. Didn’t see that one coming. We’re really not gonna start with Spencer being in Rose’s stitch ‘n bitch group?”
“Scholz needs to be brought up first and immediately,” I explain patiently, “Because he’s validation for me.”
Aiden struggles to contain a huff of laughter. “Oh, this sounds promising. Please explain.”
“He’s proof of how correct my do not fuck with demons policy is. I know it was just an illusion, but the man took one look at that demon and said no fucking thank you. He turned right around and went all the way home to Germany. And what happened? He didn’t fall off a cliff or murder someone or nearly drown like Jahn did! He came out of the whole thing perfectly fine!”
“I mean,” Aiden whispers back, the slight tremble of a laugh beneath his words, “Fired and disgraced and everything, but yeah, fine.”
“So what? My whole life is basically me disgracing myself over and over again, anyways - and who cares about being disgraced, dude, when the alternative is getting demoned? Getting demoned is the worst outcome possible.”
Aiden breathes out that soft laugh he was trying to hold down. He pushes me flat onto my back and leans over me to brush an intimate, lingering kiss onto my neck.
A rush of answering goosebumps goes down my arms, in tandem with a rush of heat to my cheeks. My hands automatically slide up Aiden’s sides, my head automatically tilting back to make more room for him.
“I don’t know about that, Little Demon,” Aiden murmurs, smirking against my throat. “I get demoned just about every day, and it’s not so bad.”
His voice, in its husky, tired state, is so unbelievably deep that it seems to come from within my own chest when he speaks. I blush even deeper, curling into him to hide my face, then smack his arm when he laughs at me.
Drawing back to look at him, I’m met with sweet, warm, sleepy blue eyes. Slopes of graceful muscle, tumbled chestnut hair. Velvet-soft bronze skin. Rich stubble that makes my fingers itch with longing.
My heart nearly stops at the view, pushing against my ribs in breathless infatuation.
“God.” I stare at Aiden with enormous eyes, then fan my face. My cheeks are burnt with scorching heat. “What a show-off you are, honestly!”
Aiden blinks in confusion, then breathes out a laugh that stirs the glossy chestnut lock falling down over his eye. “You always say things like that when I’m just - like - sitting here. What are you even talking about?”
I let out an anguished groan. “You know what I mean.”
Aiden gives me a blank look, arching a doubtful eyebrow. “Okay, do I?”
“Just - nevermind!” I push his painfully sexy self away from me so I can calm down. “Shut up, and stop - could you please stop being so, like - I’m gonna need to go get my inhaler, otherwise.”
“Do you actually need it, Linden?” Aiden murmurs sleepily, twisting a strand of my hair around his fingers.
“It’s fine. I forgot it in the car.”
“Nah, I grabbed it. It’s in the pocket of my jeans.”
“Oh, my god,” I whisper helplessly, taking two handfuls of my own hair. “Be quiet, Sugar Maple. I don’t want to have to get out of bed to go find your jeans, and that’s where this is headed.”
Aiden looks faintly puzzled, but he smiles, his cheek rounding out against the pillow.
“I’ve got to bring Ellen to meet everyone here,” I tell Aiden softly, after I’ve taken a moment to recover. “She has to meet Charlie - and Rose makes custom clothes for a living!”
“Which somehow means she has to meet Ellen?”
“Yes, because Ellen said that sometimes the tags and textures of her clothes bother her. I bet Rose could make Ellen some custom stuff with no tags, and Ellen could even pick out her own fabric. Don’t you think Rose would be happy to do it, too? She said she’s hoping for great-grandchildren, because she misses having kids around the-”
I break off in confusion as Aiden suddenly lets out a deep, rumbling chuckle of affectionate laughter.
“Of course,” he groans softly, in an almost pained voice. “Of course you’re already looking for ways to - to make everyone - just - you stop it, dude, or I’m gonna hit your inhaler.”
Now I’m the one faintly perplexed and happy.
“We have to remember to show Rose and Leyla that homoerotic soup advertisement we found at the corner store, by the way,” I mumble drowsily.
Aiden lets out a soft laugh, lifting one hand to rub his tired eyes.
“Don’t Rose and Leyla remind you of us, a little bit?” I ask, after a moment of sleepy quiet. “The - the way they love each other?”
I blush slightly, embarrassed by my own phrasing, hoping that Aiden understands what I mean. A short silence falls before he answers.
“Yeah,” he finally murmurs, his deep voice rich with warmth. His hand fumbles to find mine in the darkness until he’s softly clasping my fingers. “Yeah.”
I smile at him in relief.
“And what they’ve been through…” My heart ties itself up in knots at the mere thought, and I wince at Aiden. “God, I can’t even imagine what I would have done in Leyla’s shoes. I hope I’d be brave enough to handle a situation that scary.”
Aiden lets out a soft snort of laughter. “You jumped off of a cliff for me, dipshit. Literally jumped right off of a mountain into hundreds of feet of open air. Remember that? Scariest moment of my whole goddamn life?”
“Oh, yeah,” I answer, brightening up. “That’s true!”
Aiden huffs out a helpless little laugh, running a hand through his hair. A moment passes before his deep voice breaks the cozy silence again.
“Rose and Leyla love each other a little differently than we do, though. I feel like Leyla has never in her entire life ever called Rose a dipshit, for example. Never. Not once.”
“Companion Plants come in all different forms,” I whisper, squeezing his fingers. “Only makes sense that they love each other in all different ways.”
Aiden thinks about that, then lifts my hand to his mouth and brushes a kiss onto my knuckles.
“Do you like the way I love you?” he whispers in the dark.
I tighten my grasp on his hand in wordless answer. Aiden turns his head and gazes at me from across the pillow, his lips quirked up into an intimate smile. His bronze skin is slowly lighting up with gentle golden radiance, a soft halo of glowing light.
The happy Heliomancer draws in a deep breath, then breathes out a warm, relaxed sigh onto my knuckles.
“Good,” he rumbles, his dreamy blue eyes resting on my face. “That’s all that matters to m-”
Aiden cuts himself off abruptly. His gaze flits to something past me, over my shoulder. He sits up on his elbow, looking bewildered, staring at the open door of Charlie’s bedroom.
I turn to follow his gaze, and catch a flash of sea-green fabric as someone silently goes past in the hallway.
“Leyla,” Aiden whispers very quietly, when I fix him with a baffled look. “I think - maybe she was outside listening while we talked? She left when I sat up.”
“Really?” I soften my whisper, too, glancing at the door again. “She probably came to check if we were asleep and stayed when she heard us talking. I guess the spy instincts don’t wear off, just like the Guardian instincts.”
“Or the instinct to protect Rose,” Aiden murmurs, gazing out at the dark hallway with his eyebrows knitted. “I get that.”
I sit up suddenly in alarm, pressing my fingers over my mouth. “Oh, god - I hope she didn’t hear the homoerotic soup thing with no context!”
“I kind of hope she did. That would be very funny, since you were the one who said it, not me-”
“Oh, ha, ha-”
“Shh. Jamie.” Aiden sits up, too, meaningfully catching my gaze with his. “Why was she checking if we were asleep? What’s she doing? She just left in the direction of the living room, not the bedroom.”
I stare at Aiden curiously, taken aback. As one, we turn our gazes back to the door, hesitate for a second, then silently slip out of Charlie’s bed.
We sneak up to the door together, then cautiously peek out down the hallway.
All but one or two lamps have been turned off in the living room. Rain is streaming down the windows, but the gusts of stormy wind cause breaks in it now and then, giving us a glimpse of the misty ocean breaking against the rocks on the shore. The deep dark blue of the night sky is softly studded with stars between the rain clouds.
In the silver-gold glow of the lamps and the starlight, Leyla is walking across the closed-in porch.
Her thick tumble of snowy hair spills down to her back, dancing around her shoulders with her light, gliding steps. She’s wearing a silky black nightgown, and over it, a stunningly beautiful, trailing robe. It’s intricate and dramatic and flowing, made of the lightest sea-blue silk. The fabric sparkles like dewdrops on a veil of gossamer, or like stars spread thick across a night sky. It makes Leyla look like something out of a dream world as she glides to a stop before the tapestry of magic hanging on the wall.
She reaches up and carefully takes something from the piece of magic. It’s - the sewing needle. The one that Aiden said is a powerful magical artifact. Leyla slips it free, down into her fingers.
Aiden and I look at each other sharply, then retreat back into the bedroom when Leyla begins to turn around.
A moment later, Leyla silently glides past Charlie’s room, coming back down the hallway. Aiden and I wait for a second, then peek out around the doorframe again.
Leyla heads into her and Rose’s bedroom, which is at the end of the hall. She leaves the door open, and I catch a glimpse of Rose sitting awake on the end of the bed. Leyla leans down to kiss the top of her head, then to quietly say something to her.
“Are they about to do magic?” I whisper, catching Aiden’s eye in disbelief. “I thought Rose couldn’t do it anymore!”
“She can’t,” Aiden whispers back, watching Rose and Leyla curiously. “I don’t sense any of that power in her, anyways. I’m - not sure what they’re doing.”
There’s a brief pause.
“Aren’t we entitled to a little snooping if we got snooped on first?” Aiden whispers.
“I mean, Leyla knows we’re awake, and she didn’t close the door, does that mean she doesn’t care if we see?” I whisper to him, at almost the same time.
It’s a confused tangle of his words and mine, but we both get the gist and nod in agreement. We move in tandem, sneaking out into the hallway to get closer.
“We’ll just leave if they’re not doing anything with magic,” Aiden whispers, stealing along over the soft rug.
“Are we doing something stupid, right now?” I whisper up at him.
“Knowing us?” Aiden answers, then gently draws me back into one of the deeply-set doorways in the hall.
I think this is the door to Calla’s room. We step back into the shadows of it, watching Rose and Leyla from an angle. This deep in the cottage, the thrumming of the rain is muffled enough for us to hear their softened voices. There are still a few lamps left on in their room, enough of a gentle golden glow for us to see them by.
Rose and Leyla really do remind me of myself and Aiden, in some ways. I can tell that Leyla loves every single little thing about her Guardian. Just like I do about mine. Everything, right down to the way he lifts his chin to undo the buttons at his throat after work.
I can tell that Leyla not only has total confidence in her Guardian, but true admiration for her. Just like I have for mine.
And I was just thinking that this is always my favorite part of everything. The end of the day, when I can be back in Aiden’s arms, and we can talk. Just hanging out alone with my Companion Plant, talking to just him, laughing with only him. It’s the best feeling, pure peace.
I think we’ve just caught Rose and Leyla having that same moment of their night.
Rose is cross-legged on the bed, her silver hair spilling down around her shoulders. She’s wearing a very simple set of white cotton pajamas, watching Leyla glide around the room in her stunning sea-green robe.
“I’ve got to stop making you new clothes,” she laughs softly, twisting one of her silver curls around her fingers. Her eyes are wide with admiration, a faint blush dusting her cheeks. “You look too good in them. It makes me nervous.”
Leyla lets out a soft, sparkling laugh, smoothing her hands over the gorgeous silk robe. “I didn’t ask for it, darling.”
“No,” Rose sighs dreamily. She taps a fingertip to her temple, sighing helplessly as she stares at Leyla. “But I could see it on you, and then I had to - see it on you. It’s even better in real life, unbelievably.”
Leyla smiles, fathoms-deep love in her eyes. She says something to Rose in answer, too softly for us to hear.
Aiden nudges me, then nods at the dressing table in Rose and Leyla’s bedroom. I track his gaze to the magical sewing needle, stuck gently into a pin cushion beside a row of Leyla’s lipsticks.
“Do you think I’m right about that?” Rose is asking, when we can hear her again over the rain.
Leyla sets aside her hairbrush and leans back against the dressing table, folding her arms over her chest. Her smile widens as her adoring eyes linger on Rose.
“Right now, darling, you look so beautiful that I’m willing to say you’re right about anything.”
Rose blinks hard a few times, then blushes and lets out a soft laugh, drawing her knees up to her chest. “For god’s sake, Leyla! Can you - can you focus, for a second-?”
“I’m sorry. You’re making it difficult.” Leyla breaks into her broad grin, gazing down at her wife. “What was the question?”
“I was talking about what Jamie and Aiden asked us,” Rose answers, clearly still flustered. “About telling Spencer Shin the truth about the case.”
Leyla shrugs her slender shoulders. “Oh, he’s a sweet old queen, what’s the harm?”
Rose lets out an indignant, startled laugh. “That’s all the thought you feel the need to give it? If you knew him like I do, you’d know he also used to be a pretty fierce and dedicated journalist!”
“I do know him about as well as you do. That’s how I know he wouldn’t do anything with what we tell him. Knowing what it would mean for me as a defected government agent, and you, as a magical thing.” Leyla begins sliding her various rings off of her fingers. She places them in a cup on the dressing table, then drops to sit down in front of the mirror. “He’s quite a noble old spirit, isn’t he? With a good heart. Even so lonely, the way he’s been. He’s always had a good heart.”
Rose nibbles her lip, straightening out the hem of her pajamas. Turning it over in her mind.
“We don’t know Floyd, though,” Leyla adds, brushing out her flowing white hair.
“No, but Spencer’s been in love with him all this time,” Rose answers distractedly, gazing at the rainy windows.
Leyla looks at Rose in the mirror, caught by surprise. “Spencer told you that? I didn’t think we knew him that well!”
“No, he didn’t. But he talks about Floyd a lot at the stitch n’ bitch meetings, and you can tell.”
Leyla breaks into a small smile. “Well, can we trust Spencer’s taste?”
“Going by his taste in thread, at least, I would say yes,” Rose answers, to a soft ripple of laughter from Leyla. “Did you know he and Floyd are moving in together and merging their bookshops? Starting over together.”
“At their age!” Leyla answers, grinning happily as she brushes out her hair. “Outrageous. I love it.”
“Speaking of outrageous!” Rose fixes Leyla with a disbelieving stare. “Did you really threaten to tase Aiden and Jamie?”
Leyla bites her lip. She folds her hands in her lap, meets Rose’s eyes in the mirror, and pulls a meek, deeply remorseful expression onto her face. One completely undercut by the glimmer of laughter in her eyes.
“I’m so embarrassed about that, darling,” she sighs, resting her chin on her fist. “And so very, truly sorry-”
“Are you!” Rose shakes her head in exasperation, then drops her face into her hands. “Oh, I’m not going to start laughing again! My sides hurt.”
Leyla is struggling not to laugh, now, too. “Their expressions, I have to admit-”
“Leyla!”
“Oh, come on, they took it in good humor,” Leyla laughs, her warm eyes twinkling as she watches Rose desperately try not to. “And if anything, wasn’t that situation undignified for me, not them?”
“But it never feels that way, not with you!” Rose loses the fight against her laughter, struggling to keep her stern expression in place. “You’ve never seemed undignified for one second of your life! I’ll bet Jamie and Aiden are the ones who came out embarrassed about what happened, somehow.”
This is true, as confirmed by the abashed, half-laughing look Aiden and I silently exchange in the hallway. It actually didn’t even cross my mind that Leyla should be the one embarrassed, even though she’s the one who threatened to tase us for no reason. Something about her makes you assume it was all you, because she couldn’t possibly have done a wrong thing.
No wonder she made such a good spy.
Leyla has broken back into her broad, merry grin. She sweeps gracefully to her feet and takes Rose’s hands in hers, then bends down to lean their foreheads together.
“Maybe we should tell Spencer and his partner the truth,” she murmurs, stroking Rose’s knuckles with her thumb. “Shouldn’t a trusted few know the real story, before we’re too old to tell it?”
“I think we have some time before that!”
“Yes,” Leyla agrees firmly, squeezing Rose’s hands. “And you can take all the time you want to think about it. I doubt those boys will pressure you to make a fast decision. If they do, I will tase them.”
“Of course,” Rose laughs, drawing back and raising her adoring pale green gaze to Leyla. “Mmm. Then let’s decide later. I want to talk to Charlie about it, and Calla, too… We should make decisions like that as a family.”
She looks very tired all of a sudden, despite the warmth glowing in her eyes as she speaks. Leyla can clearly tell, and she cups Rose’s cheek in her hand.
“Is it about that time, darling?” she murmurs, in a subtle, soft, loving voice.
Rose sways slightly, leaning her forehead against Leyla’s. “Mhm. I think so.”
Leyla gently lets her go and returns to the dressing table. She takes the pin cushion with the sewing needle, then comes back to where Rose is sitting on the end of the bed. She pauses there, her eyes lingering on Rose's exhausted face.
She sets the pin cushion aside on the bed, takes Rose’s hands, and slowly sinks down at her feet. The intricate sea-green robe pools around her, glittering with every movement, the moonlight silvering her white hair. She bows her shining head over Rose’s hands and softly kisses her fingers, many times. Then she looks up, the brilliance and size of her eyes heightened as she fills them up with the sight of Rose.
Rose watches her, growing pink in the face. She draws her shoulders in together, her toes curling. She quickly drops her gaze to her knees, so Leyla leans up and kisses them, then kisses Rose’s ankles when Rose moves her gaze there instead. Whichever part of her body Rose turns her shy eyes to, that’s where Leyla places the next intimate little kiss.
“Leyla!” Rose blurts out helplessly, half-laughing, her cheeks a scorching shade of crimson now.
Smiling adoringly, Leyla rises to sit with Rose on the bed. Rose watches her, then suddenly, impulsively throws her arms around her and draws her in close. Squeezes her tightly, running her hands through her white hair.
Leyla emerges from this embrace perfectly unruffled, somehow, and smiling. She gathers Rose into her arms, then presses an infinitely tender kiss on her neck.
“It’s alright,” she murmurs softly, with her lips still to Rose’s throat. “I’ve got you, darling. You can come on out.”
Rose takes a deep breath, then closes her eyes. She slowly tilts her head all the way back and goes limp, like a woman in an old romantic movie swooning in the arms of her lover.
But she goes completely still, so perfectly motionless that I - I actually can’t even see her breathing, from here.
Alarm begins to flutter up in my chest, but Leyla doesn’t seem worried in the slightest. She gathers Rose all the way into her arms, so that she can rest cuddled in her lap. Rose lets her do it with no resistance, but makes no moves to help her.
Leyla straightens out her pajamas for her, then cradles her gently, waiting. Stroking her delicate silver curls.
Aiden gasps softly beside me, and I seize his hand, both of us freezing to the spot.
In Rose and Leyla’s bedroom, Rose gently climbs out from her body. A flame of pure spirit, she flows up from herself and settles into the air, surprised only for a second to find herself there.
Leyla looks up at her and smiles. “Hello, my flawless jewel!”
“Hello,” Rose’s spirit laughs, a soft, ghostly blush coloring her cheeks.
Leyla draws the sewing needle from the pin cushion, then gently wraps a hand into the glowing light connecting Rose to her body. She pushes the needle through it and draws it back. When it comes back through, it’s threaded with glittering golden light.
“I guess you did need a touch-up tonight, darling,” Leyla murmurs, glowing softly in the light of Rose’s spirit. She looks up at her again, gives her a soothing smile. “Not too frayed, though. Easy little fix. Not a problem at all.”
Rose smiles, then drops to sit down on the bed behind Leyla. She winds her arms around her affectionately, resting her cheek on Leyla’s back. The bedroom is full of soft shadows, and the shining light of Rose’s spirit encircles the little scene on the bed. The gentle halo makes Rose and Leyla seem like they’re in their own tiny world.
With Rose’s body curled up in her lap and Rose’s spirit cuddling up with her from behind, Leyla smiles peacefully, then begins to sew.
She told us that she didn’t know how to sew at all when she stitched up Rose’s spirit in the forest. But right now she’s working with the practiced ease of an expert, making perfectly neat, precise stitches of gold in the frayed part of Rose’s spirit. Like this is something she’s done tens of thousands of times, over and over again.
Basil and Parsley, asleep together in the dog bed tucked into the corner, are apparently so used to this that they see no reason to wake up for it.
The curtains stir in the rainy breeze at Leyla’s back, and a distant rumble of thunder breaks the hush, but nothing makes her lift her gaze from what she’s doing.
She murmurs softly to Rose’s spirit as she works, making Rose blush and hide her face against her shoulder blade. Her voice is overflowing with tenderness and devotion, and so is every delicate move she makes with the needle. She handles Rose’s spirit like it’s the most precious thing on Earth. Her eyes are aglow with fiery love, full of focus, her hands impossibly gentle.
Each perfect stitch she puts in shines for a moment, then disappears as Rose’s spirit heals softly over the place where it was.
Aiden and I can’t help but watch, spellbound.
Eventually Leyla draws the needle through again, and it comes back with no golden thread. She pauses, then looks over her shoulder at Rose’s spirit, who’s still cuddled up close.
“You should be all good to go home, darling,” she whispers. “I’ll be right here.”
Rose’s spirit answers softly, too softly for us to hear.
“I love you, too,” Leyla murmurs, warmth flickering in her eyes.
Rose’s spirit is already falling back towards her body, drawn by some unseen power. Leyla watches in accustomed quiet as her wife’s spirit disappears, slipping back into her own chest.
Then Rose’s spirit is gone, and her body is still motionless. Leyla pushes the needle back into the pin cushion and gathers Rose’s body back into her arms. She hugs her tight, for a long time, until -
Rose takes a sudden, deep breath, her eyes fluttering open. Leyla smiles happily as Rose sits up in her arms, blinking hard to clear her eyes.
“Thank you,” Rose breathes, cuddling up against Leyla’s chest in relief.
“Feeling better?”
“Much better.” Rose yawns sleepily, peacefully. “Still tired, though.”
Leyla smiles and kisses the top of her head. “Just let me go put the needle back in the tapestry, darling. It’ll need more magic for tomorrow.”
Aiden urgently tugs on my hand, his eyes widening in alarm. Leyla’s about to come out and put the needle back, and we did way more snooping than we meant to.
We go rushing down the hallway for Charlie’s room, moving as quietly as we can. Clearly not quiet enough to trick an ex-spy, because Leyla suspiciously pokes her head in a few seconds later.
She lets out a startled laugh when she finds Aiden and me frozen in the act of rushing back to the bed. I’m quite literally holding up the blanket so Aiden can dive beneath it, and he’s got one knee up on the mattress.
“I knew you two were lurking out there,” Leyla says sternly, her eyes twinkling with amusement at the busted expressions on our faces. “Did Aiden sense the magic?”
“No, we were snooping before that,” I answer guiltily, to an enormous sigh from Aiden.
“Jamie is very - honest,” he tells Leyla, shooting me an exasperated look.
Leyla arches an eyebrow at me. “I can tell. Well, now that you’ve snooped, we’re even on the taser thing. That’s the only reason I let you get away with it in the first place. There’s some reciprocal honesty for you.”
“That’s on us for thinking we could sneak up on you, of all people,” Aiden grumbles beneath his breath.
I push a hand through my hair, staring at Leyla in amazement. My composure is in shambles.
“Do you-?” I blurt out, unable to help myself. “Do you do that every night, Leyla? Stitch Rose’s spirit up anywhere it’s starting to fray?”
Leyla leans her shoulder against the doorway, meeting my eyes. “Sometimes she doesn’t need it, but - yes. Every night.”
Aiden and I glance at each other, staggered.
“What happens if you miss a night?” Aiden asks Leyla, very softly.
“I don’t know.” Leyla looks down thoughtfully at the shining sewing needle in her hands. “I’ve never missed a night.”
“What - since 1961?” I sputter, my eyes very wide.
Leyla shrugs her shoulders in confirmation, lifting her gaze back to me and Aiden.
“I love her,” she says simply. “I love her more than… well, you two understand, don’t you? I’ve seen the way you look at each other. I can tell you do. ”
Aiden and I stare at Leyla in thunderstruck silence, then look at each other, matching blushes spreading across our faces.
Leyla gives us a warm, knowing smile, then straightens up, tucking the sewing needle safely into her hand.
“Goodnight, boys,” she murmurs, and closes the door after herself.
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