#zackbanes

Zack had devoured the journal that Rosemary left for him, reading and rereading the pages she marked, taking notes and going back to read more. It was magic as he had never imagined it – not just some ineffable, organic thing that floated through the ether around them, unknowable. But a set of rules and logic that could be learned and deduced. Not that learning or deductions had ever been Zack’s strong suit, but it at least seemed possible. 

And with someone like Rosemary, who was obviously a genius in all this, it became all the more attainable. So Zack was feeling hopeful in a way he hadn’t for a long time when he showed up on Rosemary’s doorstep. He had the book she had leant him in hand and Zippo, of course, nestled into his shirt pocket, under his jacket. He didn’t quite understand how familiar works, but he knew that his abilities were more focused and more powerful when the fire salamander had been around (he was just glad he was able to get the little guy to unlatch from the mushroom to come along). Did Rosemary have a familiar? At least she probably knew how they worked, Zack figured.

“Hi!” he greeted when the door opened, eager smile already bright on his face. “Again, really, I can’t thank you enough for helping me with this.” Zack held up the journal a little, to indicate what exactly this was. “I promise, I studied like crazy. Harder than I ever studied for school, that’s for sure.”

—

Why the fuck had Rosemary thought she could function as a teacher. 

Not even a teacher- teachers had lesson plans, and quizzes, and tests, and homework assignments, and actual qualifications to teach. Rosemary had none of those things… She barely had ‘assigned reading’. She was a tutor at best. At worst, she was a student who was letting the kid next to her copy her homework before class. 

But thankfully, Rosemary had been specific with what she could try to teach Zack. The basics. The things she could do, even as a little girl. Magic that asked for little to no energy in exchange for her desires to become manifest- having a tea spoon stir her morning coffee, or lighting a candle with a snap. Quick, harmless little bursts of power that took barely any effort to control. And yet she used them so rarely now that she was an adult. Even less, with magic in the town waning like the last sliver of a crescent the night before a new moon. She figured it was better to reserve what energy she had to exchange for magic she might actually need. Necromancy required so much thought, and focus, and yes, energy, that she was practically mundane aside from the moments she flexed her magical muscles to control the dead, or heal a scratch or bruise.

The witch opened the door to a bright smile on her pupil’s face. Fuck- not pupil. Co student. Fellow learner of magic. Not her student. Rosemary smiled and opened the door further, stepping aside to show him in. “Really, it’s no problem. I just hope I’m actually helpful, you know? I don’t really know how to teach, so please bear with me here.” She said, leading her not-student into her kitchen. “You want something to drink? Tea, coffee… Water?”

—

“I know you will be,” Zack reassured. “I mean, I know basically nothing so anything you can give me is going to be a huge help.” Rosemary had already taught him more than he ever knew before, explaining the basic rules of magic and letting him peer into her journal. That had been illuminating. There was so much more to magic than he had ever imagined. For Zack, his abilities had only ever been a thing that was just there. Mostly. Sprouting from his finger tips when he called (and, often enough, when he did not call. And sometimes not coming when he called either…) With no one to tell him otherwise, he had assumed all magic was like that, a natural well inside certain people that burst forth with a mind of its own.

Imagine his surprise when he learned there were laws, there was a whole system, and even a way to work toward making sure it did what you wanted. There were ingredients and incantations and whole curricula and lessons that he could learn. Zack could be better at magic, and it would just be up to his own self-control. His abilities wouldn’t be something that he had to leash and manage all his life, it could actually be an advantage he had. A power he had. And all that had come from Rosemary telling him what she had probably learned before she had lost all his baby teeth.

(If he thought about it too hard or for too long, it made Zack miss his mother so much it ached like a pit through his stomach. So he tried not to think about it, really.)

“Oh, tea would be awesome, if it isn’t too much trouble.” Tea would help calm him some. Not that he was nervous! Just…anxious, maybe. In a good way. Excited, but also a little nervous too. He just didn’t want Rosemary to think he was an idiot. A slight wriggle in his shirt pocket made him look down; Zippo was squirming. “Also, hey. Um. Are you afraid of…lizards? Or salamanders, really?” Zack knew not everyone would be as delighted by Zippo as, say, Ishan had been. And they were in Rosemary’s house, after all. “I kind of have a familiar? He found me, really. But, he’s nice! I promise. If you wanted to…meet him.” Without waiting, Zippo poked his head out of Zack’s pocket, dark shining eyes looking intelligently at the spell-caster before them.

–

“I’m- “ Concerned? Doubtful? Worried? “Flattered, by your confidence in my teaching abilities.” The witch finally settled on. Rosemary knew of a whole slew of scenarios where she could actually be helpful. Healing someone, raising the dead, escaping an attack from a particularly blood thirsty person of the undead persuasion- sure! No problem. Writing obituaries? Directing calls and showing family members where to find their great-grandma who was busy watching Jeopardy? Without a doubt. But teaching the fundamentals of magic? The witch had to hope neither one of the accidentally burnt her house down in the process. 

“No trouble at all!” She said cheerfully, pulling two mugs from her cabinet and setting them on the counter; one was pale green and read fresh out of fucks in swirling pink script, and the other had a cute cartoon frog on it with the words I’m literally just a girl on the bottom. “Take your pick.” She said, going to grab her stash of teas from the cabinet and set them in front of Zack so he could choose from the different flavors she had. She glanced over her shoulder and looked at the stove, still not burning. It couldn’t hurt to flex her muscles a bit, since she was teaching. She flicked her wrist and the gas stove sparked to life, the kettle heading on its way to boiling. Rosemary could barely register the energy it cost her. This magic was so much simpler. It had none of the gravitas or heavy physical toll that necromancy could. It was simply… fun. When was the last time she’d let herself just enjoy being what she was? Her lips pressed together as she tried to hide the little satisfied smile that appeared in her face at the simple spell. 

Her attention whipped back to Zack at the mention of a salamander. “Oh my god. He is so cute!” Rosemary cooed, leaning in to get a better look at the little creature who’d popped his head out of the caster’s pocket. “Hi honey- what’s his name?” She asked excitedly. 

—

“Well, even if you suck at it, which I don’t think you will, we’ll be muddling through together.” Rosemary might be a novice at teaching someone, but Zack was a novice in all things magic. They were perfectly matched, then, as student and teacher. Besides, he didn’t know Rosemary that well, but she had stepped in to rescue him at the Bizarre when she could have just left him to his own peril. That, to Zack, meant that she would be a kind and compassionate teacher. 

The choice of mugs made Zack laugh and, upon reading the text at the bottom, choice the frog one. He also selected one of her herbal teas and glanced up just in time to see Rosemary’s little flourish of magic. “Whoa.” With a grin, he golf-clapped for her. Simple magic, maybe, but not something he was confident he could pull off. A small flame, sure. But he tended to avoided anything like that around gas in case his control wasn’t as tightly reined as he thought. And besides, he thought Rosemary hadn’t caused the spark so much as she had just turned the stove on – a different kind of magic entirely. “I know that’s probably crazy easy for you and that you do it without thinking. But even just that is pretty foreign to me.” He hoped that confession wouldn’t make Rosemary rethink her agreement to teach him.

He was glad to have the distraction of Zippo, though, in case she was having second thoughts. No matter what Rosemary thought about Zack, she was clearly happy to have the little critter around. “His name is Zippo, which is a really bad joke but it kind of stuck.” Gathering the salamander out of his pocket, he held him gently out toward Rosemary. “You can hold him, if you want. He’s not slimy, I promise. And he’s actually, well, a fire salamander. So he’s really warm.”

—

Rosemary grinned at the reaction the mugs warranted. “Excellent choice.” She nodded in approval as he chose the frog mug. She gave a little half curtsy as Zack applauded the rudimentary use of magic. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And hey, if he wanted to clap for her most basic party trick, who was she to stop him? The flames on the stove licked up around the kettle, and the water started slowly coming up to a boil. “You would think. But I don’t use this sort of magic much, so it’s a bit like getting on a bike for the first time in years. It takes a minute to find your balance, but once you’re moving, you’re good to go.” She explained, dropping an earl grey tea bag into her mug along with a fancy brown sugar cube she kept in a little bowl on the table. She slid the sugar over to her protege in a silent offer as the kettle began to shriek out its proclamation that the water was ready. She decided to grab the kettle the old fashioned way, pouring the water out into both of their mugs. 

The witch’s eyes went wide in recognition as she looked at the little salamander, cupping her hands together and holding them out for the little guy to sit cradled in her hands if he so wished. “Zippo? The Zippo? Of Zippo and Mingus fame?” She asked, grinning down at the salamander. “You are so cute- and you have excellent taste in birds.” Her attention shifted back to her student, her delight morphing into curiosity. “You said he’s your familiar?” She had never found a familiar. She’d thought she had, but then Buttons had turned into a full grown man. The curiosity and delight ebbed a bit at the thought, but she kept the smile firm on her face. 

__

Zack nodded seriously as Rosemary explained about the everyday magic. He knew she was only talking casually, really, but every bit of information was new to him, and therefore useful. And in this case, hearing Rosemary talk about how her magic could get “rusty,” gave him some relief. Maybe that was why it seemed so hard every time he went back to his fire abilities. There was often so much time between his attempts – in large part because of his own fear. It helped to know that it was more like a muscle that required steady engagement. 

As their tea steeped, Zack was more than happy to let Rosemary coo over Zippo. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the fire salamander was preening under the positive attention. “Oh! You know Mingus? And probably Ishan, too, if you’ve heard of their romance.” He wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the big raven had sought Rosemary out on his own – but only Ishan could have told her about the unconventional union between the bird and his Zippo.

Zack could only shrug in explanation when Rosemary asked about him being his familiar. “I think so, at least? I dunno if there’s some formal…thing to it. He kind of found me, when I was out in Chicago. I didn’t realize what he was until I noticed that I could handle my fire spells a lot better when I had him with me.” A smile sketched across Zack’s face as he looked down at the little creature. “And he seems to like hanging out with me, so I guess it’s a win-win.” He figured Rosemary didn’t have one, as it hadn’t come up in the journal she had given him or in person yet.

—

“I do indeed,” The witch said with a grin. “What can I say, I’m a sucker for love. Congratulations on the pending nuptials. How can a witch score an invite to the crow salamander wedding?” Rosemary cooed down at Zippo. The little creature fascinated her. She’d always wanted a familiar- a constant companion to aid in spell casting. But necromancy didn’t seem like the sort of magic that applied itself to that sort of partnership. Alistair had had Brutus, of course, but the dog had also served as a guide dog for them. And her mentor had always struck her as more of a lone wolf, who made few exceptions to the rule. Still, it would have been nice…

She shrugged free of the thought, choosing to be happy for her student (fuck, she really couldn’t escape that truth anymore, could she?) instead. “Now that sounds like a good partnership.” She tickled the salamanders chin, before shifting her focus back to Zack. “But I think he’s going to function more as your cheerleader today. When I said we were starting with basics, I meant basics.” Rosemary went to the cabinet and pulled out two tea spoons, plunking them down into both of their cups. 

“So, pop quiz time: can you tell me what the law of energy, and the law of difficulty are? Use your own words, textbook definitions are bullshit. No one needs to know definitions full of multisyllabic words in order to grasp a concept.” Rosemary leaned back in her seat, waiting to see how much of the reading had clicked. 

—

“Oh, you’re invited for sure,” Zack said, nodding. “Who else is going to do the flowers and decor?”

Zack felt a sort of anxiety rise in him as Rosemary pivoted to the magic of it all and, more intimidatingly, the teaching. Even if this was mostly informal, he had never performed well under academic pressure. Rosemary was a doll and a delight, but that just meant Zack didn’t want to let her down. Even if she would never punish him or anything for getting something wrong. “Okay, law of difficulty, I definitely know.” He nodded, as if to encourage himself, and tried to explain, “It’s that, the bigger the impact of the spell you’re doing, the more difficult the spell will be. And, probably, the more resources and components and stuff, it will take.” That one was easy, to Zack. It made straight-forward, logical sense to him. 

The law of energy was a little more nebulous. “Energy is that like… Magic doesn’t come from nothing. And it doesn’t come from us, the spell-casters, right? It has an energy that exists in the…” He had had to look up the word when he read it in Rosemary’s journal (and even that hadn’t shed too much light on things). “Ether!” He snapped his fingers, beaming at his success. “In the astral planes, right? So doing magic is basically like pulling that energy out of the ether and shaping it into whatever spell you’re doing.” 

Zack was actually pretty proud of himself. Remembering and being able to explain things had always been hard for him, but Rosemary’s journal had been easy to understand for the most part, and he had pored over it, reading and rereading the parts that had eluded him at first. More than just being about to explain the laws back to Rosemary, he really felt like he did understand them. Even if he did have one question. “This is probably a stupid question but… Are the astral planes a real place? I keep picturing, like, outer space.” 

Maybe that was what they were after all. Who was to say magic didn’t come from the depths of the universe? (And why could Zack not stop thinking about the way the world felt when he was in Netherville?)

—

“You picked the perfect woman for the job. I’ll cut wildflowers from my garden. Or the crocuses on the lawn.”

The witch grinned, nodding in approval. So he had studied up. She’d expected nothing less. Rosemary knew what it was like to be hungry for knowledge. She’d never had issues wielding magic, but even then she’d found herself in need of guidance. Necromancy didn’t come naturally to anyone, so she’d found herself in the same predicament as Zack- hunting down someone who had the answers who could try and teach her. 

“Correct. Casters aren’t magic. We can just tune into the frequency, as it were. Or think of it like a musical instrument- if you drop a violin in front of someone and tell them to play something, you’re either going to have someone who has no fucking clue what their doing hurting everyone’s eardrums, or they’re going to know how to play it, or be able to figure it out. We know how to play magic. We have the magic equivalent of natural musical talent. So learning the violin in this analogy would come more naturally to us.” Rosemary explained. 

“Not the best analogy, but it also allows me to point out that practice is necessary. You’re not going to be fucking Harry Houdini overnight.” The witch opened the cookie jar on the table and handed a chocolate chip cookie to her student. “Good job. And yes, magic is exchange based. To make something happen, it costs energy. It will take some of your own energy to control it. But little things though, like what we’re focusing on today, won’t cost much.” She cocked her head to the side at his question. “No such thing as a stupid question. Honestly, I don’t know. We can research it. I don’t have much knowledge regarding astral planes. But probably. My thought is sort of like an extra dimension. Like a layer on top of this one that’s more cerebral in nature. But who knows.” 

Rosemary pointed at the spoon she’d placed in Zack’s cup. “So I know you said fire seemed to be more your thing, but I figured we’d start super basic. I’m going to teach you to do this.” The witch reached out, tuning into the gentler hum of magic that she associated with the natural world. She twirled her finger in the air, and watched as the spoon in her mug stirred itself clockwise. “Work for you?”

—

The smile and nod from Rosemary went a long way to soothe the anxiety that had drifted over Zack a moment ago. He had done well – and Rosemary affirmed that, expanding on his answers and helping him to understand the concepts even better. In particular, he appreciated the information on casters and the well of magic. He had been thinking of casters as their own kind of magic, but the way Rosemary explained it made more sense. 

“That’s really helpful.” If Zack appreciated the positive reinforcement, he imagined his teacher might as well. “I think I was thinking of us, casters, as a kind of magic ourselves. But it definitely makes more sense as a kind of…sixth sense, or a natural ability toward something.” Like art, even. A smile came to his face as he considered that metaphor further – Zack had always had a bit of a natural talent for art, but it was the practice and fine-tuning that had made him into the artist that he had been able to become. Magic could be just like that for him. 

The physical existence of the ether still eluded him somewhat. But it seemed like that might not matter so much, if Rosemary didn’t have a much better grasp on it. He pictures a sort of extra layer around the world, like the Earth’s atmosphere. “I think I’m just more of a visual learner,” Zack explained with a rueful smile. “The abstract stuff comes less easily.” As he happily bit into the cookie, he made a note to maybe research some of that himself.

“Definitely works for me.” Zack was watching the spoon move with delight in his eyes. He would prefer to start with the basics, if he was honest. There was so much that he knew he didn’t know. He wanted to get to it all.

__

“If we were magic, I’d imagine these blackouts would be a hell of a lot worse for us.” Rosemary offered Zack a crooked smile. “You’ve noticed them, right? I don’t know how it is for you, but for me, if I think about it, I’m almost always vaguely aware of magic. It feels like that static you could feel on the surface of televisions, back before everything went LED. Just kind of always… humming. And there. Until the blackouts, and it’s just not. Nothing to grab onto. Like, circling back to my analogy, if I was a concert violinist, and I was about to perform, and someone just yanked my instrument from my hands.” It was an isolating feeling, but she knew she had it much better than most of her friends. 

The witch bobbed her head in a nod. “Okay,” she said, drawing out the syllables as she tried to think of a way to help him understand. She got up and grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and sketched a spoon, and a bunch of dotted lines coming off it. “So, the only real visual you’re going to have is going to be me, and the spoon, so I’m going to try to draw what you should be able to sense. At least, this is how it is for me. I’ve heard everyone explain it a little differently. But everything, and I mean everything has an energy to it. It’s own signature. It feels different. So today you’re looking for what feels like a spoon. Think about what it feels like to have a spoon in your hand. What the metal feels like… if it’s cold, or warm from the liquid in the cup. If it’s heavy. And you reach out for something that feels like that.” Rosemary held her hand out in front of her, hand grasping at the open air as she looked for why she was describing. She could find it easily, the trick coming to her as naturally as breathing. “And when you’ve found it, I sort of just. Grab it. And then give it a stir.” She pinched her fingers together, before twirling her pointer finger in a clockwise motion, sending the spoon spinning along the rim of the cup. “Tada!”

—

Zack hummed thoughtfully as Rosemary spoke about the blackouts. That was true. And he supposed that was why the blackouts affected Kieran and other fae as they did. The faun’s glamour and his own abilities were actually magic, so they ceased to exist during the blackouts. Even though Rosemary was talking about a terrible, scary experience, he couldn’t help but feel warmed. She understood. She felt it like he did. All his life, even his previous time in Wicked’s Rest, Zack had never known another spell-caster. To hear someone talk about something he had felt, exactly, was comforting. “That’s exactly what it’s like,” he answered, gentle smile still unfurled over his face. “It’s like when your air-conditioning has been on all day, and then it suddenly clicks off. The silence is so heavy it’s like you can hear it.” Like you could hear the loss of sound. 

It wasn’t the time, but Rosemary’s explanation made him wonder if she might understand how he felt about Netherville. The strange pull of the magic there, and how it felt different than the cozy layer of magic that existed above ground. 

The lesson made sense – not just because Rosemary proved to be a good teacher, but because Zack did have some experience with magic making. What she described was, more or less, how had always brought his fire to life. Just feeling something like fire and pulling it toward him, like the fire had been there the whole time and he was just uncovering it. “Okay, got it.” He focused, hard, on what a spoon was. Hard and solid, cool to touch but warm where it was submerged in the tea. He wanted to close his eyes but it felt easier to have the object to look at there. To see not only what it was, but where it was in space.

Reaching out as Rosemary had instructed, Zack nudged at the feeling of what he thought was the spoon. The whole mug bounced clumsily, skirting on its edge sloshed some tea out before it settled back into place. “Oops.” His expression was sheepish. Okay. So that had been the mug he felt, not the spoon. “Hang on, I got it.” He shifted his attention, his consciousness, just a little. Lighter than the mug. Not quite as solid. More delicate.

When he reached out again this time, the spoon twirled in his tea. It wasn’t as smooth as Rosemary had moved it, but it was the correct object and the correct motion. Zack counted that as a win, darting his eyes to his teacher to see her assessment.

—

“Yes!” Rosemary hadn’t ever spoken with another caster about the blackouts. Business in the Bizzare was always just that- business. And Alistair had left town before the blackouts had started in earnest. She could talk to them about it, but they didn’t understand what it was like to have something so ever present just spontaneously vanish. “Yes, exactly like that.” The witch agreed. She was so used to going it alone, that she’d forgotten how nice it was to be understood- to have community. 

The witch watched, leaning back in her seat as she watched Zack set to work. She knew it was a bit of an abstract thing. She’d remembered how silly she’d felt as a little girl, trying to figure out the basics. Grabbing at things that weren’t visible but were innately there felt insane. But for her, she’d been raised on the acceptance of the simple truth that they were there- that magic was real, and that it could be used, if you were willing to try. Rosemary grabbed a napkin as the tea spilled over the lip of the mug and onto the table, an easy smile still on her face. “You’ve got this, Zack.” She hoped the gentle encouragement would urge him along. He was doing remarkably well for his first time. She’d stared at the spoon for well over an hour, trying to figure out what it felt like to be a spoon before she’d ever gotten it to budge.

Just a few moments later, the spoon made a jerky, but complete rotation around the cup. A wide grin broke across the woman’s face as she clapped.”Yes! Exactly like that.” Rosemary grabbed another chocolate chip cookie out of the jar, and handed it across to Zack. Was she pavloving him? Maybe. But she was pretty sure positive reinforcement was a thing for teaching, and cookies were always readily available in her house. “The more you practice it the smoother it’ll get.”

__

This was the feeling that he had ached for since Levi had first told him what he was. Community. Would he have had access to that kind of understanding had he not been pulled from his mother at such a young age? It was impossible to tell. Though he had no memories to support this theory, Zack had become certain that his mother was a spellcaster. He had wondered whether it wasn’t an inability to control her magic, a lack of knowledge just like his, that had led her to substance use. Was it all just a cycle?

Whatever that status of his mother might be, Zack had never had anyone who understood what he was and what he could do. Until now. And judging by Rosemary’s intense reaction, she had been without that community as well.

Zack had never been a great student, but Rosemary’s warm encouragement after his fuck-up went a long way to soothe that anxiety. It was okay that he had gotten it wrong. It wasn’t the end of the world, or even the end of the lesson. He could try again, and Rosemary believed in him. And with that balm on his anxiety, he was able to pull through on his next attempt. Once again, his teacher had only kind words for his less-than-stellar execution, reassuring him that he would get better with more practice. “You explained it really well,” Zack said, certain that had helped him to complete the task. This was something he could practice on his own, he thought, daily. Until it became like second nature, as it clearly was for Rosemary.

“Is the concept different for more complicated magic?” Zack imagined it would have to be. Weaving together different components and many strands of magic… That had to take more than just closing your eyes and feeling for something that felt like a spoon. Even if it was more of the same, he knew it would take time before he was fully comfortable attempting that kind of magic.

— 

Rosemary let out a little hum as she thought about the question. “Full and fair disclosure, I don’t know. I know what it’s like for people who practice other kinds of magic. I would imagine, fundamentally, on all levels, it’s vaguely similar.” She’d never really let herself think about what learning other magic would have been like. If she’d find herself drawn to the icy elemental spells those Kanes that hadn’t been the golden first born sons practiced. Or else, maybe she’d fall into her mother’s practices; providing protections and wards for her loved ones, casting hexes and curses toward those who meant them harm. What could she have been, if not this? The frown was gone before it had even finished forming on her face. 

“I know, for me, necromancy is similar. I think of it like threads. Tiny little strings of magic that trail off the dead. Maybe it’s whatever magic is innately in everything just looking for someplace to go after the heart’s stopped beating. I don’t really know… but I know what they feel like. I know how to grab hold of them. And from there, it’s kind of like the spoon.” Rosemary glanced over to where skeledog sat, frozen in death in the corner. “ I’ll use incantations to help it along sometimes- desine, for example, if I want something to stop moving. To halt. I use Latin, but I know people who use Gaelic… I tend to think it’s more about the intent than it is about the language, anyway. Words are fickle. Stop could be a bunch of different commands- stop moving, stop approaching, stop existing, stop breathing, stop attacking- my intention, and how I’m manipulating the threads are more important. They fill in the blanks.” She reached out for her companion, and the skeleton rattled to life. Bones clicked and rattled together as the dog chased its bony tail in a circle, before sitting obediently at her feet. “See?”

–

Right. Because there were kinds of magic. The fact that Zack tended toward controlling fire with his magic was some random, innate preference. (It came to his mind unbidden, as it so often did, wondering whether his mother had practiced the same magic. Had she had the same abilities? Had she struggled like he had with them?) He focused on Rosemary’s explanation, and thought about intent. That’s all he had ever really used, at first. Before he knew anything about other kinds of magic, or spell components, or incantations. He had just thought about fire, willed there to be fire, and then there was. At least, when he was in control of things.

The rattle of bones startled Zack and he gave a little jump. Zippo, curled around the warmth of his mug, skittered across the table to hide in his pocket again. Once he saw what had made the noise, though, the macabre sight of the little dog chasing its tail, he had to laugh. It was cute, almost sweet, in a strange way. Different, he could tell, from just moving the bones around, as he had swirled the spoon. This was…life in death. The thought should chill him but instead Zack could only think of the potential. Of all that was possible with magic.

“That makes a lot of sense,” he said finally, nodding. The laws that he had learned seemed rigid in a lot of ways, but magic itself wasn’t so strict. Which made it all the more dangerous, of course. As Rosemary had pointed out, one miscommunication could bring about disaster. Maybe that was the safest way to think of it – magic was its own living thing, moving through the world, and spellcaster were making a deal with it, to do as they asked of it. The words, the components, the intent, their own magic, all that helped to nudge the partnership in the right direction. 

“I don’t know how to tell you just how much you’ve helped. Really.” Before meeting Rosemary, Zack had more or less been fumbling in the dark, trying to learn all he could but coming up against too much information and no idea where to start. Not to mention a wealth of dis- and misinformation. Barely one hour in Rosemary’s kitchen and already he felt like he was on firmer ground than he ever had been before.

—

Skeledog was, as always, a very good boy. Rosemary grinned at the laugh that emerged once the surprise of seeing a skeletal dog playing in the kitchen gave way. It was a reminder to herself that necromancy didn’t have to be a bad thing. It could heal. It could protect. It could reanimate a skeleton to be her friend and companion. A flick of her pinky and Skeledog was wagging his tail, empty eye sockets looking up at her with his head cocked to the side. She let the spell drop, and the dog remained seated. 

When Kelly had appeared injured directly before magic had come back online, Zack had to admit that it pinged at his antennae. Not that there was anything bad or malicious about Kelly, but just that he maybe wasn’t a totally normal human with no concept of the magic and mayhem that was contained in Wicked’s Rest. (Actually, if he had been involved in whatever brought magic back, Zack supposed that made them unwitting allies, really.) Which had brought him to that conversation he had had so long ago with Emilio. His friend was right, Zack could admit as much, that he didn’t really know anything about Kelly.

But he did trust the other man. How could he not? After he had rescued Zack, and offered him a place in his own home to stay, after he had seen how Kelly was with Flip, with Giselle and Lia before– Well. Whatever the man might be, even if it was just a human who knew about the supernatural, Zack was confident that he was still a good man. And he wasn’t angry that Kelly hadn’t shared any further information with him. After all, Zack hadn’t told Kelly anything about his efforts to fix magic, or why magic mattered to him, even.

(Part of him thought Kelly would be cool with it. Another part of him recognized that a pyromancer might be the natural enemy of a firefighter.)

Despite all that mental work that Zack had done, Emilio was apparently still inordinately suspicious of the man who had offered Zack his poolhouse. At least, that’s what Zack assumed was the cause when he found the private investigator lurking just on the edge of Kelly’s landscaped hedges. 

He had been trying to stay out of the way, while also making himself available should Kelly need help while laid up. The other man had assured him he didn’t need anything, though, so Zack was doing more of the “stay out of the way” and heading for a coffee shop. Which is where he found Emilio. “Dude!” His eyes darted around to ensure they were alone. Even when he saw they were, Zack still spoke in an undertone. “What the fuck are you doing here? You can’t just, like…trespass. Are you looking for me?”

—

He got restless, sometimes. He wasn’t really sure what caused it, wasn’t sure the reason behind the fact that his fingers twitched and his eyes darted back and forth in search of some threat he couldn’t see. It had gotten worse as of late, become the sort of thing that was utterly impossible for Emilio to ignore no matter how much he wanted to. He got restless, sometimes, and lately sometimes had become more like all of the time. 

He didn’t distrust Kelly, though he had when Zack had first admitted to living with some random stranger who’d helped him out after his apartment caught fire. Knowing what he knew now — that Zack was living with a hunter, that the hunter was one Emilio generally thought was all right — should have comforted him a little. But… there were still questions swirling somewhere in the back of his mind. Questions like… how much had either of the men thought this through? How well protected was Zack, living with someone who might have a list of enemies as long as Emilio’s arm? Now that magic was back, how well protected was Kelly, if Zack’s control was still as slippery as it had been before? 

It wasn’t entirely a conscious thing, going to the house. It wasn’t really something he’d planned in advance, wasn’t something he put a lot of thought into. He was in the neighborhood, so to speak. He hadn’t even intentionally moved into Kelly’s yard to poke around, it just… happened. That kind of thing was more common these days, his body moving before his mind caught up with what it was doing. One moment he was in the street, walking towards home, and the next he was in Kelly’s yard, poking around the perimeter of the pool house. Paranoia was funny like that; it steered the ship without him even realizing.

Zack’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, and Emilio blinked a little, turning towards the sound. “I don’t know what this word means. Trespass,” he said, drawing out the syllables as though they were unfamiliar to him. It was a lie, of course. He knew what trespassing was; he knew he was doing it. But he’d learned that you could get away with things sometimes if you pretended not to understand them. The language barrier that often left him confused could be used to his advantage occasionally, and he wouldn’t hesitate to jump at the chance to make it so, even if it was only getting him out of being scolded. “I’m not looking for you. I’m just looking. There’s a gap between the bushes and the windows, you know.” He nodded to it. “Someone could get in.”

—

Zack’s brow furrowed as he tried to determine whether Emilio was telling the truth. He didn’t want to offend his friend (Is that what he was? Could he still call them friends?) on the basis of his language skills. But he was also pretty sure that a private investigator would have learned the word trespass. Zack didn’t believe the other blatant lie, that Emilio was “just looking,” either. Of course Emilio had come here to try and dig up some dirt on Kelly. “Don’t do that, man. I’m not an idiot. I know you know what ‘trespass’ means, and I know you know that you’re doing it right now.” Even on the off-chance that Emilio didn’t know the word, he definitely knew he wasn’t allowed to hide in people’s bushes. 

The gap that Emilio pointed out didn’t look all that dangerous to Zack, but he still made a mental note of it. If it were really a problem, Kelly would take care of it. The guy definitely had some kind of security system on his property, even though Zack wasn’t aware of the finer points. He just hoped there weren’t any cameras, and if there were, he hoped they weren’t pointed at his corner. “I told you, you don’t need to worry about Kelly, or the house. Especially not with magic back online.” Zack could once again perform spells and protect himself. Sure, he wasn’t the most skilled spellcaster yet, but he was learning! And improving. And he didn’t actually believe that Kelly was a real threat.

This was all discounting the fact that Emilio had been avoiding Zack since he came back to Maine – one of the only conversations they had had was Emilio giving him shit for moving into the poolhouse. When Zack tried to express a similar kind of concern for Emilio sleeping with the worst people he could find, the other man hadn’t just told him he didn’t need to worry, he told Zack to fuck off in no uncertain terms.

“Look, I don’t get why you even care. You’ve basically been avoiding me since I came back. Which, whatever. You don’t have to be my friend. But you don’t get to do that and then…try and spy on the property I’m living on.” The more he spoke, the more righteous and angry he felt. “There’s a kid here, man. He’ll get scared if he sees some random man in the backyard. And if Kelly sees you, he’ll call the cops.”

—

The usual out didn’t work on Zack, probably because he knew Emilio decently well. He, at the very least, knew Emilio well enough to know that this was far from the first time he’d been accused of trespassing in English. Emilio only shrugged, unapologetic even though he knew he’d been caught. If pressed, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to tell Zack why he was trespassing. He knew Kelly was no threat to his friend (was Zack still his friend?), knew he didn’t really need to worry. And yet, the worry gnawed at him. It sunk its teeth deep into his chest, chewed at the meat of him. He wanted to take action, even if he didn’t know what action he wanted to take. He wanted to defend, even if there was nothing that needed defending. He wanted a purpose, but he’d lost it a long time ago.

“Magic is back online, but would you really use it to defend yourself?” He’d seen Zack set fire to vampires who’d posed a threat to himself and his friends, but he couldn’t fathom the man using the same abilities against someone he liked who betrayed him. He wasn’t even sure he could say with confidence that Zack would have used his abilities the same had it only been him threatened by those vampires, or if he’d been more in control of what he was doing. Zack, Emilio thought, wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to hurt anyone. He was a good person, and good people suffered in this town. Emilio had seen it.

He all but flinched when Zack said he didn’t know why Emilio would care about this, hand faltering where he was inspecting the leaves of the bush by the window. He had been avoiding Zack, sure, but only because he had been avoiding everyone. It had only gotten worse since his last encounter with Eve; he barely let anyone come over at all now, barely accepted visits from even the people he wanted to see. It was better this way, of course. It was better if Zack thought Emilio didn’t see him as a friend; it meant he’d steer clear, which meant he’d be safer.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt just a little.

“I know there’s a baby here,” he snapped, the words coming out far harsher than he meant for them to. His eyes darted to the main house, mind conjuring up a living room that didn’t belong between those four walls. “There’s too much space between the bush and the window,” he said again. “Someone could get in. That’s bad for the baby, too.” He looked back to Zack, scoffing a little. “He’s not going to call the cops. Just — I need to look around.”

—

Would he? It was a matter of fact that Zack hadn’t learned any offensive magic. He was sure it existed – after all, his early, accidental uses of his fire magic had been destructive. Surely there was magic that could mimic bullets, or sickness. Even the simple levitation that he had mastered with Rosemary could be used to toss a body around… He would ask the necromancer about it. Even if he knew it was something he never wanted to wield, it couldn’t hurt to be educated. Especially if he ever had to defend himself against such an attack. “I would use it to protect myself,” he clarified, feeling like an asshole for the distinction. But it was a real one. A spell, or enchanted item, to keep himself and Kelly and Flip safe, that felt more in the realm of Zack’s wheelhouse.

But speaking of defensive, Zack suddenly got it. Unwarranted, as Emilio hadn’t questioned his magical prowess but he still felt the need to tell him, “I’ve been getting a lot better with it. Magic. A friend who really knows her stuff has been helping me. There was a whole world that I didn’t know before, but I’m learning.” If his first foray in Maine had been defined by learning and coming to terms with what he was, this second was all about coming fully into his own as a spellcaster. Learning the things he didn’t even know existed for him not to know. At any rate, he was confident enough in his abilities that he thought he could handle a protection charm around the house, or at least the doors and windows, something he could handle.

Emilio’s retort had Zack reeling back, both hurt and confused. “How do you know that?” Maybe this wasn’t the first time he had come to observe around Kelly’s house. Maybe he had seen one of them leaving or returning with Flip in tow. …Or maybe Zack had mentioned it in one of their conversations online. That was more likely. Incredibly likely, actually, and something he should work on. It was probably fine, but there was a chance Kelly didn’t want every random person Zack conversed with to know that he had a toddler around. 

Again, Zack tried to appraise the area that Emilio had drawn attention to, tried to see the issue that he saw. Staying with Kelly was the first time he was living in a proper house with land and bushes, since he left home in Virginia – and he had only been a stupid teenager then. He wouldn’t know what he was looking for, if it were really there. “Okay. I’ll let Kelly know. He’ll take care of it.” That much was true. One of the first things Zack had learned about his landlord roommate friend was that he would do anything to keep Flip happy and safe. If that meant digging up and replanting a bush? No problem.

“He absolutely will. He doesn’t mess around about safety. And what do you even mean you need to look around? Why? I just told you, I’m fine on my own. Between Kelly and me, we can keep this place protected.” Zack did doubt that Kelly was an entirely unwitting human (not that he was going to tell Emilio that), but even if he were, Zack knew enough to know what to be on the look out for.

“We don’t need your help. We don’t need you.” It felt too harsh when the words were gathering on his tongue, and it felt too harsh once they had landed between them, but Zack couldn’t stop himself. Emilio had apparently hurt him enough to warrant him lashing out. 

— 

Emilio shot Zack a dubious look, uncertain as to whether or not he believed Zack. The spellcaster was capable enough — Emilio had seen that when the guy had been burning up vampires, even if he himself had been half-panicked at the time — but he was soft. He was the kind of person who didn’t like hurting people, the kind of person who looked at the world and mapped out a path where he could do the least amount of damage possible. There might have been a time, back in his youth, when Emilio would have considered this a bad thing. When he was still trying to impress his mother at every turn, when her approval had meant so much more to him than his own life, soft was the worst thing a person could be. The word had been hurled at him like a sharpened knife, had dug into his skin. Even now, he’d flinch if someone threw it in his direction. But… he didn’t think it was such a bad thing when it was about Zack. Like with most things, Emilio was more than capable of seeing the term as something decent so long as it was about someone else. 

In this case, though, it meant that Zack needed someone who would do the dirty work. If he couldn’t use magic to defend — or protect, as he said — himself without feeling badly about it later, Emilio would make sure he didn’t have to. He would make sure the windows were secure, make sure the locks held up under scrutiny, make sure Zack wasn’t put in the position where he needed to do something that would haunt him. Make sure Kelly didn’t have to, either, make sure Flip got to grow up. And give himself something to do, too. Emilio was at his most content when he was of use to someone. He thought he could be of use here, even if his help wasn’t necessarily wanted. 

“I know you’re learning,” he said, softening just a little. “That’s not — I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, a little frustrated. He rubbed at the back of his neck, failing (as he frequently tended to do) to find the right words to communicate what he really meant. Zack was physically capable, sure. He had magic, and he was learning how to use it properly. But he shouldn’t have to use it in ways that would haunt him later. Emilio didn’t want him to look as he’d looked in that barn — haunted and terrified. If he were better at any of this, better at being a person, he’d have found a way to say that. As it was, he just stood awkwardly, balancing his weight on his good leg and not meeting the spellcaster’s eyes.

He shifted a little when Zack questioned how he knew that a kid lived here, uncertain whether or not he should admit his own connection to Kelly. Deciding it was better not to muddy the waters, he replied, “You told me,” which he thought was true, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. He was pretty sure he remembered Zack mentioning that the person he was living with had a child, though at the time Emilio hadn’t known Kelly well enough for that to be a thing that soothed him. (Bad people could have children, too, could love them. Emilio figured he was proof enough of that.) 

Of course, now that he knew Kelly, he was a little satiated by the idea of the ranger being informed of the issue with the bushes. Kelly could more than take care of himself, and could probably take care of Zack, too. But Emilio had been a capable hunter, too. So had Rosa, and Edgar, and their mother. And they all died, anyway. Flora and Jaime both died anyway, and Juliana. Being capable didn’t mean you were impervious to attack. It didn’t mean you were invincible, didn’t mean no one could come into your house and slaughter your children in the living room. Anxiety crawled beneath his skin like ants, whispering with the utmost certainty that if he did not ensure the perimeter was safe, something terrible would breach it. 

“I just… need to look around,” he mumbled, well aware that repeating the same thing offered no real explanation. But what explanation could he give? He couldn’t explain to Zack the way his palms itched with something he couldn’t name, couldn’t put to words the quiet desire to ensure that nothing could go wrong. He couldn’t even explain it to himself, and there was so much about Emilio that Zack still didn’t know. He knew nothing of Flora, whose father hadn’t ‘messed around on safety’ either, but who had still died on the floor of her own home, just a room away from the one she’d been born in. Zack didn’t know of Emilio’s own death, either, didn’t know that the moment he’d started feeling safe again, the world had reminded him that he wasn’t. 

Zack’s voice pulled Emilio from his thoughts, and he found himself flinching at the harshness of the words. We don’t need you. For a moment, Emilio stood stock-still, taut as a rubber band about to snap. He held his breath, waited for his lungs to burn even though he knew they wouldn’t. Then, his finger twitched, and his eyes darted down as if a spell had been broken. “I need to check the other window,” he said abruptly, moving past Zack as if he’d said nothing at all.

—

Emilio hadn’t meant it like that, as a slight against his own magic ability. But Zack had taken it like that. He knew that was his own stuff crowded in on what Emilio had actually said. It wasn’t fair to leap to being defensive quite so quickly as Zack had. Clearly he hadn’t yet worked through the years he spent not understanding what was happening to him, inside him. There were still the scars, somewhere, of what had happened the last time in Wicked’s Rest when he would wake up from nightmares with smoke already rising.

“Well. I am. I’m learning and I’m getting pretty good at it.” He didn’t offer the information that Rosemary had even started asking for his help for certain spells and things. Only because, really, her specialty was so niche that sometimes the more basic magic tripped her up when she was used to bringing people back from the dead and all that. But it was still a mark toward how much Zack had improved. What he was able to do. He could help those around him, his magic could be something more than just a liability. “So I could protect us all with it, if it came to that.” (Could you? something inside Zack whispered. Would he ever be able to trust himself and his magic enough to be able to try? What if he was overconfident and wrong? What if he hurt Kelly, or Flip?)

Zack had mentioned Flip to Emilio, which he was regretting. Not because of Emilio, not really, but more the general fear of being too free with information about someone else. He trusted Emilio but that wouldn’t mean anything to Kelly, he didn’t think. If there was one thing Kelly took deadly seriously it was Flip’s safety. Something like guilt pooled through Zack’s veins and he resolved to be much more careful about how he spoke about Kelly and Flip. 

“Tell me why,” Zack demanded when Emilio wouldn’t offer any further explanation. An edge of anxiety worked its way into Zack’s chest as he worried about what the other man might know. Why was he suddenly preoccupied with the safety of this house – this house that was secluded and secured and had two grown adult men living on the premises. Why wasn’t that enough for Emilio? Did he know about some danger, some possible threat, that Zack didn’t know about? “Is something going on? Or is something going to happen?” 

His mind went to those surges that had ravaged the town a few months back. Hours at a time of magic blanking out and fae, shifters, and undead running rampant. Kelly had only been in town for one of those, Zack thought, and while it was the worst one (twenty-four full hours of whatever the hell had happened, happening) there hadn’t been another since. And they fixed magic. They fixed it all, all their friends and everyone in town was supposed to be safe now. But Emilio was here, checking windows, so maybe there was something else looming around the corner.

“You have to tell me,” he pressed, getting in Emilio’s path to block him again. “If something is going to happen, you have to tell me.”

—

He’d never been very good at explaining himself. Even in Spanish, he struggled to find the right words to communicate the things that went on inside his head. It was as if the proper terms were things no one had ever thought to invent, as if whatever was wrong with Emilio was so wholly unique that whoever came up with language hadn’t thought it necessary to set aside things to describe what caught him by the throat and hung him out to dry on a daily basis. He couldn’t tell Zack what he meant; he couldn’t even explain it to himself, couldn’t even phrase it as something that made sense to him, and he was the one who felt it. Language failed him, because it always did. The failure set off a chain reaction, because it always did. He said the wrong thing, Zack took it the wrong way, and the sound of the dominoes falling against one another was so loud that it was hard to make out anything else.

Frustration built in his gut, clawing its way to the empty spot in his chest as if it meant to replace the heart he’d lost. “Could is not the same as would,” he said. “And I want — I don’t want you to have to — It isn’t…” He trailed off, grunting out some of that quiet frustration. He didn’t want Zack to have to hurt anyone. He didn’t want Zack to look down at his hands and see them stained with red. He didn’t want Kelly to know what it was to see your kid crumpled against the wall of the living room, didn’t want Flip to experience the horror of seeing what someone who loved you might do to keep you safe. But he couldn’t put any of that to words, and he wouldn’t have even if he could. He didn’t know if his knowing Kelly was meant to be a secret, didn’t know if Kelly wanted Zack to be aware of it or not. He definitely didn’t want to say anything that might allow the spellcaster to gather that Kelly was a ranger, though he knew Zack could be trusted with the information if Kelly chose to share it. But it ought to be Kelly’s choice. Absently, Emilio rubbed at his chest. He knew all too well what it was to have that particular choice — the one you got to make about who knew what you were — taken away.

Of course, Zack would not accept the half truths that were the only thing Emilio knew how to offer. He demanded more of an explanation, blocked Emilio’s path in a way that would have made his heart stutter and pound if he’d still had one, if it still beat at all. He felt something cold at the back of his neck, some primal dread. His mind screamed about danger that didn’t exist, warned him of threats that were not there. He grit his teeth against it, tried to push it away. But Zack asked again, demanded again, and the dread grew teeth that sunk into his spine.

“Something always happens!” He snapped, louder than he meant to be. “There is always something going on! You are sitting in your house, or in someone else’s house, and you think things are fine, and then it’s — It isn’t safe. Maybe things are fixed right now, in the town, but this means nothing. It means nothing, Zack. Even when things are good, something can happen. There is too much room between the bush and the window and someone could get in, and — and then what? You kill them? What’s that do to you? Or — or they come in, and you’re in the other room grabbing something, and the kid — There’s a kid here. And someone could get in, and get to her in the fucking living room, and…” He trailed off, reaching up to push his hair back in quiet frustration. If he noticed his slip-up — her instead of him, the wrong kid stuck forever in the forefront of his mind — he made no indication of it. Instead, he put a careful hand on Zack’s shoulder, moving him gently out of his path. “I need to check the other window,” he repeated again, a hint of urgency in his tone. “The door, maybe. The roof. The main house, too.”

—

“What’s that supposed to mean?” That Zack wouldn’t use his powers to protect himself, and Kelly and Flip. Why wouldn’t he? Where did Emilio even get off making those kinds of assumptions about him? He had only seen him use his magic once, in that awful firestorm at the barn. He had no idea all that Zack had been doing since coming back to Wicked’s Rest, and before that even. That was the whole point of Zack’s objection, wasn’t it? Emilio didn’t have any claim to who Zack was or where he lived or how he did or didn’t protect himself. He had lost that right in the moment he shoved him away in that dive bar. “You don’t even know what I’m capable of doing. You don’t know.” 

He could weave a protection spell around this house. Zack was sure of it. It would take some more studying, some practice, help from Rosemary, sure. But he was confident that he could get there. And there was no reason why he wouldn’t, if he could. He wanted to protect himself, and Kelly and Flip. He wanted, desperately, for his magic to be something good. To be something other than that destructive force it had always been, swirling in his chest, since he was a teenager. Emilio didn’t want him to have to defend himself but he didn’t understand that it wasn’t a burden to be able to do so. 

Emilio had always been able to protect himself. He wouldn’t understand.

The outburst was unexpected, though maybe it shouldn’t have been. He had been prone to anger with Zack since his return. Why would this encounter be any different? “That’s why I want to get a protection spell, okay? Because then I don’t have to worry about accounting for every possible thing that could happen. It’ll just…protect all of us inside.” Then it wouldn’t matter how far the bushes were from the windows or whether a stray vampire came looking for blood. His magic would keep them safe. 

But, as Emilio went on, Zack realized this wasn’t exactly about the layout of the landscaping. “Him,” he corrected, gently. This wasn’t about Zack, then. It wasn’t about Zack or Kelly or Flip or the shifts in magic or maybe anything that made Wicked’s Rest its own special kind of danger. This wasn’t about Zack’s ability to protect himself, but rather Emilio’s frantic need to protect everyone around him lest something happened and it would be his fault. He still held a deep well of guilt for all that had happened in that barn, for the fact that he hadn’t saved them all sooner. 

“Okay,” Zack soothed, letting Emilio move him. “Okay. We can check the windows and the doors. I don’t know if we can get on the roof but. Whatever we can reach, we can check. Okay?” If that’s what would calm his friend, make him feel better, then okay. Zack would help him through the inspection.

—

“You don’t want to hurt anyone,” Emilio replied, and he thought it was true. Zack was capable of hurting people, sure. Emilio had seen it, had watched fire eat through dead flesh and turn vampires into ash in the barn, had smelled the smoke that rose up after. Zack was plenty capable, but there was a difference, wasn’t there? There was a line between what a person was capable of doing and what they could live with after. Zack left town just after Emilio pulled him out of that basement, the smell of smoke and burnt flesh wafting behind him as he did so. Something like that left a mark on you, beat into you until it reshaped who and what you were. Zack could take care of himself. That didn’t mean he should have had to, didn’t mean he should have been expected to. 

It was what Emilio was for, wasn’t it? His uncle told him once that hunters were a line of defense not just to protect humans from harm, but to prevent them from having to do things that they may not have been able to live with. To a slayer, it was obvious that something dead and walking needed to be put down like a rabid dog. But to a human who had not been raised the same way? The monster with the still heart and gnashing teeth was their mother, their brother, their friend. Killing a thing that wore the face of someone you’d once loved could ruin a person; killing something that your brain insisted must have been human even when you knew they weren’t could do just the same. It was a hunter’s job, in part, to make sure it never came to that, to bear the weight so that they didn’t have to. And Emilio wasn’t a hunter anymore, but couldn’t he be good for that, still? Couldn’t he be good for something? 

Maybe not. Zack was offended, or upset, or… something. It was hard, sometimes, for Emilio to parse out what emotion came with a certain tone of voice, hard for him to figure out the real meaning behind the words. He’d snapped at Zack, and it didn’t matter much that he hadn’t meant to do it, didn’t matter much that his intention hadn’t been to raise his voice. At the end of the day, what you did was always going to mean more than what you meant to do, and Emilio had snapped and raised his voice. He let out a brittle laugh, as close to breaking as Emilio himself. “And if magic fails again?” He questioned, gesturing to the bush as though it said all that needed saying. He knew it was stupid. He knew there was no real logic behind it, knew that he was being… something. He didn’t have a word for it. He didn’t have a word for most things, these days.

Something in Zack’s face softened, and Emilio didn’t quite know why until he spoke. Him. Right. Flip. Kelly’s kid, not Emilio’s. Flip, not Flora. Emilio shoved his hands into his pocket to hide the fact that they were trembling, let his left thumb find the wedding band that made his whole arm feel heavy these days the same way a parent might let their child cling to their pantleg in a situation that was unfamiliar. “Him,” he agreed quietly. Zack didn’t know, of course. Emilio didn’t speak about it often, so how could he? You could hardly expect someone to know something they’d never heard aloud, and he’d never hold it against Zack. Even so, Zack was gentle. Even so, he changed his tune. Something in Emilio’s chest ached; he tried to ignore it.

“Okay,” he breathed, letting go of a breath he’d been holding without realizing it. “We need… The windows. We need to check all the windows. And the locks on the doors. The main house, too. And — the balcony. They could get in through the balcony, you know. Some of them — they can fly, or they have things that can fly, so you can’t — even high up.” Vampires couldn’t get in without an invite, but they were sneaky little shits. Emilio knew that. It hurt, how well Emilio knew that. “Can you — which window is for your bedroom? We need to check that one.”

—

When he first returned to town, Emilio was one of the first people Zack had sought out. He was easy to find, still in the same office/apartment in Worm Row, in the building where he himself had once lived. What had struck Zack most about that encounter had been how much worse Emilio looked than he remembered. Worse in physical state, worse emotionally, drained in a way that Zack couldn’t put into words. All his friends, so far, had gotten a portrait done but he hadn’t even been able to start on one for Emilio. 

Not because his friend didn’t deserve it, not even just because he looked bad. But because it would mean looking directly into that hurt and doing nothing for it. Which was as good as causing more hurt, wasn’t it? Emilio was right, after all: Zack didn’t want to hurt anyone. He had tried to help as much as he could. Even when all he got in return was a turned back, a cold shoulder, worse. 

But here, with this, seemed like something else Zack could do to help.

“Okay.” Emilio seemed to be calmed by the list, which helped calm Zack down some. “Windows, doors, balcony, got it. What are we looking for exactly? Distance of the bushes and stuff, I guess, for one. Right?” He wanted to keep Emilio calm, because whatever had moved through his friend before, whoever he had been thinking of when he said her, obviously hurt. And he didn’t want Emilio to hurt. Not even if he was mad about the avoiding and the fighting and the showing up unannounced. No matter what came to pass between them, or didn’t come to pass, he didn’t want Emilio to hurt. “Checking the locks on the door. There’s salt inside, would that help?” He remembered, vaguely, that Emilio had said something about a salt circle. It had seemed more trouble than it was worth, but if it could give them something to do, something tangible they could create so Emilio could see that he had done something…

“Oh, I’m–” Zack swung around, back to the main house and pointed out the poolhouse. “I’m in the poolhouse over there.” Only a dozen or so yards set back from the main house, enough to give him privacy without actually feeling like a separate property. “But let’s get the big house squared away first. That’s where Flip is, that’s the most important.” 

—

“Locks,” he mumbled, fingers twitching absently as if looking for the hilt of a knife to wrap themselves around. “The kind that are harder to pick. And… we should check the panes, make sure they’re not weak around the edges.” Of course, none of this had been done at Emilio’s apartment. The lock on his door had been broken for years now, swinging back open just a little any time you shut it too hard. His windows were cracked, small lines that had been hard to see at first but had grown over time. The latch on the one by the fire escape was broken, too. If anyone were to try to break into Emilio’s apartment, they’d find it easy to do so. 

But there was nothing in Emilio’s apartment worth protecting.

His apartment was not like this house, which was full of life. There were no children there, no well-intentioned people who didn’t want to hurt anyone, no beating hearts. To put effort into protecting Emilio’s apartment in this way would be like putting a bank vault around a mausoleum. It was far too much effort to expend to protect a corpse. 

(He thought of Eve leaving him in that alley, of Ishan scoffing at the fact that he was still upset by talons pulling his heart from his chest, of the siren that pushed him into a pit full of bodies over and over and over again just to break up the monotony of her day. People might frown at the idea of desecrating a corpse, but no one in their right mind would be as horrified by that as they would be by someone hurting a living person in the same way. Had his heart still beat, Eve leaving him in that alley would have been a terrible thing. Ishan ripping into his chest would have been murder. The siren pushing him in that pit would have been horrifying to anyone who heard about it. But what would anyone care about doing those things to someone when the life had already left them? He was dead. He was dead already. It didn’t matter if his lock was broken.) 

He looked back to Zack at the mention of salt, nodding quickly. “Yeah,” he breathed, quiet relief clinging desperately to his tone. “Yeah. We should put some around the beds. Salt the doors and windows, too. Especially the bedrooms. Especially anywhere anyone might sleep.” He’d like to think no mare would target a toddler, but he’d seen supernaturals target young hunters enough times to know it certainly happened. His own daughter had been just a few years older than Flip was now, and it had mattered nothing to the vampires that killed her. Flora was a hunter; Flip was one, too. That was what people saw first, sometimes. “Big house first,” he agreed. “But we need to do yours, too. It’s probably less secure.” Kelly was a hunter, which meant he had security in mind in some areas, but how much did he think about his pool house? Before Zack had moved in, Emilio would wager that no one had exactly been sleeping in it. Better to make sure nothing was missed.

For a moment, Emilio faltered. He brought a hand up to push his hair away from his face, let out a shaky sigh. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry. I know I’m — You think I’m acting crazy. Probably am. I just…” He trailed off, fingers twitching at his side once again. “There’s a kid. Second set of eyes can’t hurt. Or… third set, I guess.” Kelly had likely secured his house already; Zack had probably at least done a brief follow up of it. But there was that nagging feeling, that uncomfortable question: what if they’d missed something? There had been two grown hunters living in Emilio’s house in Mexico, four more who were in and out of it frequently. It hadn’t mattered, in the end. However good Kelly’s security was, it could still be better. It still needed to be better.

—

Zack kept up his attentive nod, even though he was sure he would have no idea how to tell whether the locks on the house were the safer ones, according to Emilio. Let alone if the windows were secure. But Emilio would, obviously. Zack could just be there, by his side, to ferry Emilio through this misdirected panic. If they ended up making Kelly’s home a little safer, great. If they discovered that it was more or less impenetrable already, even better. Misdirected though it clearly was, Zack did appreciate the effort to keep them all safe. 

Hell if Zack knew how he was going to get salt circles around Flip’s crib and Kelly’s bed without anyone noticing, but they could cross that bridge when they came to it. Maybe he could somehow convince Kelly that it was some kind of family tradition that he was superstitious about. That would be sure to get a raised eyebrow but maybe not a second look. “Right,” he agreed as Emilio explained further. “For ghosts, and mares.” He remembered, now, the explanation that had been given. He should definitely get a salt circle around his own bed, if nowhere else. Just to be sure that ghost that had hopped into him for a little bit couldn’t make a reappearance. 

“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Maybe a little paranoid. But in a town like Wicked’s Rest, could extra security really do any harm? “I just didn’t understand. And you’re right. There’s a kid. We should do everything we can to make sure Flip stays safe.” As much as he had pleaded his case to Emilio, that wasn’t actually something Zack could confidently do with his magic. Carefully, telegraphing the movement so Emilio wouldn’t be caught off-guard, he laid his hand to his shoulder. “Come on. You can show me what to look for.”

—

Zack remembered, about the ghosts and the mares and Emilio nodded with something almost like desperation. Knowing what went bump in the night would not save him any more than it had saved Flora. Hell, Juliana had been an accomplished hunter in her own right, capable of taking down beasts far more imposing than the vampires who had overwhelmed and killed her in the living room of her own goddamn home, and she had not been spared, either. But knowing meant Zack could protect himself, at least a little. Living with Kelly meant he’d have a little extra protection, a ranger watching his back whether he knew it or not. And to Emilio, that offered some reassurance. To Emilio, that was better than nothing.

Then, Zack said I don’t think you’re crazy, and the relief deepened even as some part of Emilio wanted to laugh with the ridiculousness of the statement. Zack didn’t think he was crazy, even though Emilio was pretty sure he was. Something inside of him had snapped a long time ago, then shattered into a fine powder that could never dream of being pieced back together again, then had its pieces scattered to the winds. There was something deeply broken inside of him, and he knew it. 

But he still had to check the locks.

He still had to make sure the bushes were close enough to the windows to avoid leaving any gaps. He still had to check the roof for entry points, check the windows for weaknesses. There was a kid, and it wasn’t his, because his kid was dead. There was a kid with a hunter for a father, and Emilio could not repair the thing that had broken inside of him but maybe he could keep the same thing from breaking inside of Kelly, or Zack. Maybe that was the best he could really hope for.

“Yeah,” he breathed, the exhale quietly unnecessary as it left his dead lungs. “Yeah. I’ll show you what to look for.”