Page 8 of Demon's Bane

“You will regain your standing with the coven,” Esme says. “Your debts will be forgiven.”

Another tense silence falls between the two witches, and I tuck the bit of information away to examine later.

If it’s to be believed, that Joan seems not to currently share close ties with the Crescent Coven is… good. I think. If anything, it will be one less knot to untangle as the two of us figure out…

I make myself abandon the thought.

I’m here for reasons far greater than my own selfish wants and desires. I lived that way for long enough, and if I am to be anywhere near deserving of the blessing of having found my mate, the very least I can do is remember what it is I came here for.

“Ten years.” Joan’s quiet demand falls into the silence of the tea shop. “That’s what I get. Ten years of dues and duties excused, in addition to the debts.”

From the hardening of Esme’s expression, it’s clear she’s not happy with Joan’s bargain. “If you get Seren to help us, we can discuss terms of your responsibilities with the coven—”

“I’lltalkto her,” Joan emphasizes. “And if she has no interest in helping, I still get the same deal. Ten years. No dues. No duties.”

Esme sucks in a sharp breath. “That is out of the question. What you’re demanding is—”

“Good luck finding her, then,” Joan says, pushing back abruptly from the table and starting to rise. “Have fun chasing her down for the next decade instead of—”

“Fine.”

Joan pauses mid-way through standing, mouth falling open in surprise for a couple of seconds before she catches herself and sits back down.

“Fine,” she echoes. “We have a deal?”

“Not quite,” I interject, and find myself under the scrutiny of both witches’ stares. “I need to be informed as soon as we find this Seren. I need to be able to speak with her as well.”

Joan nods slowly. “Sure. Esme, I still have my quill. I can use it to contact you when I speak to Seren, and we can arrange—”

“That’s unnecessary,” I cut in, suspicion roiling in my gut. “Esme must have explained to you before I arrived what my own terms are in all of this, what she assured me you’d be able to facilitate.”

Another dark glance from my mate to the High Priestess. “No. We didn’t get that far before you arrived.”

“I’ll be staying here.”

“Here,” Joan repeats, slowly, like I’ve said some nonsense to her. “As in, the human realm?”

“As in, here. This village. This shop. Esme informed me you keep a residence on the story above, so I’ll be staying here until we speak to Seren.”

The words are a mistake.

As soon as Joan grasps their full meaning, she shakes her head emphatically and puts her hands up in front of her like she’s warding off a predator.

“Nope. Absolutely not. I don’t know what Esme implied, but I’m not about to let some stranger move in with me.”

“We can put wards in place, of course,” Esme says, and the faint stirrings of desperation in the assurance drive home how urgently she wants to have this settled, to keep her access to the lapilian crystals her coven’s come to covet so fiercely. “Protections to ensure he cannot harm you or your property.”

It’s an insult, one I don’t want to let slide. To insinuate I’d be capable of hurting Joan or anything she holds dear kicks up another wave of undeniable instinct that makes me want to snarl my displeasure at the High Priestess.

But with this tentative agreement disintegrating by the second, I hold my tongue.

“I couldn't give a damn about your wards,” Joan says. “Why on earth would I let a complete stranger invade my life?”

Why, indeed.

A stranger. That’s all I am to her, all she sees when she looks at me.

And isn’t that what she is to me as well?

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