Page 41 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
I don’t answer. Just stand there like a man still pretending he’s a ghost, or a ghost pretending he’s still a man.
She slams the pestle down a little too hard.
“What do you want, Elias?”
“Where’s Sienna?”
“Out. With Lyle. Checking the tunnel again.”
My jaw tightens. “Alone?”
“She’s got backup charms. Wards. Me.”
“That’s not the same.”
Mira rounds on me, braid swinging like a blade. “No, it’s not. BecauseIdon’t make her wake up screaming.”
The words hit harder than they should. Not because they’re wrong. But because they’re not.
“She said the dreams are worse,” she continues, stalking toward me with fury in every step. “The more time you spend near her, the more human you get—and the moreshebleeds it out.”
“She’s fine,” I growl.
“She’sdeteriorating,Elias.”
“She hasn’t said that.”
“Because she doesn’t want you to leave!”
Her voice breaks at the end, and that’s when I see it.
The fear.
Not just for Sienna.
Of me.
“I’m not feeding off her,” I say, voice low. “I didn’t choose this.”
“But you’re not fighting it either.” Mira crosses her arms, keeping herself between me and everything fragile in the room. “Every time she touches you, your shape holds longer. Your shadow sticks. Your voice doesn’t echo. And youlikeit.”
“I never asked to be real again.”
“But youwantit.”
That silences me.
Because gods help me, she’s right.
I want the weight of footsteps. The ache in my joints. I want firelight and the thrum of a heartbeat and the way Sienna’s laugh stumbles when she’s caught off-guard. I want all of it.
Even if it means bleeding her dry.
Mira sees the guilt on my face and softens—just barely.
“She’s burning at both ends,” she says quietly. “Fighting your curse and her own grief like she can outrun it. But if this relic is drawing from her—if itchoseher as the tether—it won’t stop. It’ll drain her. And you’ll get more human every time she breaks.”
“I wouldn’t let it,” I whisper.
