Page 102 of Wickedly Ever After
“Hari will help me, Tinbit. You take care of Hector’s needs, not mine.”
“I’d say you’ve already taken care of Hector’sneeds.”
“That’s uncalled for,” Hector said, standing.
“Yeah, remember who I’m talking to,” Tinbit scoffed.
“Yeah,” Hari said quietly. “Remember who you’re talking to. That’smyWitch.”
Tinbit rounded on him. “She’s been trying to keep you away from me. You know that!”
“Ida has nothing to do with it!I’vebeen trying to keep me away from you, and it’s been the hardest thing of my life to do!Now, I’m thinking it might have been worth the effort.”
Tinbit went white under his brown. “Hari, you don’t mean that.”
Hari squared up to Tinbit. “Back at the castle, you asked me to leave her for you! Up until now, I wanted to. But now I see how you really are. If I’m not exactly who you want or need when you expect it, you’ll do to me what you do to Hector and Ida. Mock me. Hold me to standards I can’t possibly meet. They can’t help being in love! It’s the damned Happily-Ever-After spell.”
Tinbit visibly shrank with every word, cringing under them. “Hari, that’s not true. I’m only angry because they tried to keep us apart—because they didn’t want us to love each other.”
“I’m going to feed the pony,” Hari said. “And when this is over, I’m going home with Ida. Find some other gnome to dress up and play doll with. I’m not your toy.”
He turned on his heel and stomped out.
“Hari—” Tinbit’s wild plea came out as a gasp. He bolted out the door.
Ida glanced at Hector, shakily pulling on his robe.
“I need to get to him before he does something foolish,” Hector said. “Keep Hari with you. Tell him not to go after Tinbit.”
“What’s going on?”
“A crisis of necomancy.” Without explaining further, he left the room.
47
Hector
Necomancy remains the staple magic of the wicked witch for a number of reasons. First, the position means one generally has a surplus of dead bodies. Secondly, dragons don’t cremate for free anymore. Thirdly, there are times in an immortal man’s life when saying goodbye is too painful.
A Thousand Years of Wickedness: A Memoir
Hector West
As skilled as he was, Hector knew his limits, less determined by the spell than the person involved. He had known Tinbit since he was a gnomelet. Whenever someone rejected him, he catastrophized. Nobody loved him. Nobody cared for him. Nobody wanted him. Hector did everything in his power to manage the bouts of depression following every failed love affair, but he’d never been able to do anything about the anger beneath it all. Some wounds were too deep, even for a great witch to fix.
“Tinbit!” he called out into the darkness. “Tinbit, where are you?”
Silence.
Tinbit had a strong sense of devotion, but Hector had nevertested it like this. He shouldn’t have done it. He should’ve held back with Ida, should’ve conquered his desire. If Tinbit left him, there’dbenothing left.
“Tinbit?”
A sudden crash of a rock over a ledge startled him. He followed the sound.
The gnome sat on the edge of a precipice, legs hanging over the side. As Hector approached, Tinbit picked up a rock and hurled it. “Leave me alone.”
“You know I won’t do that. I never could.”
