What the cat dragged in

[Lalitha Vero]

For a moment she wondered if the simple question had broken him. He looked down at her hand like it was a viper. Fortunately Litha was not one for self-consciousness, so she only waited for him to shift and mumble and finally place the pendant in her palm. His attention had moved by then, somewhere off in the darkness, but she’d already bowed over the object. It was the sigil she had wanted to inspect, and she ran her thumb nail delicately over its ridges. The idea of a talisman pleased her inordinately, and she neither knew or questioned why. It was definitely ugly, but the fact it was bound by offerings most would discard as trash made her smile to herself anyway. That was down to the pleasant haze of the alcohol, she assumed, as well as the things Sámi had said about ancient witches and worship still floating around inside her skull.

And, well, if the luck was real, all the better.

She closed it safely in her hand and popped to her feet. The world swam just a little bit at the edges as she did, but not much. She was definitely cold now. Lalitha remembered Marek as the mute child he had been when they were young, though he wasn’t exactly small any longer, a fact she noticed in that very moment given how much taller he towered than her. But she still saw him like that: Sámiel’s baby brother. A little bit odd. A boy who haunted the fringes.

“I like it,” she said simply, without any embellishment. He looked like he was waiting for the earth to swallow him up. Her smile was easy anyway. “Thank you, Marek,” she said, and squeezed his arm as she went to pass.