The Demon in the Pastry Shop

67: Talkative Pen

Jude ushered Kit and Silus through the living house as it huffed its way to sleep and climbed back through the window over the kitchen sink where he first reentered. Despite his cracks and the dust falling from them, Silus insisted on giving him a boost and Kit as well. Once she dropped down to the deck on the other side, it was as if she dropped into another world. There were no string lights to illuminate the night which left the dry, peachy wooden planks blotted out by inky darkness at its edges and though Kit could picture easily the landscape that lay beyond, in that moment it felt as though there was nothing beyond.

She approached the Ace of Mistakes. Jude slid his uninjured hand underneath the ginger cat's frail frame and pulled him close to rest his head on his lap. He petted the fur between his ears in a way both respectful and tenderhearted. Kit wiped a tear away as Silus came to sit with them. Kit pulled out her notepad -she found it when she grabbed her red shoes from the backdoor. She wrote, pressing the pen harder enough into the paper to dent it.

Jude sighed, "we have to save—"

"We need to find someone to reverse the spell on Petra and Chloe," Silus clumsily deposited his words over Jude's. Jude glanced at Silus and drew his eyebrows together.

Kit finished writing her message in perfect time, handing it to Jude, "Silus can't hear anything."

"Oh," Jude nodded, moving to put the paper away but paused and turned it so Silus would know that he knew. Silus eyed the messaged as if he was surprised at the information, but his snakes relaxed and he nodded.

Then, glancing at Kit's writing hand and Jude's mouth first so as not to overlap them, Silus said, "I need to see Eltikan, my sculptor to fill in my cracks but we should take care of Petra and Chloe and Ravitavah first. I don't know who has magic to-"

Kit tapped him on the shoulder and he stopped talking. She pointed to her notepad and scribbled down, "the Ace of Wishes will help."

She didn't know that certainly, but if anyone knew how to save Ravitavah it must be his brother. And if not him, then Mavah must know someone who could. Or maybe she might be worthy of a wish this time around and she might wish for Ravitavah to be saved and her mothers' curse undone.

"I'll take them to the Hollow Realm," Silus rose to his feet. He looked tattered -a statue abandoned and abused in the ruins of some castle. "Remis will take Lovell back to the Collector. He won't come back for you. Stay outside until the house calms down and you'll be safe."

He picked Ravitavah up from Jude's lap and strode for the quilt. Kit jumped up from her spot and got in front of him, shaking her head. She took her pen to the page.

"Together," she told him, holding the book up to the light spilling from the kitchen window so he could better read.

"If Remis wanted to take you to the Collector, he wouldn't have left with his coworker and Lovell in tow. The Collector will forget about you without Lovell's personal vendetta against you and me. And once Lovell is taken off the island, his spell will wear off, the house will be yours again. Staying here is safer than Realm Hopping and both you and Jude have been through a lot," he said, occasionally pausing and peering off into the distance and shifting his tongue around his mouth. Kit thought he was checking to see if he was really saying anything at all. His eyes searched her like he wasn't sure the words were intelligible.

He was being too body-guardly. He was doing his best to protect them and take care of them. It was moving, but more moving was the warmth and affection in Kit's heart.

"I want to go with you," she wrote and held up next to her face like subtitles she'd seen in a movie theatre before. Once his eyes swept over the phrase, she flipped back to the previous page and pointed at, "together" before motioning her hand to the three of them.

"I'll have your mothers escorted back to the island while I go to Elkitan. You won't have to worry about anything, you can rest and you and Jude can take care of each other," he answered, pulling the quilt under his arm. He sidestepped her and she whirled around to grab his shirt.

He paused enough for her to rush in front of him again and write, "what about your first heart???"

Silus sort of flushed when he read that and his snakes did a sort of swooping sigh over his forehead. He swallowed and told her, "I... don't need it anymore."

Kit squinted at him and tilted her head. When had he decided that? After she tried to tell him so on the couch before they went to sleep?

"Do you think I'm not coming back?" Silus asked her quietly. For a moment, Kit wondered if he meant for her to hear it. Her notepad lowered as her arms softened. She blinked a few times and then she went to respond before she knew what to write.

The tip of the pen hesitated as Kit stared down at it. Over the edge of the paper, she spied Silus set the quilt to the side and lay Ravitavah down with his head against the blanket. He brought his fingers under her chin until they had each other's attention and then he dropped his hand by his side.

"These cracks aren't like wounds," he explained, "they hurt and they need to be filled, but I'm in good enough shape. This is no gunshot wound and it won't kill me."

Kit's bottom lip trembled and her eyes grew large and starved. She threw her arms around Silus' neck and hid her face in his shoulder. Slowly, he allowed his arms to circle her.

So, he had known. About how she feared his body dying beneath her touch after she smacked Lovell off him. He had known she was remembering Luca when she checked her hands for the blood.

"I'm not dying. You won't lose me. We'll still see each other. Someday. When you get back to baking."

Kit tore out of his arms at that and she frowned at him. Not that she was mad at what he said, only a little disappointed and confused. She made sure she had his eyes before she turned the page back again and jabbed the notepad, "together."

Silus opened his mouth to counteract her, but she held a finger up and wrote her message first, "we're a team."

"I know. I'm supposed to keep you two safe," he looked back and Jude and then back to Kit, "so you stay here and let me take care of the rest."

Kit scoffed and wrote, "not by yourself." Silus squinted at it. They'd walked too far to the edge of the deck and now it was too dark to read. She sidestepped into the light and he followed her to read what she said.

Silus sighed harshly as he carried Ravitavah and the quilt again and shook his head, "Kit, I do this sort of thing all the time." He walked past her to the stairs leading off into the forest.

Kit scribbling a new note and she dashed across the deck until she caught him by his shoulder. With a groan, Silus turned around seemingly one last time and Kit coaxed him back into the flood of light from the house.

"Not everyone is going to talk to you like this," she said.

It dawned on him then. His eyes went wide and his snakes reared up in shock. It must have not even occurred to him that the only reason Kit and he were having a conversation was because Kit was writing down her words to see.

Kit felt a little smug at the notion. In his silent contemplation, Silus looked at Jude, who shrugged (he was only aware of half the conversation, of course), and Kit quickly penned the rest, which was now fairly obvious, "you need me."

Silus read her words and then looked at her face. He brought the quilt under the same arm as Ravitavah and he reached forward, plucking her pen from her loose hand. Silus stepped in close, their shoulders brushing, and Kit held her notepad out for him as he wrote with a corner of his mouth twitching into a smile, "I know."