A Sorceress Comes to Call

by T. Kingfisher

If a man keeps bringing up another woman’s name, be on your guard. He’ll tell you that they’re friends or that it’s over between them, but if her name’s on his tongue,

it means she’s in his thoughts. Remember that, won’t you?”

How long has it been? Did they do something with my body? “Nearly two weeks.” …!!

Maybe it’s only like that if you’re a ghost. Maybe the thing that she couldn’t describe takes care of people who are still in their bodies when they die.

“I go to confession whenever the guilt gets to be too much.” “And how often is that?” “It hasn’t happened yet, but you never know.

She stroked back the silver at his temples. Poor Evermore. He was no one’s image of a warrior. He liked books on culverts and had strong opinions about crop rotations. He spent his life mostly trying to make things a little better for the people who depended on him, and for fifty years, that had required nothing more than listening closely to their problems and hiring good people to implement solutions.

“Madam.” He frowned at her. “I am a butler. Do you truly believe that I do not know how to dispatch a houseguest if required?”

She could have spent every night of the last decade in his arms, and instead she’d been afraid of what? That he would stop loving her when she grew old?