For Love or Money
For Family or Fame
Your Heart Has a Want
So Wish on the Flames
This Wish Granter* Bespelled by Britannia the Benevolent, 1956.
Below it were more lines in minuscule type:
*Results may vary. Do not make a wish on an empty stomach. If your wish is followed by acrid green smoke or disembodied cackling, evacuate immediately. If a wished-for erection lasts more than four hours, seek medical attention. No returns on babies or pets. Do not wish for the apocalypse; it won’t work, and you’ll look like a jerk. This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA.
“Oh, Hecate,” Calladia said, slumping onto the couch before the fire. “Tansy thought I was making a wish.”
“For what?” Astaroth asked, bending to peer at the engraving.
Calladia stifled a hysterical shriek, because it was the absolute last thing she would have wished for. “They thought I wanted to be a parent to twins. Two of them.” She groaned. “No wonder Tansy thought my wish was redundant.”
Astaroth straightened. “They thought you wanted to be in possession of infants?”
He sounded so horrified by the prospect that Calladia cracked and started laughing. “Right? And why would I ask for that at a hotel, of all places?” She mimed making a phone call. “Hello, I would like to book a room and also to be mystically impregnated. Do you provide room service?”
Astaroth gave a full-body shudder. “Imagine being responsible for two tiny, fragile, squalling organisms who need constant supervision to prevent them from accidental death.”
“Exactly!” Calladia sat up straight and slapped her thigh. “My friends don’t get it. They all want kids someday. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it just isn’t for me.”
Calladia had been waiting for some kind of biological clock to kick in and make the thought of being a parent more palatable. Sure, she had plenty of childbearing years left, but by their late twenties, most of her friends had already started speculating about when they’d have kids. They’d all seemed excited about it, too.
Calladia was thrilled for them and would be delighted to be an aunt figure in their children’s lives, but whenever she considered having kids of her own, she had three immediate thoughts. One: expensive! Two: time-consuming! Three: don’t wanna!
She’d started to wonder if something was wrong with her, given how enthusiastic everyone else seemed. You’ll want them with the right person, Mariel had told her once, even before she’d met Oz and gotten all disgustingly cute and gooey. Mariel was undoubtedly dreaming about babies with freckles and adorable little horns, but Calladia’s vision of a rosy future had always involved just her and someone she loved, the community they built around themselves, and a lifetime of adventure.
She wondered how Astaroth felt about the topic. He might be a pain in her ass, but he was an interesting one, and she wanted to know how his brain worked. “Do you want kids?” she asked. “I don’t know how most demons feel about it, and you’re—” She cut herself off, but not quickly enough.
“And I’m not a real demon, right?” Astaroth glowered at her, then switched his ire to the fireplace. “No,” he said in the direction of the blue flames, “I’ve never wanted kids. Or at least, I don’t think so.” He grimaced and rapped the knuckles of his clenched fist against the mantel. “But who knows what I think about anything, since I didn’t even know I was a hybrid until this afternoon.”
“I guess you have to trust your instincts.”
Astaroth ran his hand through his hair, making the strands stick up haphazardly. In a sexily disheveled way, of course, since he was incapable of looking bad. Calladia was single-handedly holding down the dirty gremlin role for the team.
“Amnesia is a dashed inconvenience,” Astaroth grumbled.
He sounded like an aggrieved duke in a Jane Austen adaptation, and Calladia bit her lip on a smile. “What strong language,” she said. “I’m scandalized.”
Astaroth huffed. “If I haven’t managed to scandalize you yet, I doubt anything could.”
“Have you been trying to?” Calladia asked, genuinely curious.
“No, but it tends to happen anyway.” He walked to the bed and stared at it with hands on his hips. “So we only have one bed. That shouldn’t be a problem. The couch is big enough for you to curl up on, and we can add pillows.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Calladia said distractedly. Her gaze had slipped to his butt, which filled out those ridiculous pants nicely. Then she replayed what he’d said and felt a flare of outrage. “Wait, why am I curling up on the couch and not you?”