Chapter 4: Glass Edges and Quiet Cracks
It had been two weeks since Mikael moved in.
Two weeks of eggs. Two weeks of coffee. Two weeks of clean dishes Loona never cleaned, groceries she didn't buy, and dinners that made her feel like a house pet with a guilt complex. The stupid mortal had even somehow fixed the shower and improved it. Warm water flowed abundant and no longer in that hellish green hue, but clear like crystal as if it came straight from a mountain stream.
She wasn't used to anyone staying this long. Let alone not getting on her nerves the way they should.
She hated how he made it harder to be angry. She hated that she was starting to notice how nice the apartment smelled now, or how the bathroom mirror was always wiped clean after his shower, or that her phone charger was always plugged in by the couch, ready. There was even a touch of Mikael's personal items about. Like an armchair in the corner that had mysteriously appeared while she had been at work. He often sat there when he wasn't busying himself in the kitchen.
It was a Monday. She got fired.
She came home early, head pounding, the stench of sulfur still in her fur. Her tail dragged. Her fists were clenched.
The apartment was quiet. The kitchen smelled like cardamom.
She walked in and Mikael turned, already halfway through chopping vegetables.
"Loona," he said with that unnervingly calm tone, "You're home early."
She didn't answer. Just dropped her keys, walked into the living room, and threw a bottle across the wall.
It exploded. Mikael didn't flinch.
She screamed—wordless, hot and cracked—and slammed her fists into the wall until her knuckles bled.
Mikael set the knife down.
He walked over slowly.
"Don't," she snarled. "Don't try to fix me or whatever your thing is."
"I'm not here to fix you."
"You're a liar."
"No," he said gently. "I'm just not leaving."
That broke something.
She didn't cry. Not yet. She didn't have the energy. She just dropped to the couch and stared at her hands like she didn't know whose they were.
"I got fired," she said hoarsely.
"I figured."
"They said I was rude, aggressive, bad with clients." A bitter laugh. "Like that's new."
She shook her head, more at herself than him. "It wasn't even that, not really. Blitzø said it was the portal."
Mikael waited silently, the only sound in the kitchen the faint simmering of something sweet on the stove.
"There was this client, waiting forever. Everyone was busy. Blitzø was off doing whatever, Stolas wasn't answering, and I thought… I thought I could handle it." Her voice was lower now, nearly a whisper. "I used the book. Tried to open the portal myself."
Her hands flexed in her lap, remembering. "It mostly worked. Just not in the right place. The guy got dropped in some backwater church full of exorcists. He barely made it back. It was a whole thing. Blitzø said it looked bad. Made us look reckless."
Mikael didn't respond right away. He sat across from her, quiet, present.
"I've been called a lot of things," she went on, voice fraying. "But hearing Blitzø say he couldn't trust me… That one hit different."
Mikael leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees. "You made a mistake. You were trying to help. That doesn't make you broken."
Loona didn't meet his eyes, but something in her jaw unclenched.
"Maybe," she said after a long silence, "I'm just not built for any of this."
Mikael's voice was soft. "Maybe you're just tired of always having to be strong."
That landed. Not hard—but deep.
Loona exhaled, slow and shaky. She didn't say anything after that. She just sat there, fists finally loosening, the fire in her veins settling into embers.
And Mikael didn't press. He only rose a moment later, padded quietly into the kitchen, and returned with a cool cloth.
He knelt in front of her and gently took her bleeding hands.
She let him.
That night, Mikael didn't try to talk to her any more.
He just left a plate of food by the couch and turned on the TV to some dumb documentary about cloud formations on Earth. Loona didn't care. But she didn't change the channel either.
When he went to bed, she ate the food cold.
Two days passed. Blitzø came to visit, with Stolas in tow. The apartment buzzed for once—Blitzø making a mess, Stolas politely asking about salt for his imported wine, and Loona scowling harder than usual just to hide the fact that she didn't totally hate the company.
Mikael cooked for all of them.
Blitzø noticed. "You sure this guy ain't an undercover butler?"
Loona grunted. "He's weird, not polite."
"That's what I said," Blitzø grinned.
Stolas, more observant, watched Mikael with a measured look. "You're not from here," he finally said.
"I am not," Mikael answered simply, handing him a glass of water.
"You hide it well."
"I don't try to hide anything."
Stolas gave him a look that said: Interesting.
Later, after Stolas wandered to the balcony and Mikael busied himself with leftovers, Blitzø dropped onto the couch beside Loona with a grunt.
There was a beat of silence. Then Blitzø spoke, a little softer than usual. "So. You still mad at me?"
Loona didn't look at him. "Maybe."
"Fair," he said, surprisingly quick. "You had every right to be. I panicked. And I said stuff I shouldn't have."
She snorted. "You mean when you called me unstable, or when you said I made us look like amateurs?"
"I meant the first part," he muttered. "The second one was technically true."
She rolled her eyes. "You're still a dick."
"And you're still scary. But I kinda like that about you."
Loona's lip twitched, the closest thing to a smile she'd allowed in days.
Blitzø leaned back. "You know I didn't fire you because I stopped trusting you, right? I was just scared. Thought if I didn't fix things fast, I'd lose the whole operation. Lose you."
She glanced over at him, more curiosity than venom now. "You thought firing me would fix that?"
"No. I thought something had to give. And I didn't know how to say, 'Hey Loona, I'm scared of losing the one person who's always been here even when I screw up everything else.' That felt... like a lot."
Silence. Then:
"You're an idiot," she said.
"Yeah," he agreed. "But I'm your idiot."
She looked away, hiding her face behind her beer. "I'll think about coming back."
Blitzø grinned. "That's my girl."
Later, when Blitzø and Stolas left, Loona found herself standing at the kitchen counter, beer in hand, watching Mikael quietly wash a pot.
She blurted, "You're not like anyone else I've met."
"I'll take that as a compliment," he said, rinsing the pot.
She looked away. "Why're you still here?"
"You asked that before."
"And your answer still sucked."
He set the pot down and dried his hands. "I stay because I want to."
"Lame."
"You're allowed to be angry, Loona."
She didn't move. "You don't know why I'm angry."
"I don't need to know. I'm still here."
Her jaw clenched. She turned sharply. "Don't say stuff like that."
"Why not?"
"Because it hurts, alright?!"
Silence followed.
She hadn't meant to say it. But now it was out there, raw and ugly.
"It hurts when someone says they'll stay," she muttered. "Because they always leave. Blitzø. Even him. He's got Stolas now. He's gone. They all leave."
Mikael's voice was soft. "I'm not them."
"You're worse," she snapped. "You act like none of it matters. Like I'm not—hard to be around."
"I don't think you're hard to be around."
"Bullshit."
He didn't argue. Just looked at her the way he always did—like she wasn't broken. Like she wasn't scary. Like she was worth the mess.
And for the first time in a long time, she didn't want to lash out at someone for looking at her that way.
She wanted to believe it.
That night, she didn't break anything.
She sat on the balcony for a while, beer in hand, the city steaming and groaning below. Hell's sky cracked with red lightning. She watched it silently.
Behind her, Mikael walked past once, paused, and set down something small beside her.
A flowerpot.
Inside it bloomed a rose.
Not Hell-grown. It was wrong here—too alive. Its petals glowed faintly in the dark, as if some tiny spark of the mortal world clung to it still.
"I thought you might like something that doesn't die down here," he said softly.
She stared at it.
"I don't do flowers."
"You don't have to. It'll do itself."
He left her alone after that.
But later, when the wind picked up and the smoke curled around her like ghosts, Loona stayed outside. Watching the stupid rose.
She didn't know what it meant yet. But it made her feel something unfamiliar and terrifying and warm.
She hated that plant. She wanted to shatter the pot and stomp on the stupid flower.
But she didn't.
She brought it with her and set it on her dresser.