Chapter Text
Nina’s headache lasted for three days.
It grew into a full-blown migraine less than an hour after she’d finished healing Matthias, and she’d had to lie down in Inej’s room with the lights off and the curtains closed, an ice pack on her eyes, unable to move without pain lancing through her skull.
But at least—at least Matthias was okay. That was what really mattered.
The healing part had been relatively easy, thank the saints. After letting Jesper resize the gold coven band to fit Matthias’s wrist rather than his paw, Nina had combined what was left of her magical power with her ordinary medical skills, drawing on the energy of her coven—her coven!—when she was too depleted to keep going. She’d cast a few spells to take care of the internal injuries and fractures, bring down inflammation, and wipe out any infections that might be setting in. Then, she’d stitched up the gashes on his side by hand and set up an IV to help replenish the blood he’d lost, using the O-negative that Kaz had supplied.
Matthias was a surprisingly cooperative patient—although that might have just been because he was too tired to fight or snip at her, slipping in and out of consciousness. She wove another painkiller enchantment and gave him some morphine for good measure. (Where Kaz had acquired the morphine, she wasn’t sure—but as always, it seemed safer not to ask.) When she was happy with his vitals, she and Jesper half-walked, half-carried him upstairs to her own bedroom to rest on an actual mattress instead of a tarp on the floor.
They made an odd little trio—two witches and a wolf, struggling up two flights of steps. Matthias was still naked, wrapped in a yellow blanket as he leaned heavily on Nina and Jesper, who strained under his weight.
That was another slight issue—Matthias was huge. He had a good inch or two on Jesper, who was already tall enough, but where Jesper was as thin and lanky as one of the beanpoles he used in the greenhouse, Matthias was broad and heavy, all muscle. Even once they managed to get him into Nina’s bed, his size left them with the problem of finding clothes for him to wear.
Wylan’s closet was full of oversized sweaters, and Jesper did some kind of alchemical enchantment to stretch one of them out even further, but it still looked like it would barely fit over Matthias’s bulky frame. They left the sweater and Jesper’s largest pair of sweatpants at the foot of the bed for Matthias to try on when he woke up, but no one was particularly optimistic about the chances that they would actually work.
Digging her thumbs into the aching bones of her eye sockets, Nina went to collapse in Inej’s bed while Jesper went online shopping, hunched over his laptop to find some clothes that they could get delivered overnight with Nina’s Prime account. She left Wylan in charge of making sure that he didn’t put anything too outlandish in the cart—they didn’t know much about Matthias’s style, but they had to assume that he would not be nearly as fond of bright colors and wild patterns as Jesper.
Nina slept and slept, got up to pee and take some Advil, and then slept again. She made Inej promise to check in on Matthias every two hours and come wake her immediately if anything seemed wrong. She called in sick to work; she ate spoonfuls of Nutella straight from the jar. She slept. She dreamt of chasing a wolf through the forest, of finally catching up to him only to find him bleeding out in a clearing. She stumbled, half-asleep, into her own bedroom, just to watch Matthias breathe, just to be sure he was okay, and then stumbled back to sleep with Inej curled up on the bed beside her.
When Nina finally emerged on the third day, a little smelly but headache-free, she found a nearly empty house. It was a quiet, cloudy, Sunday afternoon, and Inej had gone with Jesper to run their stand at the farmer’s market in Nina’s stead. Wylan was likely on campus studying for the last of his midterms, and Kaz was… Well, she didn’t actually know what Kaz was up to. Probably something nefarious and illegal.
Matthias was sleeping soundly in her bed, a pile of Amazon packages stacked on the dresser nearby. His tangle of blond hair stood out against the deep red of her silk pillowcases, his body hidden beneath a pile of fuzzy blankets.
She showered, letting the heat and steam clear out the last of the tension that lingered in her neck, taking longer than she usually would under the hot spray.
As she put on her comfiest PJs and bathrobe, Nina could feel the sparks of magic energy crackling under her skin again, rejuvenated after her rest. She padded down the stairs into the kitchen to whip up some waffles—the homemade kind, this time—and make coffee using Kaz’s secret stash of expensive beans.
(It was a new day, so she could afford to pick new battles with Kaz Brekker.)
With one syrup-drenched waffle on her plate and another already cooking in the waffle maker, Nina was leaning against the kitchen counter and sipping from her mug when she heard the soft noise of bare feet on the stairs, a heartbeat coming closer.
A moment later, Matthias appeared, dressed in one of the plain t-shirts and dark-wash jeans that Jesper had ordered for him. He limped only a little and didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain. His pulse sounded strong, and she could sense the other subtle signals in his body that he was healing well—no infection, stiches holding, blood pressure getting back to normal. It felt like his blood sugar was low, but that was easily remedied.
“Want a waffle?” she asked by way of greeting.
Matthias peered out at her from underneath his tousled hair and wrapped one arm across his chest, his expression caught somewhere between suspicion and tentative hope.
He nodded.
Nina lifted the fresh waffle straight from the iron onto a new plate, pushing it, a fork, and the syrup towards Matthias.
“There’s coffee, too, if you want,” she offered.
He took a small bite of the waffle and frowned.
“How much salt did you put in this?”
“I don’t know, a normal amount,” Nina scoffed, offended—but only a little. The waffles did taste kinda salty, but she wasn’t usually responsible for making her own.
(Jesper and Inej tended to do most of the cooking, with Wylan pitching in more and more often lately—although Nina suspected it was primarily an excuse to hang out with Jesper, as Wylan clearly didn’t have a lot of experience in the kitchen. Nina tried to help, but her housemates usually forbade her from touching anything. Apparently, her “follow your heart” approach to cooking was unappreciated by the rest of Crow House. Your heart lacks tastebuds, Kaz had told her once.)
Matthias shook his head and grabbed the bowl of batter that she’d made, sniffing it dubiously. He then dumped the contents unceremoniously into the trash can and moved to start rinsing out the bowl in the sink before suddenly pausing, glancing sheepishly over at her.
“Is it okay if I…?” He pointed to the ingredients that she’d left out on the counter.
“You want to make me waffles?”
“I want to make me waffles,” he replied with a small, cheeky grin.
Nina laughed despite herself. “I save your life and you won’t even share your waffles with me?”
She meant it to be lighthearted, but Matthias tensed up, his face going serious.
“I didn’t…” he began, trailing off almost immediately. “I mean, thank you.” He met her gaze unflinchingly, a kind of desperate earnestness clinging to his voice. “Thank you.”
Nina found herself at a loss for words at the sudden shift in tone, mouth opening and closing without anything coming out for several moments. Finally, she managed, “You’re welcome.” Gesturing at the flour and the baking powder on the counter, she added, “Help yourself, please. There’s milk and stuff in the fridge.”
Matthias still looked tense, but he nodded and finished rinsing the old batter out of the bowl, wiping it dry with a paper towel.
She took her plate to the breakfast nook and watched him work, fascinated by his every move—the way he effortlessly cracked a pair of eggs and divided the yolks from the whites, the helpless frown that creased his face whenever he couldn’t find what he was looking for in the unfamiliar kitchen, eventually caving and asking, Where do you keep your spices? Do you have a mixer?
Surprised, Nina dutifully pointed him towards the overcrowded spice cabinet and the electric eggbeater Jesper bought but rarely used. She’d never seen anyone whip egg whites for a waffle or add a dash of cinnamon sugar to the batter, but Matthias claimed these steps made for a fluffier, tastier result.
“None of that frozen crap,” he quipped at her, a genuine smile finally returning to his face as he started to relax.
She found herself smiling back instinctively.
Despite claiming that the waffles were all for himself, Matthias insisted that Nina take the first of his batch—so you can see what a real waffle should taste like, he said, but she saw the eager glint in his eyes, the way he carefully watched her reactions.
He wants me to like it. He wants me to like him.
It was the fluffiest, tastiest waffle that she’d ever had in her life—and Nina Zenik had eaten a lot of waffles.
“Saints, that’s amazing!” she mumbled around a warm mouthful. Even without syrup, it was heavenly. “Where did you learn to cook like that?”
He shrugged, unable to completely hide his pleasure at having impressed her. “I used to work in the kitchens at the lodge. I always liked experimenting with recipes.”
Something sour flickered in Nina’s gut at the reminder that Matthias had grown up in the Drüskelle lodge. For a moment, she’d forgotten that he was a wolf. For a moment, he had just been a kind (and very, very hot) man with excellent culinary skills, and they had just been two strangers bonding over waffles.
But he was a wolf, and they weren’t quite strangers. The matching gold bracelets on their wrists were proof enough of that.
If she quieted her thoughts, Nina could feel the constant, faint tug in her chest, reminding her that she was part of a coven now. It was a bone-deep awareness, at all times, of the existence of five other people whose souls were enmeshed with hers. It was fleeting glimpses of memories that were not her own, creeping into her dreams in between her wolf-related nightmares. It was being able to more easily pick up on the emotions of her housemates—even Kaz, who had always been inscrutable to her.
Here, in the kitchen, she could feel it vibrating between her and Matthias, connecting them on a molecular level. She’d tasted his power, felt the chill of it—and he had probably felt something of her magic in return. This might only be their second actual conversation, but they weren’t strangers, not really.
They were something more—for now.
“I texted the others,” Nina began softly. “We’re all free on Wednesday night to… well, to undo your part in the coven bond.”
She needed to speak to Genya first, both because Genya had been calling her and leaving increasingly frantic voicemails asking what had happened with the wolf situation and because Nina didn’t actually know the ritual for removing a coven member. Unlike the spell for making a coven, the removal spell wasn’t exactly a recurring topic in the Little Palace curriculum—but Genya, unfortunately, had firsthand experience with that particular process.
Matthias didn’t look at her, staring resolutely at the waffle maker.
“Our schedules have been a little wild lately, but we all want you to be able to go home as soon as possible.”
He scoffed at that, bitter and sharp. “What home? I don’t have one of those anymore, remember?”
Nina mentally kicked herself for forgetting that as much as Matthias probably hated being in a house full of supernaturals, he didn’t exactly have anywhere else to go.
“Right. Sorry,” she murmured. “Still, I can’t imagine that you want to be involved with us any longer than you have to.”
Her heart quailed at the thought of dissolving the bond between them. Feeling so deeply connected with someone, even if you didn’t know them very well, was an intoxicating thing, and now that Nina had it, she didn’t want to give it up with any of her coven, not even Matthias. The ritual had tangled their souls together, and she had a feeling that trying to cut them apart now would be deeply painful.
To her surprise, Matthias didn’t respond right away. He lifted a waffle from the iron onto a plate, added fresh batter, and closed the lid to start the process all over again.
Finally, he said, “It’s… not as bad as I thought it would be. The coven thing.”
“Really?”
He drizzled syrup across his steaming waffle, slow and careful, as if he were trying to ensure that each little square got filled up equally.
“It’s almost like having a pack again,” he replied softly. “Almost like… It doesn’t matter. I understand why you wouldn’t want a wolf in your home.”
Nina didn’t need to be a heartrender to hear the catch in his voice, didn’t need to have an intimate coven bond with Matthias to recognize the pain that crackled through him: unwanted, not good enough, abandoned once more.
She knew the feeling.
“You know,” she offered, taking another sip of coffee to boost her confidence and suddenly wishing it was whiskey instead, “It’s only our home because we made it our home. All of us know what it’s like when… when you can’t ever go back. We all lost our homes, in one way or another, and we all had nowhere else to go, so we built something new for ourselves here.”
Nina could feel Matthias’s eyes on her, again caught between suspicion and hope. Taking a deep breath, she raised her gaze to meet his.
“If you wanted, you could stay. For now, at least, until you decide what you want to do. And maybe… this could become a home for you, too.”
For a moment, he looked at Nina with wonder, as if he were amazed at her mere existence—a witch, offering such a thing to a wolf. And maybe it was amazing. She felt a bit detached from it all right now, but some distant part of her knew this was weird. It was unheard of, and dangerous, and it would probably backfire, but…
Matthias shook his head, looking away. “What will your friends say?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure.” All of her housemates had reason to be wary of wolves, but she was the only one who had grown up learning to truly hate them. She suspected that her friends were distrustful of Matthias’s presence mostly because they would be distrustful of anyone new, and—provided he wasn’t secretly a serial killer or a stalker or a terrible roommate—she had a feeling that getting to know Matthias better would erase most of their worries.
Nina was the one with her work cut out for her, the only one who still felt an uneasy prickle at the back of her neck whenever Matthias moved too fast, whenever hatred flickered behind his eyes, instinctually reacting to him as a threat. Predator, enemy, evil.
It might feel easy now, with the coven ritual fresh on their minds, with Matthias still healing and grateful, with the best waffles she’d ever tasted still warm on their plates. But she knew that, if he stuck around, things were bound to get harder. Just because hatred could be unlearned didn’t mean it would be a simple process.
“I can’t speak for them,” she continued. “And I can’t promise that everything would work out if you stayed. But… the connection that you feel? We all feel it, too, and like you said, it’s nice to feel like part of a pack, like part of a family. I think… maybe it’s worth it to try, if it means we get to keep that family.”
He stared at her, then at his waffle, then at the ceiling, almost as if he were praying for guidance. For all Nina knew, he was—she remembered that the Drüskelle pack was very intense about their religion.
Eventually, he nodded, decisive, and lifted another fresh waffle out of the iron and onto a spare plate. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stay. For now.”
Nina felt a smile creep onto her face, and when Matthias finally looked up at her again, he smiled back at her—just a little. Just enough.
There was a lot that they would need to take care of. The others had to agree to let Matthias stay, of course, and if they said yes—they will, they will—then they would have to get Matthias his own bed, because while Nina was willing to compromise on a lot of things, her creature comforts were not one of them. She missed her silk sheets.
Probably, they would set him up in the basement, and it would be good to get a curtain or something so he could have privacy when people were doing laundry. There was a bathroom down there, but it hadn’t worked properly in all the time they’d lived in Crow House. Per Haskell kept claiming he would get around to fixing it; she supposed they’d have to hold him to that promise now.
Kaz would insist that Matthias get a job and help with the rent. He would need more clothes, and toiletries, and likely a phone as well. Did he have a bank account? A driver’s license? Netflix? Nina wasn’t sure how much the Drüskelle allowed its members to interface with the bureaucracy of the human world or what they would have let him keep when they exiled him, and given that she relied on complex enchantments to handle all of that for her, she wouldn’t exactly be useful in helping Matthias to navigate any of it.
But for now, there were delicious waffles and coffee pilfered from Kaz’s stash. For now, Matthias was staying, Nina’s headache was gone, and the glint of gold at her wrist reminded her that she was a part of something special. Pack. Family. Coven.
For now, it was more than enough.