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The only good thing about the morning was the smell of coffee from Gimble’s coffee pot. Gimble gathered the others at her house, including the ghosts. They sat around her kitchen table, except Ty, who was too tense to stay still. Gimble could tell she had been up all night, and she didn’t blame her at all. No one there would have.
Cassie showed up with last with a box of donuts. Food was important, even in situations like this. Gimble watched from the kitchen table, her back to the wall, her big ears twitching in thought. She had managed a shower since the night before, but even dressing to look presentable felt labored. She skipped it, dressing down for the first time since she could remember, wearing a simple pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Z filled Gimble’s coffee cup, and then bent down to kiss the top of her head.
“You look exhausted,” Cassie said.
“It has been a challenging night,” Gimble said.
“It sure sounds like it. Where do we even start?”
“Meryl is most important,” Ty said, leaning on the kitchen counter, her arms folded tight over her chest. Her ears pressed flat against her head.
“We can track her,” Gimble said. “We’ll need some ingredients for the spell, and the energy.”
“Which means you need to be sleeping,” Z said, looking at Ty pointedly. Ty looked past her.
“I can get some hair off one of her brushes,” Ty said. “What else do you need?”
“Moon Water, salt from the Sound, a few other things I know I have,” Gimble said.
“We can start after this,” Cassie said. “My kitchen is yours.”
“And you go home and take a nap,” Z said, jabbing her finger at Ty.
Ty looked away, narrowing her eyes. “What do we do when we find her?”
“We take her back,” Gimble said.
“There will be at least one wizard there,” Ty said.
“That nerd?” Z said. “I think the four of us can take him.”
“They’re dangerous,” Gimble said. “We should be careful. When we find Meryl, we will evaluate the situation.”
Ty exhaled sharply through her nose. She began to pace around the kitchen.
“So that brings us to Elliot,” Gimble said. “We don’t know where she is.”
Z sat back in her chair. “Well, we do know that she can’t fly all that far. There’s only so far she could have gone before she had to land.”
Cassie frowned. “There’s a lot of water in that radius, if we’re going from the Ave.”
“We can go look,” Morgan said, leaning forward.
“We literally don’t sleep,” Ethan said.
“We can be in the U District in an hour.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Gimble said. “When we break here I’ll open a door for you to the Ave.”
Ty stopped, watching the witches at the table closely. She opened her mouth.
“You are tired and angry and hurting,” Gimble said. “What ever you are about to say, you should reconsider it. It was not Elliot’s fault and you know it.”
Ty closed her mouth, for the first time that morning looking surprised. She looked way. “Sorry.”
“It’s understandable.”
“I’ll keep an eye out at my place,” Cassie said. “And ask around too. Someone’s bound to have seen her.”
“I’ll talk to Vic,” Ty said. “I doubt she’s in SoDo but it wouldn’t hurt to have some extra eyes out there.”
Gimble nodded. “Good. This is a good direction to be moving in. I think this is all we need to discuss, but if there’s more it’ll be in the group chat.” She got up and made a door for the ghosts, and Ty and Cassie. After she saw them off, she returned to the table. Z waited there for her.
Gimble sat down quietly and considered her mug of coffee.
“You wanna talk about it?” Z asked.
Gimble let out a little laugh. “Well, this is a funny turn about.”
Z took a drink of her coffee. “It’s not even a secret how upset you are. You don’t need to be an empath to see it.”
Gimble thought a moment, her ears twitching. “I feel like we failed Elliot.”
“Hm. She’s a challenge, isn’t she?”
“There was never a situation wherein we did things right that she should have felt compelled to run away.”
“Trust is tricky,” Z said. “She trusts us enough, but she’s also used to things falling apart really quickly. She never really unpacked at my place.”
“And her waiting for the other shoe to drop tells me she hasn’t experienced kindness without strings attached.”
“That’s really sad,” Z said. “But that’s also why we wanted her to be in our group so badly. We all know what it feels like.” Z paused. “Huh.”
Gimble raised her eyebrows. “What is it?”
“Hang on, I’m feeling this out. What if our motivations here were well meaning but…”
Gimble nodded along. “But we weren’t doing it for the right reasons.”
Z let her head fall back. “We wanted to help. We wanted what was never given to us.”
“But we were doing what we would have wanted. We were not listening to her.”
“Well, shit,” Z said. “What do we do?”
“We’ll find her,” Gimble said. “Who knows, maybe she’ll respond to our texts.”
“Is that too direct? I’m going to bet she doesn’t want confrontation right now.”
“Agreed.” Gimble traced a finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “I would like to not leave it entirely up to her, though.”
“We’d never see her again.”
Gimble sat back in her chair. “I would like to make sure that doesn’t happen, either.”
Z watched her carefully. “I haven’t seen you like this in a while.”
Gimble let out a laugh. “I think I’m disappointed in myself.”
“Are you beating up on yourself? This is weird. I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh hush.”
“What would you tell me if our places were switched?” Z leaned forward, folding her arms on the table.
“I would tell that you were doing your best and that this issue is fixable. And that you are a good person, despite what your inner voice might be telling you.” Gimble sighed. “We should see if we can find Elliot.” She stood. “I have a few contacts I want to try.”
Z nodded. “I think there’s a few places I can check.” She stood. Gimble hugged her.
“Thank you for your council.”
Z pulled her close and kissed her cheek. “Any time. Now lets go find our precious goblin.”
[g]