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emphasizing the last word with air quotes. “But since technically he’s a villainous rock man instead, his spirit wouldn’t be haunting the space. So see? Probably not haunted!”
    Rory pushed him past me into the building. “In you go,” she said, forcing him up the stairs. “Before we get uninvited.”
    “Is it livable now?” he asked, calling back down the stairs.
    “It better be,” I said, following them up. “I just moved my parents in the other day. Actually, just on the lower floors for now. I’m still deciding how to set up the top. I’d kind of like an art studio and library of my own.”
    “How are Doug and Julie handling the new digs?” Rory asked.
    “They’re adjusting,” I said, pointing ahead to turn left at the next landing up, “but if I don’t get them back into the Belarus Building soon, I might lose my mind. I’ve even set up their real-estate company on the first two floors here—high-speed Internet, the latest technology for their meetings and dealings, but they’re used to doing things the way they do them on Gramercy. They miss their rut. In the meantime, I just need to not kill them.”
    “No one wants to have their parents as roommates,” Marshall said, entering the kitchen, slowing as he took in the clean, modern style I had gone for. “And this is coming from a guy who spent maybe one or three too many years set up at home. But that was mostly so I didn’t have to move my gaming stuff out of the basement.”
    Rory hopped on a stool behind the counter bar and simply stared at him.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Do you
not
even hear what you are saying sometimes?” she asked back. “On behalf of all women everywhere, I think my reproductive organs literally just crawled farther up inside me.”
    Marshall was on the verge of responding, but startled as he looked down at floor level.
    “Bricksley!” he said with a nervous laugh. “You scared the crap out of me.”
    My tiny brick golem looked up at Marshall, his face ever the happy, painted-on smile and wide-eyed expression.
    “Sorry,” I said, heading to the ingredients I had laid out on the counter earlier. “I’m a sloppy cook and set him about Roomba-ing.”
    Rory joined me the way she used to when we took over the kitchen on Gramercy from my mother. As usual, it quickly turned into me fighting her on overspicing
everything
.
    “It’s my Latina heritage!” she protested, slamming her spoon-clenching fist against her chest.
    “I like spice,” I said, “but don’t blame your heritage on the atrocity you’re committing in my kitchen. You just have a bad palate and overdo it.”
    She started to argue, but she knew I was right, and gave in to the evening and just had fun with it.
    After stowing Bricksley away, I invited my parents up from downstairs to join us for dinner, where we avoided talking about both the arcane and my run-in with my father’s spiritual counselor. The former was a subject they were aware of but chose to avoid, and the latter simply gave me the wiggins that I simply didn’t want to mention his name.
    Marshall cleaned, claiming it was the least he could do although the least-that-could-be-done award went to my father, who headed back downstairs to attend to more of his business right after the meal. But Marshall’s contribution was welcome.
    The whole affair warmed me, reminding me of a simpler time—one before men of stone, mad cultists, and Rory’s mastering medieval French weapons.
    After my mother left, the three of us sat around the partially furnished living room enjoying each other’s company, and, for a second, I felt normal, but eventually all spells must be broken, and all good things must come to an end.
    “I’ve another surprise,” I said. “I thought we might go over our notes from the last couple of outings. If I’m ever going to master Spellmasonry, I need to be able to not only control stone, I need to be able to do all the things that Alexander Belarus did. I still