“I can help you choose. It’s only fair, since you helped me.”

Yes, I helped. Unwillingly. “No. I’d prefer to get back to work.”

“Peggy said you didn’t come with much— Wait.” He threw open both doors of his closet, grinning wildly. “Pick something from here. And then Saba can alter it for you. She’s really amazingly fast with a sewing machine.”

I gritted my teeth at the mention of that spiteful woman. She had no right to discuss what I did or did not have. “Did you hear what I said, sir? I said no. Don’t you know what ‘no’ means?”

He blinked at me. “Magnus,” he corrected quietly.

I wanted to strangle him with the very jacket he hated. “I have to get back to work.”

He rushed after me, stopping short in the doorway, as if there were an invisible line keeping him in. Good. I might’ve hit him, otherwise. “I’m very bad at this.”

“This?”

“Talking to people. Having … friends.”

“You hired me to exorcise your house. Save yourself the effort,” I said, and stormed down the hall.

I returned to the stairs, and with the added agitation, finished the amulet in forty-five minutes. It might’ve been a new record, though my eyes and hands didn’t thank me for it.

The cracks on the stairs had left without much of a fight. I hammered two nails into the wooden railing, hung the amulet, and stepped back to look at my work. One amulet down … God only knew how many left to go.

I could’ve cleansed another Manifestation but instead I spent a little time constructing an amulet to counteract the cold in my bedroom. By the time I was done it was a comfortable enough temperature to bathe and change for dinner.

There was a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” I asked.

No answer.

I grabbed my small knife, holding it down by my hip to keep it hidden as I cracked open the door. Saba stood there with folded clothing in her hand. I opened the door wider, hiding my knife behind it.

“Magnus said you were fast, but I didn’t think you’d be this fast.”

She smiled and held out the clothing to me.

“I told him I didn’t want his clothes.”

Saba shook her head and unfolded what she was holding to present me with a long-sleeved white dress, with blue and green forming the traditional design of a cross along the collar and down the center. I touched it, realizing then that it wasn’t traditional fabric, but a tight wool weave. The lining was soft and a little fluffy—not a fabric I was familiar with, but then, I’d never touched such fine fabric in my entire life.

“Did you just make this?”

She shook her head and pressed her hand to her chest.

“It’s yours?”

She nodded.