Aiden buckled into the little silver car a bit more excited for today than he had been yesterday. His mum had not been impressed when Eve had dropped him off early yesterday dripping with goop and her own barely held together manners. But after he had scrubbed off for over an hour she had softened to his incessant rambling about what had happened. His excited face had broken through her worry as he talked about how integral he had been even if it wasn’t quite what he had expected it was still an adventure after all. 

Eve felt like a thunder cloud on a sunny day just looking at his happy expression. Oh, dear hallows below she was going to rain on his happy little parade sometime soon. Because of laziness she wouldn’t put any true effort into this vindictive sentiment but she felt hard done by. He had come wandering into her world and was just wrecking all the self-confidence she had carefully built up over the last six years.  

“Look after the stunt you pulled yesterday I wanted to cancel this whole week. It was a dangerous mess, we’re lucky the client didn’t sue us.” 

“But I helped... And you didn’t say anything yesterday!” Aiden started weak but rallied, a little turbulence was not going to burst his bubble of success. 

“Because if I had I would have been done for verbal assault and I may have lain a curse or two of my own on you. What did I tell you before we went in that house?” 

“That I had to work on my sight activation as a big part of...” 

“Stop. Don’t try and pull the pedantic jerk teenager routine on me. You think of yourself as an adult?” 

“Of course.” Aiden scoffed. 

“Then act like one and own up to not listening.” 

“But I helped. You would be in trouble if I hadn’t, you don’t even have enough magic to cast a protection charm.” 

Eve reached out a sticker from her pocket and placed it on the car dash board. 

“No kidding I don’t, which is why I carry these. I have lived my whole damn life knowing the restrictions on my magic. I know when to scream for help, I have had to swallow my pride many times Mr Hotshot but that was not one of them.” 

She poked at the sticker violently. Her rage directed at the paper so she didn’t throttle him. 

“This would have neutralised the spirit and not left me cleaning ectoplasm out of my pores for the next six hours.” 

“I’m sorry.” Aiden whispered. 

“Good.” Eve sighed leaning her head against the steering wheel, she still felt sticky and tired but she needed to get through this day, then build up to getting through the rest of this week. 

“We’ve got a curse called in on North Star Avenue.” She breathed out trying to let go of the anger, she couldn’t see a client in this state of mind. “You are coming with me only because my boss would gut me if I don’t take you… So please promise you will stick to watching and not touching this time or I will take that gutting with a smile.” 

Aiden gave an apologetic nod which Eve accepted with more eye rolling as she got Doris pootling away from the curb.