I shove the thought under a proverbial rug, desperate to be alone so that I can mull this more obsessively. Pacing will be involved. Graphs and charts.
“Zelda,” he repeats. “Back to the Black Bear Witch. I’ve got priorities here. Unless you want to reconsider your stance on the other plan? Go an easier route?” He wags his eyebrows.
“What route is that?”
Morgan slides an inch closer, his lips curving. A black smolder glitters in his eyes. “Love. Give me thirty minutes on any soft surface. I swear you’ll see stars.”
I scrunch my nose, but at the suggestive provocation my heart beats in double time. Stupid heart. Time to start incorporating more omega-3 fatty acids into my diet. “You are really awful. You know that? And sex is not love.”
He sighs. “You could at leasttry. My face is doing almost all the work for you, being this irresistible, so you’re halfway to love already. Plus, it would be so much easier than hunting down a bear witch. What if the witch eats people after she gives them powers? My new gift might be totally useless from within the intestines of a bear.”
“Yeah, no—What the hell is that?”
I leap behind him with a strangled cry, and Morgan backs up as well. He grabs a pen as if he might try to defend himself with it. “What’s what? Where is it?” He brandishes the pen.“Show yourself! Unless you’re a spider. If you’re a spider, stay where you are.”
I point at an animal on the floor, my finger shaking. It’s some kind of rodent, I think. Or a red panda genetically engineered in a laboratory? It walks on all fours like a tiny bear, with orange-and-black-striped fur and a tail that curls. It’s got mole-like feet. Bulbous eyes, golden all over, no pupils. “That!How can you miss it?!” I paw at Morgan’s shirt and force him bodily in front of me, quite possibly ripping off a button. The animal jumps from the floor onto a high shelf. “How’d it get in here? Whatisit?”
Morgan’s gaze bounces around the shop, panicked. “I don’t see anything!”
“It just jumped up on the shelf!”
He gapes in confusion. “What, you mean Snapdragon?”
“No! The weird little red panda–mole thing. Got a tail like”—words fail me, so I spiral a finger.
Morgan breaks away. Walks directly over to the shelf. “Don’t go near it!” I shout.
He raises a hand experimentally.
“Stop!”
Morganpetsit.
“It might bite you. I can’t believe you’re touching it.”
“He won’t bite me.” Morgan’s voice is calm. “This is a cat.”
“I have never in my life seen a cat like that. That is a cat after swimming through toxic waste. And you arestilltouching it!”
“Of course I’m touching him.” Morgan scratches thecreature under its chin, and its eyes droop lazily closed, clearly enjoying the attention. “Snapdragon and I are BFFs.”
I move toward them, hesitant, not moving my eyes from the animal’s. “Snapdragon?”
Morgan nods. “Snapdragon.”
I don’t believe it. “But I saw him this morning. He was doing his usual cat thing, sitting on the stairs, waiting to trip people. He definitely didn’t look like this.”
“What does he look like to you now?”
My lips part, throat dry. “It sounds strange.”
He clasps a hand over his heart, and by the anguish on his face, I think he missed his Broadway calling. “Darling,please. Give me all your strange.”
I have to take a moment to get over this phrasing. Morgan Angelopoulos is calculatedly charming, butgive me all your strangeis, for some reason, unintentionally charming to me; and while I consider myself a levelheaded person who lives according to reason and objective judgment, it turns out that I am still susceptible to a dark-eyed, dark-haired man with tattoos. Curse my baser instincts.
By the time I’m finished explaining Snapdragon’s transformation, Morgan is recording my every word, eyebrows knitted. Taking notes is a good-looking—I mean—agoodidea. Frogs, I might be in trouble. When Morgan takes notes, it makes my neck feel hot and itchy. He’d better not start using color-coded tabs, or I’m going to be in some real danger here.
“Morgan,” I rasp, my hands hanging limply at my sides. I’ve broken out into a cold sweat. “I’m…” I can’t even say it.
