"Distracting how?" she heard herself ask.
"Distracting in ways that are inconvenient given our current situation."
"What situation?"
"The situation where you've accidentally bound us together, turned your house into a magical menagerie, and now—" His gaze dropped to her mouth for just a second. Just long enough for her to notice. "—you're standing in your disaster of a garden, sparkling like a bloody Christmas ornament, asking me questions you already know the answer to."
The air between them felt charged. Electric. Like the moment before lightning strikes.
A bee buzzed past Cassie's ear.
Then another.
Then several dozen more, swirling in from the explosively blooming garden to form a pattern in the air between them.
Letters. The bees were formingletters.
C-A-S-S-I-E.
Her name, spelled out in living, buzzing insects, hovering three feet above the rosebushes like the world's most unsettling skywriting.
"Oh, comeon," she groaned.
Liam looked at the bee-name. Looked at her. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Don't you dare laugh."
"I'm not laughing."
"You're thinking about laughing."
"I'm thinking that you've somehow made bees sentient enough to write your name in the air, whichis simultaneously impressive and deeply concerning." The twitch became an actual smile. Small, reluctant, but real. "Also a bit romantic, in a completely unhinged sort of way."
"It's not romantic! It's humiliating!"
"The bees disagree."
The swarm rearranged itself. Now it spelled "CASSIE " with a little heart shape at the end.
Then, as if deciding they'd made their point, the bees dispersed—returning to the flowers in an orderly fashion that suggested they'd gotten bored with aerial choreography.
"At least they stopped," Cassie muttered.
"Small mercies."
A rose petal drifted down from the massive bushes, landing on Cassie's shoulder. Then another. The bushes were shedding, creating a slow rainfall of red and pink and impossible purple petals that caught in her hair and scattered across the ground like nature's confetti.
"This is ridiculous," she said.
"Aye."
"The garden is insane. The gnomes are terrifying. The bees just wrote a love note in the sky."
"Aye."
"And you're just standing there."
"What would you have me do?"
