“Monty, stop, it’s raining.”
“Good. I need a fucking shower.”
“But you’re sensitive to rain. Why don’t you have an umbrella? Shouldn’t you carry one with you?”
He halts, releasing my wrist and whirling to face me. “Why are you fretting over me? You’re supposed to be on a date.”
I pull my head back. “How did you know about my date?”
He averts his gaze, jaw tight. He says nothing as he stares off into the dark streets and alleyways around us. The overcast sky leaves us with little light, save for the occasional streetlamp or the subtle illumination coming from a few surrounding factories that run overnight. But my vision works well in the dark. I can see the still-open cut on his brow, the way the mist coats his skin and sends trails of blood down his face, soaking his open collar. He hasn’t done up his shirt yet, and his trousers are still rolled up to his calves from the fight.
My eyes lift back to his face, taking in the bruises Gabby left there, the largest being the most recent from her final right hook. I step closer and lift a hand to his jaw. “You’re hurt.”
He intercepts my hand before I can touch his face, clasping my fingers. “I heal quickly.”
My pulse quickens at the feel of his hand around mine. It isn’t a warm touch, but it isn’t harsh either. And he hasn’t released me. “Even in the rain? You’re the one who told me you’re sensitive to it.”
He opens his mouth, but before he can argue, the sky opens up, turning the rainfall from mist to a deluge in a matter of seconds. It feels incredible after the stuffy, smoky club, but I don’t imagine Monty feels the same. He bites out a curse, but I can barely hear it over the downpour.
I shift the hand he holds until I’m the one grasping his fingers, and I tug him down the slick streets. With my keen nocturnal eyesight, I can find us an alcove in which to wait out the storm, or perhaps to leave him while I find a cab. He follows me without question, turning down the next street where a large warehouse looms on the corner. I recognize it from my much slower, much more curious trip to find the club with Araminta. The warehouse consists of two towering brick buildings with a system of bridges and walkways that connect them and their many floors.
I pull him into the alley between the buildings. The ground is mostly dry, and only a trickle of rain falls through the gaps between the crisscrossing walkways overhead. As soon as we pull to a halt, a green glow emanates from one of the walls. I startle at the sudden light, but it’s only a bioluminescent mushroom growing from the brick. It’s as wide as a dinner plate with a shelflike shape. No sooner than it brightens to an emerald glow does another illuminate, then another, as if set off by the previous mushroom’s glow. Soon the entire wall is alight with mushrooms, and each one’s color changes, from green closest to the mouth of the alley, to blue, then purple, to pink at the far end. Whether the mushrooms were encouraged to grow here intentionally to brighten the space during late-night work hours or the fungi simply chose this place to grow of their own accord, I know not. Either way, it’s stunning.
Forcing myself out of my awe, I turn to Monty and find him catching his breath, his gaze on the mushrooms. His hair is soaked, and he’s slicked it back, revealing a forehead that’s normally covered with his messy waves. The rain has washed away some of the blood on his face, but the cut on his brow remains open.
“Why did you come here?” he says through panting breaths as he slides his fingers from mine. “I didn’t want you to have to see…I didn’t want you at tonight’s fight.”
He meant for the latter words to sting, but it’s too late. I heard what he was about to say. He didn’t want me to see tonight’s fight, probably because he knew he was going to lose. “Your defeat was predetermined, wasn’t it?”
He curls his fingers into fists, battling with himself not to answer. Then he heaves a resigned sigh. “Yes, it was predetermined, and it was meant to hurt as punishment for having missed last weekend’s payment. I was directed to stay on my feet until the final round, taking as many punches as I could without being defeated too early.”
My chest tightens. “That’s what happens when you don’t pay? Isn’t there another way? Can’t you refuse to fight?”
“If I refuse to fight, I have to pay in currency, and the interest has made my weekly payments outrageous. I can’t afford them. I can’t refuse to pay altogether, for every time I miss a payment, the due date for my debt moves up a week.”
“When is your current due date? And how much do you owe?”
“The sixteenth of July. My remaining sum is just over twenty thousand emerald rounds.”
My eyes nearly bulge from my head. “You have to pay twenty thousand emerald rounds in a month and a half?”
He gives me a cold, humorless grin. “I told you my life is a mess, Daph. Now do you believe me?”
I realize that’s the only reason he’s answering my questions honestly. He wants to show me what a mess he is. “What happens if you don’t pay off your loan by then?”
He hesitates again, eyes narrowing. His face is awash in the blue-green glow from the nearest mushrooms. “My lender deals in secrets,” he says, voice low. “If I don’t pay, he reveals my secret publicly. He’ll sell it to every prominent gossip columnist on the isle. Only the most trusted ones with reputations for being correct about the gossip they share.”
“What is your secret?”
“I can’t tell you,” he bites out. When I arch a brow, he adds, “Iphysicallycan’t tell you, even if I wanted to. The only reason my lender knows about it is because his magic allowed him to extract my most closely guarded secret with a single glance. If it gets out, my family is ruined.”
I puzzle over his words. There’s only one explanation for what he’s saying. “You made a bargain.”
He throws his head back, drops of rainwater falling from the ends of his hair. “If only you knew the weight of the bargains I’m buried under.”
So there’s more than one, and I have a feeling ours isn’t one of the bargains he’s referring to.
I take a step closer to him. “Like the one you made with your father?”
