“Often. I think the last time was…two days ago.”
“And yet your insistence has somehow increased since.”
“It’s so painful watching you two, honestly.”
“Do you have nothing else to do than creep around and follow your sister and me?”
“I creep around,andI hope you grow a pair of ovaries and tell her.Notthe same.”
She sighed. “Cardinals take me.”
“More painful than dying, I swear on every Cardinal,” he muttered.
“Having you as a brother-in-law would be more painful than dying, that much I can promise.”
Raoul shot up as if he sprang from a bed. “Hel-fucking-lo? How exactly did we go fromnot telling Nina I love hertoI want to marry her?”
For Cardinal’s sake.
If there was ever a moment when she missed rolling her eyes, it was now. Instead, she hurled an onion at him. It sailed straight through his non-corporeal chest and thudded onto the far tiles.
“Will you invite me to the wedding?”
“I won’t,” she growled.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be there anyway.”
A snort threatened, but she bit it back. “Don’t I fucking know that.”
Her knife cracked down through a new, fresh onion, cutting it in half before slicing it with methodical precision.
“That’s way too fast for the average person to chop onions,” Raoul warned. “Have I told you that handling sharp knives with no vision is dangerous?”
“Yes. Five hours ago, with the carrots.”
“Right. I stand by it.”
The kitchen door creaked, and Indianna padded in, yawning, clutching the coffee Ayla had set out. She collapsed into a chair.
“Glad I’m not the only one talking to myself,” Indianna said. “Sometimes I feel like a mad scientist.”
“Youarea mad scientist.” Ayla side-smiled. “The mad scientist who will save our lives.”
Indianna chuckled, then sobered. “Speaking of. I’ve narrowed the cure down to two formulas. One I’ll have ready in a couple of hours—though the last infusion needs to brew at a very precise temperature while it stabilizes. If that fails, the other option has to sit longer until the dried petals melt with the ink, which is risky, considering the speed Nina’s hair is darkening every time she sleeps.”
Ayla froze with her blade in the air. “Should she stay awake until the cure is ready?”
“That would be the best option,” Indianna admitted. “Not the healthiest. But safest.”
Before Ayla could reply, Nina’s voice drifted in, bright and warm, tangled in conversation with Stevian about the jasmine and orange trees on the back patio. Their footsteps approached, the air carrying her scent of white blossoms and icy mint clinging to her skin.
Nina’s presence softened the space, and Ayla felt like a tide rolling against her chest. It was now or never.
Onions abandoned on the chopping board, she ignored Raoul’s excited gasp and went straight to Nina, holding her hand mid-air, feeling Nina’s hair brushing her fingertips.
“I need you for a minute,” Ayla said.
“Sure,” Nina replied. Ayla heard her heartbeat increase as Nina followed her, still holding her hand, to the terrace facing Sweetgum Beech, on the opposite side of the patio in Ciaran’s safe apartment.
