“My good madam,” Castor begins, “it is two in the afternoon.”
“I said what I said.” She sniffs. “Have you brought meanotherfriend?” She slouches, grimacing, increasingly put out by the notion. “My living room can’t handle these conditions. Movie nights are getting crowded. I’ll have to order a projectorand set up a pillow fort in the yard. Have you no courtesy for my limited square-footage?”
“I can’t say that I do.”
She sighs and presents her hand.
Castor angles his head. “What is that for?”
“Knife.”
I tense. He has concealed weapons on him? Who is this woman if she cantellwithout so much as looking up off the pages of her book?
The face Castor makes would inspire me to apologize profusely. Willow does not care. At all.
He grumbles, “What about my knife?”
Willow’s eyes slant toward him, to me, back to him, and roll. “You’re here for a favor, aren’t you? After the party you crashed, I’m not interested in doing anything for free. Do you know what happened after you showed up? On aThursday?”
“Panic and chaos,” Castor snips.
Willow lets free a low hum. “Yes. Panic and chaos. And meetings about how to protect her.” A finger flicks out toward me. “And no movie.”
Zy’s eyes narrow, and his head shakes nearly imperceptibly.
Returning all attention to her book, Willow mutters, “How dare you. Do you thinkWhimsywould approve of this behavior?” She tuts. “No. No, she would not.”
Castor’s hand crushes mine, and my heart reacts. Anger saturates his voice, sending pure shots of adrenaline into my blood. “How dareI?How. Dare. I?”
This is all my fault. I should have just said I didn’t want to go anywhere today. Then Castor could have stayed happily singing his disturbing songs. The bathroom has toilet paper. I could have figured something out. Ishouldhave figured something out. Why didn’t I figure something out?
“How dareyoubring my Whimsy into this!” Castor’s nostrils flare, and my concern falters. He’s upset that she…mentioned his self-care bird? “Frankly, my dear, this is not veryVillain Protection Program founderof you.”
“You’re not allowed to saymy dear. That’s Pollux’s endearment. Stay in your endearment lane. You’ll confuse people.”
“It was a reference!”
“To amovie. Which I didnotget to watch last movie night. Zy had to stop me from lighting my own skin on fire. So.” Her fingers wiggle. “Give me your knife. As penance.”
I feel Castor release my hand before I see the glint of a short, crooked blade plunging toward Willow.
Zy, suddenly between Castor and the woman, grips his wrist, stopping the attack. “Don’t you—” Zy swears. “—dare.”
“So muchdaringgoing around today, isn’t there, Zylus?” Castor gains a centimeter, the knife an inch from Zylus’s throat. “It would have been a funny joke.”
“Jokes that hurt people aren’t funny, Castor,” Zylus’s smooth, hypnotic voicegrowls.
“She heals at an accelerated rate. Physical pain, especially for people like us, is fleeting. So it can befun.”
Willow heaves a sigh as though two men aren’t struggling with a knife a foot from her. “I don’t consider pain to be fun. And neither does Zy. So knock it off.”
Castor scoffs, jerking back from Zylus. “You lie.”
“I don’t.”
Castor plunges his blade into his own hand. “Your soulmate is avampire. To feed him is pain.”
Willow snaps her book shut, kicks her legs off the couch, and makes Castor visibly tense when she stands. She hisses, “First of all, if you getbloodon my carpet, that knife is going somewhere other than your hand.Second of all—” Her hand sinks into thelong dark locks of Zylus’s hair. “—to feed my soulmate is warm and gentle. It has never once been painful. And you should take lessons if you’re going to treatyoursoulmate right.”
