Has she always had purple eyes?
“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. Just interesting.” She slides a whiskey across to me. “You don’t strike me as the biker-bar type.”
“What type do I strike you as?”
“The type who’s running from something. Or toward something. Maybe both.” Eden shrugs.
I take a sip of whiskey to avoid responding. Because she’s right, and I don’t know how she knows that.
That’s when I hear it—loud, boisterous laughter from the pool tables.
I turn to look, and there’s a young guy, he’s mid-twenties, with red hair, a charming smile, and he’s playing against three separate opponents. They’re betting, bills piling up on the edge of the table, and he’s winning. Every. Single. Shot.
Not just winning… dominating.
Impossible shots that shouldn’t connect. Balls that curve around obstacles as if they’re magnetically guided. His opponents’ shots consistently missing by fractions of an inch, their cues slipping at the last second, their balls scratching at the worst moments.
I watch for ten minutes.
He doesn’t lose once.
“That’s Ronan,” Eden says, following my gaze. “He’s got the luck of the Irish.Literally.”
“No one’sthatlucky.”
“Ronan is.”
I stand, drawn by curiosity and something else, the same pull that brought me here in the first place. The sense I’m finally seeing something real, something true, even if I don’t understand it.
I approach the pool table as Ronan sinks an eight-ball in a side pocket that should have been physically impossible, given the angle.
“How did you do that?” I ask.
He turns, and his eyes are too green. Unnaturally green. The color of forests that don’t exist anymore.
“Do what, lass?”
“Win. Every time. Those shots, they shouldn’t be possible.”
His grin widens. “Maybe I’m justthat good.”
“Bullshit.” The word comes out sharper than I intend, but I’m tired of dancing around the truth. Tired of pretending I don’t see what’s right in front of me. “You’re doing something. Something…” I gesture vaguely. “Something impossible.”
Ronan’s grin doesn’t falter, but something shifts in his eyes. Something ancient, wild, and not quite human.
“Lass…” he says, leaning on his pool cue, “… this whole place runs on magic you don’t wanna understand.”
The word hangs in the air between us.
Magic.
He said it so casually as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“Magic,” I repeat slowly. “You’re telling me you’re using magic to win at pool?”
“I’m telling you that some of us are just born lucky.” He winks. “And some of us can make our own luck.”
