“It’s definitely the lighter of my arsenal,” he says, avoiding her question. “Sorry, this isn’t the best spot, the sun’s in the way. Can you see anything?”
She squeezes one eye shut. “Sort of.”
“Here.” He tugs off his cap, flattening down a cowlick as he plops it onto her head. It’s too big, and the brim slips into her eyes, but it does the trick. The worst of the glare extinguishes, leaving the glade a flat, hazy gold. “Better?”
“Uh, yeah.” She lifts her chin. Her cheeks burn. “Thanks.”
“It’s all right.” He keeps his distance, looking uneasy. “You’ll, uh, want to stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Point your left foot where you plan to aim.”
She follows his instructions, lifting the pistol the way she’d seen him do. “Like this?”
“Sort of.” He palms his chin, considering her. “Can I make some adjustments?”
“Please.”
He hesitates and then steps closer, folding his hand over hers. Her fingers curl against the foregrip as he guides her higher. Even this—this unbearable proximity, this sunlit scene—is familiar. She’s twelve years old again, sighting a stag down the barrel of his father’s rifle, his voice at her ear:Don’t tell Ellie. She’ll tell my dad, and he’ll tell your mom.
And then she’ll kill you and plant you in her garden.
His laugh had been loud. The stag, hearing him, took off like a shot.Exactly.
“Look through the scope,” he says now, coaxing her into position. His free hand skims her hip, angling her until her spine lines up against his chest. She can feel the heat coming off him, like he’s swallowed the sun. His cheek grazes hers as he asks, “Do you see the first vase?”
The radio static thrums through her. “Yeah.”
“Okay, good.” He clears his throat and steps back. “Fire when ready.”
She swallows a breath and pulls the trigger. With a ping, the wooden bolt goes wide, arcing past the vase and lodging itself neatly in a nearby patch of hobblebush. There’s a moment of silence. Asher stands with his hands in his jacket pockets, a muscle working in his jaw.
“That was—”
“Don’tlaugh,” she orders, rounding the unloaded crossbow on him.
He puts his hands up in surrender. “I would never.”
“That was horrible. I didn’t even come close.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I missed my first time, too.”
She glowers at him. “No, you didn’t.”
“You’re right, I didn’t.” He peers out at her from beneath the shade of his palm, and she can see him biting back a smile. “Come on. We’ll go again.”
It takes four more tries for her to get anywhere close to a target. On the fifth, she manages to explode a vase into pieces. It wasn’t the one she was aiming for, but she takes the win. She turns, elated, unable to hold back a grin.
“I did it!”
“You killed it dead,” agrees Asher. “Think you can do that again?”
“Let’s hope.”
She notches the wooden bolt, feeling it click firmly into place. Her arms ache. There’s a crick in her neck. All around them, dusk begins to settle, color bleeding out of everything. She sights the next vase, her finger on the trigger.
A flicker of movement draws her concentration too late. The whistle of her projectile is cut short just as Lys snatches the stake out of midair. It hovers, point sharp, an inch from his chest. Unfazed, he tosses the stake to the ground. His cheeks are sunken, his eyes bruised.
“Am I interrupting?”
“You are,” says Asher. “You look terrible, by the way.”
