“What are these?” he asks the vendor.
“Bleeding hearts. Native to the Deer Court.”
Asmo huffs a laugh under his breath. “Of course,” he mutters. “These, too.”
She wraps the bleeding hearts and the carnations in old newspaper and ties them together with a blue string. I tuck them into my bag. “Four coins,” the woman says.
I blink. “Are you sure? Only four?”
She nods, but it’s sad. Tired. “Market’s turned. Most folk aresticking to the essentials. Not a lot of extra money to go around for things you can’t eat or wear.”
“Wh—”
“Hard times,” Asmo agrees solemnly and hands over the payment. “Thank you.” He grips my elbow and tugs me away. “Princess, you can’t?—”
“Stop. I know. You don’t have to say it,” I snap. Just like that, embarrassment has returned, another weight on my shoulders. Asking the locals questions only risks exposing us. I forgot where we were and who we were pretending to be. I could have ruined everything with that one question.
We find Luca leaning nonchalantly against a wall, his bag on his shoulder overflowing with fresh vegetables. A flash of relief crosses his features when he spots us. Asmo and I follow him as he sets a quick pace through the town square, which has grown even busier since this morning. We weave around men and women, muttering apologies as we go. I forgot how slow and clunky humans are.
It’s been years since I left the town I grew up in and moved to Pinebend. Growing up as the only hybrid in Black Hollow was hard. Although the humans that live in the hybrid courts are friendly, the ones in my hometown were not. My antlers alone were enough to make me stand out from the other kids, but my magic was another thing. I had to make myself smaller whenever I was around my “friends,” careful to avoid scaring them with the small amounts I used.
I shake my head as I think about how well Cora’s plan worked. She didn’t even have to do anything to stunt my magical abilities. The environment I was in took care of that. She was always there to comfort me whenever the others were too mean. She was there to be the good guy, when she was really the villain the entire time.
“Hey,” Asmo calls to Luca, pulling me from memories of another town from another time. We’re stopped in front of a café, the smell of freshly poured coffee and fresh pastries making my mouth water and my stomach do flips. “Let’s stop here.”
“We’ve talked about this,” Luca says. “We can’t?—”
“We can and we are,” Asmo says with finality. Even with the glamour dimming his features, he still commands power and respect. I fear Luca mightexplode from anger someday soon, but I find I don’t care if that day is today. I haven’t had a coffee in a month and it’s now all I can think about.
The front door dings as we step inside. With the greatest amount of self-control I can muster, I only order one cup. They call our pretend names and we snag a table by the window.
The first sip of coffee is akin to a religious experience, even though I’ve never considered myself religious. At least, not like some. I worship the Mother and credit Her for our creations, as we all do. But I don’t often find myself praying to Her. Although, maybe that would help get us out of this mess.
I send a quick thanks to the heavens before taking another sip.
“I know I didn’t give you a choice and that me coming might have complicated things, but I really needed this,” I say, breaking the silence. “Thank you.”
One corner of Asmo’s mouth twitches upward. A second smile in an hour. More than I’ve seen in the last few days.
Luca leans back in his chair, the legs scraping against the wooden floor beneath. “Sorry if I’ve been…”
“An asshole,” Asmo responds.
Luca rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, an asshole. This whole thing has made me a version of myself I don’t like much.”
I find myself empathizing with Luca, but I’m not exactly interested in letting him off the hook that easily. “Thank you for the apology,” I say. I take another sip of coffee and turn back to the window. A couple walks past, hands interlocked as they stroll down the brick-paved streets. A pang of jealousy hits me as I watch them. The simplicity of it. The normalcy of it.
Moments later, another couple walks past, but their faces are pale. The man urges the woman forward, his hand resting protectively against the small of her back. He looks in the opposite direction and quickens his pace.
My heart thuds in my chest.Relax, Mae. Maybe he saw an ex-lover, or someone else he doesn’t want his partner to see.
But then someone else starts running, coming from the samedirection the man was looking back at. A woman follows him, skin flushed and arms pumping as she passes the man.
Asmo wraps his arm around the back of my chair and leans forward, staring out the window with rapt attention. The café door bangs open, muting the sound of the bell ringing above, and a man stumbles in, bent over and gasping for air.
“Everything alright?” someone asks.
He shakes his head, then looks up, face somehow pale and flushed. “Demons.”
