Binky’s voice cracked across the path like divine judgement and both of them jerked apart so quickly, Edith nearly fell over asecondtime. Binky landed aggressively on the nearby signpost, feathers puffed out in outrage.
“I LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR ONE HOUR… BELLEND.”
Edith’s face burned and Spencer looked deeply unimpressed at the interruption.
Binky pointed a wing dramatically between them. “This,” he declared, “is how people end up in emotionally devastating subplots.”
“We weren’t doing anything,” Edith said immediately.
Binky stared at her. Then at Spencer. Then back at her.
“I may be small,” he said flatly, “but I am not blind.”
Edith opened her mouth, about to make a comment about how thick his glasses were, but decided at the last moment to keep her mouth shut. Binky huffed loudly before fluttering down toward Edith, glaring suspiciously up at Spencer the entire time.
“Well,” he announced, “the council has decided you’ve had enough unsupervised bounty hunter exposure for one day.”
“There’s a council now?” Edith asked weakly.
“There have been several meetings.”
“That explains nothing.”
Binky ignored her entirely, instead he turned his attention fully toward Spencer now, his tiny body somehow radiating genuine threat, despite being approximately the size of an annoyed loaf of bread.
“You,” he said sharply. “Back toward town.”
Spencer raised an eyebrow. “And if I don’t?”
Binky’s feathers puffed ominously. “I becomeextremelyirritating.”
Edith snorted before she could stop herself, questioning how that would even be possible.
Spencer looked at her then, really looked at her, and for one deeply inconvenient second, everything else faded again. The almost-kiss still hung there between them. Like unfinished business, and that alone was dangerous because she had no business kissing a bounty hunter, especially one that was after her.
“Eyes forward, missy,” Binky squawked out.
“Stop saying missy.”
“Absolutely not.”
Spencer exhaled softly, dragging his attention away from Edith with visible effort. “I’ll see you around,” he said quietly.
The words settled strangely in her chest, warm and hopeful, and Edith folded her arms tightly to hide the reaction.
“Hopefully not while you’re trying to kidnap me,” she replied.
Something unreadable flickered across his expression. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Hopefully not.”
Then he stepped back, turning toward town, and Edith watched him go for far longer than she should have. Beside her, Binky made a deeply suspicious humming sound.
“Don’t,” Edith warned.
“Oh no,” Binky said immediately. “I’m absolutely going to.”
23
Spencer knewthe second he walked into the Ferret’s Mott that Mark was in a mood, and not just irritated or grumpy, but a real mood. The kind that radiated off him like a thunder storm about to happen. All gloom and the possibility of a headache.
