“Why don’t you flex those pigeon muscles and lead us back to our tent?”
He turns smoothly, guiding the way out of the marketas if he’s got a compass wired into his brain. The moment his back is to me, I slip Fennel a piece of my pie.
The donkey eats noisily as I stroke his fuzzy forehead. “Dusty little menace.”
Fennel brays happily, loud enough to echo down the aisle as we leave the market.
Eight
“I’m all for putting on a show,” Declan begins when we’re back in our tent, “but do you have any idea what you’re going to say when we’re onstage?”
Fennel and Cinder are firmly banished outside, and I’m elbow deep in the trunk at the foot of the bed. I pull out a gauzy, bronze dress that looks close enough to my size to work and a pair of strappy gladiator sandals that would have been helpful a few hours ago when I was trekking barefoot through the desert.
“Something witchy and storylike.” I shrug. “I’ll improvise.”
He raises a brow. “Are you good enough at improv to bet our lives on it?”
“Fair point.” I chew the inside of my cheek.
“You are an editor,” he says, peeling the bandage from his hand. “And we both know you have a way with words.”
My cheeks heat, and I focus on smoothing the fabricof the bronze dress like it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen. “Assistant editor,” I murmur, mostly to myself.
“Then you’ve probably read more books than your boss. Isn’t that how it works? The lower you are on the totem pole, the more work you actually do?”
“You’ve never been the low man on the totem pole, have you?”
“Not exactly,” he admits. “Nepotism has its perks.”
“Maybe. But you also work hard. How long does it count as nepotism if you keep earning your place?”
He tilts his head. “Are you giving me a compliment?”
I ignore the question entirely. “You are right about one thing. I’ve reada lotof books, and I’m betting most of them don’t exist here.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” I say, closing the trunk, “I can borrow from them. Use pieces to craft something that sounds allegorical and wise. No one here will know the difference.”
“You’re going to plagiarize your performance?”
“Plagiarizeis such an ugly word.” I smooth the fabric between my fingers. “I preferreinterpret. Plus, I’ll change the names.”
“This isn’t a documentary.” He laughs. “I don’t think that’ll count.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
He considers that for a moment. “You could create your own story.”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I’ve spent years rewriting other people’s words. The only ones that are mine are those I post. Even those don’t sound like me. They’re written for the algorithm. Although, that doesn’t seem to be working. Plus, they’re not stories so much as…products.”
His brow furrows. “But you believe in what you’re selling.”
“Well, yeah,” I say, easing down onto the edge of the trunk, the bronze dress pooling across my lap. “I believe in the effects of positive thinking. In ritual. In the power of small things—candles, crystals, meditation, spells—as a way to focus and shift perspective. It’s something I’ve always been drawn to and love learning about. But actual magick?” I shake my head, a small, rueful smile tugging at my lips. “That part I’m not so sure about.”
He studies me for a long moment, quiet and unreadable. “Then what brought us here?”
I look away, fingers tracing the gauzy folds of the dress. “That,” I admit, “is a big question. And one I can’t answer. Which is why I’d really love to find Fortune.”
