Page 31 of Hex Appeal

I start opening bottles. The first is too sweet. The second smells like a Christmas tree. The third⁠—

I recoil. “What the hell is that?”

Serena snatches it from me and checks the label. “Fennel.”

“Yuck. I feel like it just punched me in the face.”

She laughs so hard she has to grab the table.

And I just watch her. She really is beautiful.

Serena is alive.

Everything she feels seems to happen across her entire face. When she's amused, she doesn't smile.

She beams.

When she's annoyed, those green eyes flash.

When she talks about this place, there's an energy in her that seems to fill the room.

I don't know what to do with someone like that. Maybe that's why I can't stop thinking about her.

“Here.” She hands me another bottle. “Try this.”

I smell it. Warm. Dark. A little sweet.

“That’s better.”

“I thought you’d like that one.”

“What's in it?”

“Black honey.”

She passes me another.

“Clove.”

Another.

“Dark cherry wood.”

By the time we're finished, she's helped me build something I never would have chosen for myself.

Dark cherry wood. Amber. Black honey. Vanilla. Clove.

And something sharp and herbal underneath it all.

“Absinthe,” she tells me.

I look at her.

“Of course.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means even your candles are weird.”