Page 54 of Veil of Blood and Bone

It’s easier to blend in a city. Small towns are trickier.

This one in particular, I’d thought the neighbors would take up their perches in their windows, peering through eyelets of yellowed lace to spy.

Instead, they walk past.

I lean against the brick opposite Thorn & Candle shaded by the roof’s overhang. Not only did they bypass, but several offered a brief wave or a hello.

Since when do children stop and stare at me with a grin?

This town unsettles me, when very little can do that.

Maybe the fraying veil has made this a geographical anomaly. Thin places carve people out and fill them with strange things

Their behavior isn’t enough to get me to move. If they’re content to let me perch and watch and understand...

The bookstore has snagged a prime location near the downtown area. Nightshade Hollow isn't a place of sunshine and joy. There are no merry bands of tourists today, no signs for apple picking and haunted hayrides.

Life goes on solemnly through sunlight flashing unkindly through curtains of steel clouds. People are friendly.

They’ve grown accustomed to the gloom like some of us grow used to the dark.

Or perhaps it’s Helene.

Even across the street, I can feel her pulse moving beneath skin and vein.

The sound drags at me.

Every lifetime begins this way—her blood calling to mine like a hymn I was damned to follow. Wren has already made himself known to her, the insufferable cock sucker.

Glaring at a passing group of tourists with midwestern accents does nothing. They pass in a wave of laughter and overly chemical floral perfume.

Movement flutters in the darkness beyond the bookstore’s front door. Most of the display windows are too cluttered with towers of novels and miscellaneous remnants of the past to let me see clearly.

Only Helene.

She burns inside the dim shop like sacrificial flame, bright enough to ruin centuries of discipline.

Two silver-haired relics in the store have no idea what kind of being they’re dealing with. The old women push her for information in shaky words clear as day even across the street.

Did you hear about what happened at the Longship Festival yesterday?

Ninny. She was there. She had a booth. She saw it.

What do they expect from her?

Everyone is always out for something, even me. And what I want from Helene is so much more complicated and detailed than what those ladies search for.

They want the reassurance of the extraordinary. They want to know their lives haven’t been labeled as mundane, and excitement and magic still exist in this world.

But I know what she smells like terrified.

I know how her throat feels beneath my mouth.

I know the exact moment warmth leaves her body.

I want something beyond excitement and magic, something scarcer, more rare.

Helene handles the women with ease, and after she leads them off, the sister rolls her eyes. That one has the right idea, at least. Although diplomacy has its role, I suppose.