Page 21 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

“Think I’ll get two. Turkish Coffees fucking slap,” he says lifting my socked toes to press a kiss to them before standing and going off toward Reina’s domain. I watch him retreat before smiling down at my book again. My heart feels so full and light and suddenly, I don’t really mind if I wind up absolutely devastated by the aftermath of tonight. Even if this is just a one-night stand for him, I think I could bank it in my mind as a precious memory forever.

Damien is... so perfect. Being thirty, I had long given up on the idea of finding a suitable partner. Bastion always seemed like the best I was going to get—a dear friend and fuck buddy who I sometimes pined over and sometimes wanted to push off a cliff. Especially since, of late, it’s been more of the latter.

But there’s something about Damien. Even if the complications of my family’s history made a long-term relationship seem almost impossible to pursue, it felt good to know that there could be someone out there that felt so perfect for me at first blush.

I snuggle back into the cushions a little more as I turn to the midpoint of the book. I read about the principle of correspondence according to this scholar when a familiar, unwelcome feeling creeps into the warmth I’ve been hiding in. It occurs to me that it’s late. Nearly four in the morning. And with how excited I’d been about the Portent show, I barely slept last night.

I’ve been awake for almost twenty-four hours. Which is not a good idea for an epileptic.

The cozy warmth of the bookshop shifts, turning oppressive. Almost claustrophobic. I exhale slowly through tight lips as I work on extricating myself from the hoodie Damien gave me at the venue. By the time I’m done, a faint sweat forms on my brow and a feeling of dread tightens my ribcage.

Fuck. This is definitely an aura.

I ball the hoodie and lie down on it, turning onto my side. For one blessed, vertiginous moment, I think a seizure isn’t coming. And that maybe I’ll just vomit instead. That would still be humiliating, sure. But at least Damien wouldn’t come back to someone who looks downright possessed. Grand mal seizures are not for the faint of heart, and I fear that having one in front of him might scare him away forever.

The anxiety pushes me over the ledge of the aura. My heart hammers heavily in my chest and I close my eyes when the room spins.

A voice, smooth and liquid as a glass of whiskey, cleaves through the haze of the aura.

“So, the youngest Nightingale has finally left her roost,” it says.

Perhaps not an aura, then. But an entity. A dense one.

When I open my eyes again, I’m not in The Nocturne anymore. I’m seated in a leather wingback chair, a fire crackling soundlessly in a nearby hearth. Its flames don’t emit light. They devour it. Looking at it brings to mind the same untethered wrongness of looking directly into the bulb of a blacklight. It almost hurts.

“Hello, you little disaster,” the same voice says, drawing my attention away from the anti-flames. It’s faintly accented—some indiscernible lilt that could be Irish, could be Scottish, could be Welsh.

The entity—whatever he is—sits across from me in a similar wingback chair. He’s wearing a nice suit, dark violet. His wears his coat unbuttoned, no tie. A handsome silk pocket square perches in his breast pocket, one shiny black Oxford-clad foot drapes over the opposite knee. He reclines in his chair like some kind of monarch, his chin propped on a ringed hand.

“What are you?” I ask firmly. I know better than to show any kind of uncertainty or weakness, even as my heart races against my sternum.

“A concerned party,” he says.

“Concerned?”

“It’s not something I can talk about very directly. Not while you’re here. Suffice it to say that you need to get yourself sequestered back into that little apothecary of yours if you’d like to continue breathing,” the entity says. “And you need to follow some very specific instructions on reworking the wards so I can follow.”

I squint at him across the checkered, marble floors. “You’re him, aren’t you?” I ask. “The demon who cursed us?”

He sighs, put-upon, brushing his middle finger over his smooth brow. “No.”

“There’s no point in lying,” I say. “You think Nan didn’t warn me about you? You think we don’t make every subsequent generation aware?”

“It’s almost like there’s no point in talking to you Nightingales anymore,” he gripes.

“You have no idea how right you are, dickhead,” I say. “Because I’ve already broken the curse. At least functionally.”

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“I took matters into my own hands. Factory is closed, assface,” I say. “You’re about four months late. I had my uterus taken out in February. A little Valentine’s Day gift for me. So, this whole ‘multigenerational child bride’ thing you worked out with whoever the fuck is over.”

His expression shifts through a few baffling stages. Confusion gives way to understanding, then darkens into rage. He leaps to his feet, stalking toward me. I press myself into the back of my chair as he braces a single hand over my head and reaches for me with the other hand.

“What are you doing?” I yelp, hating how fearful it sounds.

“Shut up,” he says, reaching for the pearl around my neck. “You have no idea what you’ve done, you little fool.”

He grasps it and I shudder as the velvet ribbon slips off my neck with ease. The image of a deer skin sloughing off its rotting carcass flashes in my mind’s eye as I stare at the Nightingale Pearl nestled in the Demon’s palm.