Page 12 of Fang Fatale

Curtain.

Voices.

I can't quite make out the words at first. One voice is higher, bright and excitable. The other is lower, softer, with a laugh that sounds delightfully out of practice.

Against every professional instinct, I edge closer until I'm crouched behind a rain barrel, close enough for the voices to separate into words.

"And then what?" Dandy asks, somehow managing to fill every square inch of the room with her voice.

"Then I told her it wasn't a real opossum," the other woman says—Birdie? "But she screamed anyway."

A beat.

"I felt bad."

Another beat.

"But only a little."

They both howl, Dandy's laughter a banshee wail and the stranger's a champagne fizz.

The warmth carries through the walls, and unexpectedly—against every expectation—I envy it.

Then—

Footsteps.

Not inside.

Outside.

Gravel crunches beneath polished shoes, measured and deliberate. I duck lower behind the rain barrel, and through the filigree of the rain I recognize a silhouette you don't forget.

Leland Brooks.

Suit so sharp it could cut from this distance.

Not a man who blends.

Not a man who waits.

My stomach sinks.

Leland Brooks should not be standing on that porch.

The cottage is warded.

Either someone invited him...

...or someone just taught me a very uncomfortable lesson about magic.

I'm too far away to hear the conversation, but I catch the flicker of Dandy's pink curls as she answers the door.

One hand lands on her hip.

The other keeps hold of the paper bag.

Even from here I can tell her eyebrows have achieved low orbit.