Page 40 of Just One Little Bargain

The café noise rushes in to fill the space Maddie left behind, but it all becomes background static beside the woman sitting to my right.

Evie turns her head.

Finally. Direct eye contact.

Her eyes hit mine, green with those gold flecks that catch every stray photon in the room, and something in my chest seizes. She is disarmingly, inconveniently, dangerously pretty.

“You should go.” Evie looks away first.

“I don’t want to leave.”

Her thumb scrapes back and forth along the edge of her cup. “Then at least tell me you’re done with the demon thing.”

“I can’t.”

“Milo.” She pivots towards me again, her gaze pleading. “It was a great bit. Maddie loved it. You committed, and it was genuinely funny. But she’s gone now, and I need you to be real with me. Can you do that?”

I could make this so much easier. The influence is right there, curled up and ready. With the tether connecting us, it would barely take any effort at all. I reach for it and stall.

Because I’m looking at Evie’s face, at the tight set of her jaw and the plea in her eyes she probably doesn’t realize is visible. The idea of reaching into her mind makes me physically ill. I used the influence on Maddie and it left me scrubbing my palms on my jeans. Using it on Evie would be worse in a way I can’t justify, because her autonomy shouldn’t matter more to me than anyone else’s.

Except it does.

So I’ll do this the hard way, the version almost guaranteed to fail because I’m not charming or persuasive or any of the things a demon is supposed to be.

“I won’t push,” I promise. “Not right now.”

“Not ever. I need you to drop this.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

Because it’s the truth, and the only currency I have. Twenty-nine days from now I’ll be dragged back to a place you can’t imagine, and the only obstacle standing between me and that is a deal you refuse to make. I could’ve tipped the odds in my favor, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I’m fully aware of how monumentally idiotic that was.

“Because I think you already know I’m not making it up.” I say it carefully and watch her reaction. “And that’s what scares you.”

Her lips part but she doesn’t deny it.

Maddie returns, holding a monstrosity. The cup is clear plastic, revealing layers of caramel and something neon green. Chunks of candy float in it, and on top, a mountain of whipped cream is dusted with glitter.

“Nora’s latest creation.” She sets it down with a thud. “Salted caramel apple candy explosion.”

“It’s very . . . vibrant.”

“It’s a sugar coma with a straw. Bottoms up.”

I take a sip.

The artificial apple flavor detonates across my tongue first, followed by a wave of caramel so sweet my back teeth ache. Then comes a surge of salt that has no business being anywhere near the other flavors.

It is without question the most revolting thing I’ve ever consumed, and I’ve eaten cafeteria food in Hell. Everything in my mind says spit it out. Which is devastating, because until this drink, every mortal thing I’d tasted had been overwhelmingly positive. Last night at the bar, Maddie had shoved a basket of leftover onion rings at me before closing up, and they altered my brain chemistry. I’d been ready to declare human cuisine the single greatest achievement of any realm. This drink has shattered that worldview.

Maddie howls. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

Evie makes a startled noise. When I look over, she’s fighting a laugh so hard her eyes are watering. She loses.

Beautiful things aren’t new to me. I’ve watched galaxies burn from the cliffs of Hell and seen the sky above the mortal world turn colors at sunset that I still can’t name. None of it prepared me for Evie Feywin laughing.