Page 11

No, Glum.

Fitting, it seemed.

He never spoke a word to me. But there was no reason to take it personally. It seemed he never said a word to anyone. Thankfully, that was the kind of interaction I was looking for. None.

Besides, the country was in the grips of a literacy crisis. It was best to leave everyone who had a book in their hands alone, even if what they were reading was guilty of spreading absurd lies about relationships to the general populace.

My gaze slipped toward the other side of the space, where several guests were in the waiting room, biding their time until their podcasters arrived to interview them.

A trio of tall, thin, impossibly attractive people stood toward the back corner, their beauty the kind one could only find in the fae. Despite myself, I wondered which of the podcasts had managed to pull their kind into the center of a city full of pollution, people, and iron—all things they loathed.

Sitting a few chairs away from the fae was a single human who was not so discreetly taking a short video of the creatures to, I assumed, post online to garner a million undeserved views.

Sure, paranormals had been out in the open for a lifetime or two at this point. But some humans still treated us like animals at a zoo.

A sound resembling a sigh escaped me as I made my way into the hall.

Where I was immediately plowed into.

Papers flew.

Something dropped and bounced.

Hot liquid soaked through my front.

My hand instinctively went outward, settling on the soft curve of a woman’s hip, the heat of her body warming my cool skin.

“No, no, no, no, no!”

The smell of cinnamon sugar met my nose, the unique scent overwhelming my senses for a moment. It wasn’t something I’d scented on a human before—outside of an actual bakery, that is. It was at once soft and sharp, heady, and oddly… comforting.

The scalding hot fluid against my chest was, however, not.

“Do you not look where you’re—” I started.

But then she glanced down.

The words died on my tongue.

I’d seen her before, of course. For a split second when she’d handed me that disgusting concoction she had the audacity to call coffee.

I’d noted her: her short, compact frame; the way her skirt clung to her shapely hips and thighs; how her breasts stretched the buttons of her blouse; her wavy brown hair that smelled inexplicably like tomatoes; her delicate heart-shaped face; her cupid’s bow mouth; and her high cheekbones.

Somehow, though, I’d missed those mesmerizing eyes of hers.

They were light brown, conjuring up images of fall honey, after the abundance of flowers made it rich and deeper than spring or summer varieties. But starbursting from the onyx pupils were shades of darker browns and lighter golden flecks.

They were unique. One of a kind. And I’d seen millions of eyes in my long life.

“Oh,” she said, taking me in. “It’s you.”

“Indeed,” I agreed. I reached into my breast pocket to pull out my handkerchief and wipe away some of the offending liquid, which smelled just as sugary-sweet as the previous one I’d spat all over the studio.

Her gaze followed the motion, concern pinching her brows together. Two small lines formed between them and my fingers itched to trace them. Instead, I curled them tightly around my handkerchief.

“I’ll pay for your dry-cleaning bill,” she said.

Then she ducked down, frantically gathering a small mountain of paperwork while attempting not to flash anyone in her dainty yellow sundress.