The apple-seller came over. “You gonna buy that or are you just gonna wave it around?”
Berron looked annoyed at being interrupted, before reaching into his pocket for cash. He bit into the apple as we walked on, then wordlessly passed it to me.
I took it, bit into the unbitten side. Apple skin snapped crisply beneath my teeth and sweet juice fizzed onto my lips. “You have that,” I said. “Just not here.” I handed the apple back to him.
“I want both,” he said.
We continued walking, leaving the Union Square Greenmarket behind for Park Avenue, where it led north-northeast.
What got me about our impromptu trip to the greenmarket was how verynormalit was. He wasn’t calling memy Zeldaanymore, and he’d stopped proposing to make me his queen. But when he looked at me, sometimes—when he thought I wasn’t looking—I still could see that glint in his eye. Veiled, but there all the same. Even over bites of apple he was still doing it.
Could I tell him to stop looking at me that way?
Did Iwantto?
When we reached Gramercy Park, I surveyed what was left of the work we had done. The vines that had overgrown the buildings had mostly backed down, due to our maintenance and probably due to the cold, as well. But new growth lurked in crevices, green and tentative, waiting for a chance to climb again.
I stopped and leaned against the black rails of the fence surrounding the private park. “Are you ready?”
“Of course.” He took his hands out of his jacket pockets and held them out.
I removed my hands from my pockets, and before the cold air could chill them, took Berron’s hands in mine. To any outsider we would have looked like a couple. We weren’t. We were friends. Friends who had kissed a couple of times, sure. And maybe he had tried to make me his queen, once. But all that had happened when his whole world needed saving.
Everything was resolved, now. This was just… the cleanup. This was business.
Probably should have looked away when the magic started.
Instead, his gaze held me in place, pinned to the bars of the fence, while green and gold vines spiraled around my hands, sinking into my flesh with a sigh that whispered of enchanted forests.
It means nothing, I reminded myself, over and over again until it was like a mantra:nothing, nothing, nothing, while his eyes were shadows in the forest, hiding mysteries.
I had the magic. I could let go. And yet I wanted to hold on longer, even as I had to let go before it became obvious. I gasped at the shock of disconnection, quickly covering it with a cough.
It was just magic.
It meant nothing.
3
Wemadeourwayaround the outside of the park itself, strolling and casually pausing to whisper to wayward vines. I was investigating a tiny vine wrapped around a carriage light when a familiar presence entered my perception like the scent of toast reaching peak golden-brown. I turned, knowing who I would see, knowing he would be outlined in red, like banked coals waiting for a breath.
“Daniel,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
He stood before me dressed to the nines as usual. Beautifully draped slacks over fine leather shoes. Trench coat layered over suit and tie. He turned and pointed up. “I saw you from the window.”
The picture window facing the park, in Prospero’s apartment. Of course. “Cleaning it out?”
His eyebrows rose. “Why would I clean it out?”
Berron, who had been kneeling to inspect the sidewalk a short distance away, rose and approached.
“To sell it,” I said.
“Sell what?” Berron asked. He nodded cordially to Daniel, who raised his chin in greeting.
“Prospero’s apartment,” I answered.
“Oh, right.” Berron nodded.
