Alora, realizing something, grinned. “You were tempted.”
“No,” said the Urchin.
It was the least convincing ‘no’ she’d ever heard.
The Urchin blocked Alora’s advances at every turn onward. The arch of her back. The tilt of her hips. Aside from his curses and grumblings, she could tell he was affected. His breaths were too quick against her neck, his posture too unyielding. But the journey couldn’t continue forever, and at last they were at the edge of the forest where he could be rid of her. He slid down from the saddle before turning and doing the same to her. She gripped his forearms all the while, trying and failing to see what lay beneath his shadowed hood.
She sighed in defeat. “Enver.”
“Yes,” he said. “I'll leave you here. Can I trust you to make it back on your own?”
“You can trust me.” Her lips stuck out in a pout, unbelieving he actually possessed the gall to turn her down. Her hand flexed over George’s reins. “Before you leave, I want to know something.”
His answering sigh seemed to travel from the depths of him. “What?”
“And I want you to tell me the truth.”
“I make no promises.”
That rankled her. Still, she took the time to adjust her dress, focusing on some areas more than others. She raised her eyes to his. “Tell me you’re attracted to me. Or tell me nothing at all.”
Alora watched the Urchin and his unchanging posture. She tucked a wayward strand of her hair, her eyes fluttering over the feel of it. She thought she knew his answer, replaying his fingers wiping her neck of blood, holding pressure to her wounded ear. His assistance with the wallpaper. The firm yet gentle grip of her waist.Hair the color of chestnuts.Why, if that didn’t describe her coloring perfectly, nothing else could.
The silence ended. “Uncomfortably so.”
Alora stepped toward him. “Ha! I knew—” But where she reached there was only darkness, and when she blinked there wasn’t even that. He was gone.
”Bastard!” she seethed, and taking a firmer hold of George, stomped from the trees.
***
Alora shamelessly rapped on the door of Potions and Peculiarities. When the sign remainedClosed, and the door locked, she dragged poor George around to the back and did the same.
The Urchin had been wrong to trust her.
Bash should be here. It was afternoon, and the shop should be open. At the very least he should be inside, sorting through all his boxes as before. She found him beautiful, so beautiful she might break the door to get to him. Surely, he wouldn’t turn her down too. If he did, she thought she might scream.
But no one answered her knocks, and the fire, the ache built up inside her, began to wane. She slumped against the door, sliding down until her knees bent and her bottom hit the stoop. There she began to cry. “No one wants me. A room of love and I am unlovable.”
All the while the fire banked, the embers fizzling to nothing. Where she’d felt ecstasy moments ago, she found only acrid puffs of smoke. But she wanted the ecstasy. Sheneededit back. Hell, the world might very well end without it.
When George nudged her hair, she pushed him away. “Leave me. Leave me be,” she hiccupped. Curling in on herself, she fell fast asleep.
Chapter Fifteen
“Miss Pennigrim.Miss Pennigrim.”
Alora blinked open her eyes to twilight. Twilight and a sculpted mouth. Then sharp cheekbones and forest-like eyes. A knit brow. She swallowed against her parched throat, glancing around in confusion. She was at Potions and Peculiarities, the back door, and her hip throbbed something awful.
“I found your donkey wandering Mugwort Alley, eating every bit of green he could find, including my flower. And here I find you. Why aren’t you at home?”
Alora couldn’t answer. Why wasn’t she at home? She shifted herself to sitting and Bash gave her the space to do so, straightening. Her mind was a rusted wheel, barely pushing forward. She frowned at his bemused look, the wind-tousled hair, at the customary blacks buttoned and zipped upon his broad frame. It was the color that did it for her, finally.
The memories came upon her like an avalanche, bits and pieces, unclear and without order, but still.
She buried her face in her hands on a mortified moan. “Oh. I need to die.”
A glass of water found her hands. She downed it around a pitiful gasp, half a sob.
