“Jesus fucking Christ, Amy,” I said, leaning forward and hanging my head in my hands. This woman annoyed the hell out of me sometimes. “It’s not semantics, alright? I said it because I was genuinely suggesting it, and I kissed you outside that bar because I fucking wanted to.”
She looked at me wide-eyed, her face flushing, and I felt myself backpedal immediately, deciding I’d better add a qualifier.
“I wanted to help you put those twats in their place. And now I think we can help each other.”
She breathed out slowly through her mouth, holding my gaze. It was like she was trying to see if I’d fold; trying to call my bluff. But I wasn’t going to, no matter how ill-advised the idea was. Not if there was a chance she’d take me up on it.
“Fuck it,” she said, and I grinned. There was the fiery girl I knew.
“Fuck it,” I repeated.
“We’ll need to set ground rules,” she said. “And we’ll need to figure out an exit strategy that doesn’t explode our whole lives. But if we stay on the same page, it could actually work.”
“Definitely,” I said, nodding my head.
“And if at any point it’s not working, we stop. No big deal.”
I smiled, trying to keep it cool and casual. “Exactly. We can just see how it goes. Easy peasy.”
“Lemon squeezy,” she said back, her own smile tentative, like she couldn’t quite believe we were actually having this conversation. Despite having had the mad idea, I was right there with her.
I reached forward and grabbed her hand, holding her gaze. It was genuinely absurd, what we were talking about doing. Lying to the people we loved most. Ignoring our catastrophic shared history. I needed to make sure she was genuinely on board, so I narrowed my eyes at her, waiting.
“So… we’re doing this for real,” she said.
I nodded, and I couldn’t help but grin. This might be a terrible idea, but I was pretty certain it would be fun.
“Amy Evans,” I said, taking a deep breath, amazed that I was saying these words after everything we’d been through. “Will you be my fake girlfriend?”
Chapter9
Yorick Proudhollow
Days later, Yorick was still angry about the incident with the cleric, but his annoyance was eased by the fact that he’d been proven correct. Plus, Eden clearly felt remorse– she’d apologised so many times that Yorick was starting to feel like the one in the wrong. But more importantly, she’d also managed to come through for them with a lead.
Since defeating Lord Arnault months ago– Morgana had taken his head clean off with her sword, so they were certain he was out of the picture– Yorick and his friends had learned that he had been one of an actual council of twelve, each seeking an artefact of great power, with the intention of ascending to take over the world. Yorick thought that was horribly clichéd, but villains were rarely as original as heroes in his estimation.
The party had destroyed a mind control artefact called the Supremacy Sphere when they defeated Arnault, but they still didn’t know who any of the other eleven were, or what artefacts they sought. With the cleric dead, they didn’t know anything. The only lead her death provided was the tattoo itself.
Unlike any representation of The Twelve they’d seen before, this tattoo shimmered, no matter the light. Eden had known immediately what it was: whatever ink had been used, it had been infused with astral diamonds.
The astral plane was the space between worlds, with portals to other places more wonderful and more terrible than the material plane. A tattoo infused with its rarest material implied a force or entity involved with The Twelve that was further-reaching– and likely more powerful– than any of them had encountered before. Suddenly, Lord Arnault looked tame in comparison to the types of beings they could be up against.
The only intel they could find on the trade of astral diamonds pointed them to a travelling group who often set up camp deep in a nearby forest; a forest known for being dangerous to traverse due to its density and its ferocious wildlife. Gorlag now led them through that dense wood, bushwhacking through the thick undergrowth, followed by Eden, who was navigating them, and Yorick. Calamity walked behind him, probably keeping herself calm lest she start another forest fire with her magic, and Morgana and Ser Liam could be heard bringing up the rear, the clatter of their armour at odds with the sounds of nature waking up around them. It was getting dark; if they didn’t find the encampment soon, they would need to make a camp of their own. And given that this forest was notorious for the packs of wolves that roamed it at night, that could be a problem.
“I’m sorry again about the cleric,” Eden whispered to Yorick. “You were right. I should have trusted you.”
“Trust is earned,” he admitted, “and we haven’t worked together for long enough for you to trust me implicitly.”
“Still,” she said as she paused to examine the moss growing up a tree, then redirected Gorlag with a tap on their shoulder, “I’m not used to the way you all do things. I’ll try to follow your lead a bit more.”
Yorick smiled to himself. He was so rarely deferred to– whether it was his diminutive stature or his accommodating disposition, he wasn’t sure– and it felt nice. But he knew that he could stand to make more of an effort with Eden, too. Trust worked both ways.
Suddenly Eden froze, and Yorick nearly ran into one of her long legs.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered, pointing into the forest. Yorick tried to focus, but it took a moment for him to hear what she had heard. When he did, though, he was amazed he hadn’t heard it before. Clearly audible over the rustle of leaves and the chirping of insects were the unmistakable sounds of people: laughter, the clatter of dishes and cutlery, the thwack of someone chopping wood. He could even smell the smoke now, and something meaty cooking over the fire.
“Nice one,” he said to Eden, smiling up at her as she beamed. They all turned to head in that direction, Yorick’s stomach grumbling in anticipation of whatever he could smell.
