Cruz whistles.“Old man knows you well.”
Aldron’s gaze flicks to him.“I know you, too, Cruz.Don’t flirt with the banshee.”
Cruz presses a hand to his chest.“I am wounded.”
“Not yet,” Aldron says.
Krishka waits near the back exit, looking like midnight wrapped in wool.Her gold-threaded braids fall over one shoulder, and her dark eyes take in my face and my hands.
“Are we bringing him leashed?”she asks.
Cruz grins.“He bites through them.”
“I am standing right here.”
“Yes,” Krishka says.“That’s the problem.”
I decide I like her less.
We leave through the alley behind The Gin Room.Morning has burned into afternoon, but the city still feels damp from this morning’s rain.Brooklyn smells like wet concrete, car exhaust, old brick, and too many people pretending they aren’t lost.
Krishka drives because she says none of us is emotionally stable enough to handle traffic, and she is not wrong.
Cruz takes the passenger seat because he enjoys irritating witches and wants access to the radio.I sit in the back, knees cramped, jaw clenched, watching buildings slide by the window.
Red Hook waits at the edge of the water, all warehouses, old brick, and secrets buried under salt air.The curiosity shop sits between a closed tattoo parlor and a bakery that smells too sweet to be innocent.
The sign above the door readsVale & Bone.
Subtle.I roll my eyes as Cruz looks up at it.“Charming.”
Krishka adjusts one of the gold rings on her finger.“Let me speak first.”
“Gladly,” Cruz says.
She looks at me, and I stare back.
“Knox.”
“I heard you.”
“That’s not the same as agreeing,” she points out.
“I won’t threaten her.”
“Or loom,” she adds for good measure.
“I don’t loom.I stand,” I huff.
“You stand threateningly.”
“That’s my face.”
Cruz coughs into his fist.“Accurate.”
Krishka mutters something in a language I don’t know and opens the door.A bell chimes above us, but the sound is wrong.Too clear.Too sharp.It slides under my skin and scrapes bone.
Shelves crowd the narrow shop, packed with jars of teeth, dried herbs, cracked porcelain dolls, old books, silver mirrors, black candles, and things that still pulse softly though they have no visible heart.
