Moving with swift purpose, Luna set to work putting on the kettle, priming the pot, measuring out tea leaves. While she waited for it to brew, she disposed of the forgotten meal sent over by Mrs. Goddard, washed the dishes and left them on the draining board to be fetched later that morning. Then shepoured two cups of chamomile and stood a moment with her shoulders back, bracing like a soldier preparing to march.
“One more month,” she whispered again. Pasting a smile on her face, she nudged the kitchen door open, stepped out into the passage and on to the shop.
Mr. Grimm was still in the nook where she’d left him. He sat in the cane chair, staring at the stove, the half-drunk cup of Sniff-Me-Not tea resting on his knee, barely supported with one limp hand. Luna hastily set aside the two chamomiles and went to claim the Sniff-Me-Not before it crashed. “Really, Mr. Grimm,” she said sternly, “you ought to try to drink it.”
He nodded vaguely without looking at her. “Later, Miss Talbot. Later.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, studying his profile. All the lines of his face seemed harder this morning, more severe. Still very refined, almost pretty. But older. There was a heaviness around his mouth, which she could not have imagined there last night when that same mouth was much occupied with kissing her roommate.
Luna cleared her throat. “Do you want your chamomile instead?” she asked briskly.
“Yes, please.” His voice was strangely soft, almost meek.
Luna handed the cup to him. Then, curious despite herself, she asked, “Do you remember much about last night? About what happened?”
He flicked a startled deer-in-the-headlamps gaze up to her. Hastily, he shook his head.
Lunatskedand took a fortifying sip of her own tea. “I was still up,” she said, setting the cup back in the saucer and watching the swirl of the pale liquid, “when Bryony came in last night. She, um . . . she told me about your conversation.”
Mr. Grimm’s teacup clattered, splattering chamomile everywhere. “She didwhat?”
“Whoa! Easy there!” Luna fetched one of the mushroom tea towels from the rack by the stove and offered it to her boss. He didn’t even acknowledge it. His eyes stared up at hers like he’d just glimpsed the most terrifying of all Dire demons, coming at him through the Void. “Don’t be mad at her,” Luna said, frowning a little. “She just needed someone to talk to about it all, and I happened to be there. She knows there’s nothing she can say that will shock or surprise me. Not aboutyou,Mr. Grimm.”
His brow puckered, and his eyes seemed to spin rather in their sockets. “Wh-what did she . . . tell you exactly?”
“She said you ordered tea. She claims you then talked about your tea and how you prefer to take your tea. She says she couldn’t get you to shut up about tea.”
“Oh!” Mr. Grimm sagged. “Oh, is that all?”
“Yes. That’sall.”Luna chuckled softly, ignoring the little twisting knot in her gut. She pushed the tea towel into his hand before she gave into impulse and started mopping him up for herself, which certainly would not be appropriate. “She said she’d never had such a dull time in her life. What were you thinking, Mr. Grimm? A girl like Bryony is not likely to be entertained by tea-talk, you know.”
“Yes, I gathered as much,” he admitted dully. He took a few swipes at his trousers with the towel then just sat there.
Shaking her head, Luna turned away and picked up her own teacup again. She stared down at the little flecks of chamomile, watching how they swirled. Then, shocking herself, she added impulsively, “Shedidsay you’re a good kisser.”
Color flooded his pale cheeks. Luna watched from under her lashes as he looked away from her, staring very hard at the stove. His jaw rolled from one side to the next before he finally said, “That’s something, I suppose.”
Luna frowned. She couldn’t read him. Not at all. Which was strange—she would have said, after all these months together,after all this time they’d spent in one another’s company, that she’d come to understand him quite well indeed. But there was something so closed-off about him. Like even now he was fastening doors against her, blocking her out. And she shouldn’t care about that, not when she was leaving so soon anyway, but . . .
But it hurt. It hurt so much.
“Well,” she said at last, reclaiming his untouched chamomile and stacking it with the similarly untouched Sniff-Me-Not tea, “maybe you ought to try again with Bryony? Might’ve just been nerves, you know. Something tells me the two of you will hit it off much better next time.”
“Yes. Maybe.” Mr. Grimm pinched the bridge of his nose, his expression faintly pained.
Luna turned to go before another stupid surge of tears could rise and make her do something indescribably foolish. She took a few steps, intent upon reclaiming the temporary sanctuary of the kitchen, but Mr. Grimm’s voice stopped her. “Miss Talbot?”
A little thrill shot through her, right down to her gut. Luna turned swiftly, skirts bouncing about her calves, too-full teacups sloshing into their saucers. “Yes, Mr. Grimm?” Gods, was thathervoice sounding so breathy?
“I have a, erm, request to make.”
“Yes?”
“I need your permission to perform an act of sorcery.” He turned in his seat, looking up at her. His eyes were very cold, very stern. A little strange. “And I cannot tell you what it is.”
All the little thrillingness faded from her veins, replaced by a shot of ice. “Does it . . . have to do with the spell from yesterday?”
He blinked once. Slowly. Then: “Yes.”
