"Your arm is literally dripping on my head."
I glance down. She's right. A steady patter of dark green blood is falling from my elbow onto her curls. She doesn't move away. Just blinks up at me with those enormous eyes, her chin resting against the remnant of the word 'Best,' and the corner of her mouth twitches.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize for bleeding. You bled on my behalf." Her arms tighten. "That's the most romantic thing anyone's done for me, and I once dated a guy who wrote me a sonnet."
"Sonnets are easy. Fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, predictable rhyme scheme."
"Did you just critique poetry while dripping blood on me?"
"The rhyme scheme is objectively?—"
A high-pitched whine cuts through the yard. Electric. Ascending. The kind of sound a dentist's drill makes if you scaled it up to lawnmower proportions. Both our heads turn toward the street.
A scooter. Hovering three inches off the pavement on a cushion of pale blue magical energy, its chrome fenders polished to a mirror finish, its handlebars wrapped in what appears to be sustainably sourced elven leather. The rider wears a uniform I recognize immediately: dove-gray polo shirt, pressed khakis, a peaked cap embroidered with the Cedarbrook Estates HOA crest in silver thread.
A courier.
The courier dismounts without the scooter touching ground. Steps over the curb. Walks up the driveway with the mechanical efficiency of someone who delivers bad news eight hours a day and has stopped caring about the human cost. Or the orc cost. Or any cost.
Junia's arms are still around my waist.
The courier doesn't acknowledge this. Doesn't acknowledge the beetle carnage, the smoking ichor stains, the ferns sproutingfrom the porch railing, the decapitated garden gnome, or the seven bleeding holes in my body.
He pulls a cream-colored envelope from his satchel. Breaks the wax seal—embossed with a holly leaf, Valerius's personal sigil—and withdraws a single sheet of heavy cardstock.
He slaps it against me.
The cardstock sticks to my blood.
"Cedarbrook Estates Homeowner's Association, Emergency Ordinance 7-14-B. Effective immediately, all unapproved physical pest-control methods are prohibited on association grounds. Approved methods must be submitted in triplicate to the Aesthetics and Wildlife Harmony Committee no fewer than fourteen business days prior to implementation. Violations are subject to fines, property liens, and immediate review by the Enforcement Board."
He turns. Walks back to the scooter. Mounts it. Hovers away.
The whine fades.
I peel the ordinance off my body. My blood has soaked through the cardstock, turning the cream paper a mottled green-black. The text is still legible. Every word. Every clause. Every meticulously crafted sentence designed to make what just happened—the defense of her home, the defense of her grandmother's roses, the defense of a Ghost Orchid three years in the making—a punishable offense.
Junia's chin is still on me. Her eyes drop to the document.
"Fourteen business days."
"Fourteen business days."
"So if those beetles come back tonight?—"
"We file paperwork and watch them eat."
Her jaw tightens. That soldier's jaw. That Bakersfield-drainage-ditch jaw.
"The hell we do."
CHAPTER 7
JUNIA
The ordinance is still warm from Flynn's blood when I snatch it out of his hands.
