But then Luna giggled.
Nigel blinked, shocked. He turned to see her bundling up the blue dressing gown in her arms and stuffing it back into the carpet bag. She let out a little squeak and a, “I’m sorry! We’resorry! We’re going now!” even as her voice broke in another bubbling stream of nervous tittering so wildly at odds with the wrath in his soul that, for a moment, Nigel didn’t know how to function.
Luna looked back over her shoulder, saw him standing there. With a little dart, she reached out, clasped hold of his hand. Her palm was once more pressed against his, their fingers interlaced. When she tugged, he stumbled into motion, propelled by nothing but pure need to maintain that connection.
They had just taken the first staggering steps toward the top of the turret stairway, when something brilliant burst overheard. Nigel tilted his head back to see a ball of burning fire, trailing a long tail of sparkling, mystical energy in all the colors of the rainbow across the night-deepened sky. He felt an intensity of magic unlike anything he’d ever known or imagined, and realized with a lurch of his heart that Luna was right. If there was Dark Magic and there was Green Magic, there was room in this universe for Miracle Magic as well.
“There it goes again!” Bonnibelle snarled, breaking the spell of the moment. “Like clockwork, every dratted night! You know what I’d wish for if’in it were me? I’d wish for justone nightof not having to chase young idiots like the two of you off this here tower! I’m getting too old for these stairs.”
Luna felt as though her body moved through the strange, hazy indistinctness of a dream. Everything seemed to be happening to some distant version of herself in a slightly parallel universe. Somewhere, faraway, she heard the gruff voice of Bonnibelle the tour guide grumbling. A little closer, was that her own voice she heard? Giggling like some silly little school girl? But those giggles hardly seemed to belong to her, and she was helpless to make them stop. Every few seconds, they seemed to burst free again, nervous and foolish and painfully embarrassing.
The embarrassment, at least, seemed to belong to her. That she felt completely.
Her lips were on fire. Absolutely burning on her face, as though she’d impatiently sipped her tea too soon before allowing it to cool. Only so much more delicious than that. And as for herhand.
“Green Mother save me,” she whispered under her breath.
Had Mr. Grimm justseduced her hand?
How else could she describe it? Every place where his lips had pressed wasalivewith tingling brilliance, like the skin had beenactivated to a higher level of existence than the rest of her. Every place where he’d lavished kisses and nibbles and little grazes of his teeth—her knuckles, her palm, her wrist, her fingers—gods above! Was she actually feeling jealous? Of her own hand? Maybe. After all, why should that particular part of her anatomy receive so much of his attention while the rest of her was still so . . . so . . .
Clang!
Luna blinked and looked up, the sound of metal ringing in her ears. She found that she stood just outside the gates of Bally Park in the chill of a winter evening. Lamplight pooled around her and her silent companion, illuminating a portion of the sidewalk. They faced out into the busy street, where traffic passed to-and-fro without any consideration for the absolute tumult going on within her soul. How dare everyday life simplycontinuelike this? How could it? How could she?
It occurred to her then, in that vague way of dreams, that her hand was still firmly grasped by Mr. Grimm’s.
“I should take you home.”
His voice reached her as though from a great distance. Deep and rough and a little dangerous. Luna looked up at him briefly then away again at once. Because even in that brief glance, the temptation was entirely too strong to slip her hand around the back of his neck and pull him down into another kiss. A bigger, fuller, more complete sort of kiss, but . . . that wouldn’t be a good idea. Right? That would be very foolish. Very risky, very dangerous. Not with Wednesday looming large on her horizon.
Luna bit her lip. She realized her lungs were burning. She’d forgotten to draw breath after her last exhale. It took a little effort, but she managed it now, even as she focused on the passing automagic mobiles. Somewhere in the distance, the cathedral bells tolled out seven deep tones.
“Um.” She swallowed. Then in a low voice, guilty as a chantry house confession, she murmured, “I’ve missed curfew actually.”
Mr. Grimm stood still as stone. Except for his fingers. Those tightened almost imperceptibly. They continued standing there on the sidewalk for what felt like an age. Luna counted a good fifteen automagic mobiles go by, including several taxies with their “unoccupied” lights on. And still he did not move.
Then, very softly, he said, “Would you like to come home with me?”
Her hand, the same hand which he clasped now, prickled with awareness of all the places his lips had touched. Slowly, Luna turned her head, gazing up at him from under the brim of her hat and a tangle of limp curls. “Quilts behind the counter?” she queried.
His blue eyes darted to meet hers. “I think not,” he answered.
She nodded. Turned and faced the road once more. Counted another ten vehicles rumbling by.
Then she said, “All right, Mr. Grimm.”
The edges of the world around her, which were only just starting to come back into focus, blurred once more. She was vaguely aware of him signaling a taxi. Then she found herself bundled inside, and the city and all its lights were slipping past her window. The only thing anchoring her soul to this world, to this time, to this reality, was Mr. Grimm’s ongoing grip on her hand.
What did this mean? What had she just agreed to? What did shewantto have just agreed to? She didn’t know. She knew only that Wednesday was coming, fast as a freight train. Tonight might be her only chance to . . . to . . . she couldn’t even articulatewhatin the privacy of her own mind.
All she knew for certain was that she needed to kiss him again.
Mr. Grimm asked the cabbie to drop them off on the corner of Pembroke and Addle Street. Luna couldn’t guess why. It would have been just as easy to take them to the front door of The Arcane Bouquet. Perhaps, he was trying to give her time to think better of the situation.
She frowned, irritation bubbling up in her breast at the idea. She didn’t want tothinkabout anything. She didn’t want time to consider or reconsider or reconsider again.
She just wanted to be home. With him.
