“Well, you know, I, um. Yes?”
Ward shook his head, dimple flashing again briefly. “There’s that sweet little Crimble girl,” he said and pinched her chin with forefinger and thumb. “I swear, Luna Talbot, you and your polite little schoolmarm schtick drive me absolutelywild.”
She could tell. Her bruised lips were evidence of the fact. “I’m . . . sorry?” she offered.
“Oh, don’t be.” Sparks glinted in the depths of his green eyes. “I told you long ago that I enjoy a challenge, and I meant it. So, do you think I’m on the right track?”
“For what?”
“For making you fall head-over-heels in love with me?”
Her stomach knotted. But since he wasn’t out the door yet, she forced another grin and made herself flutter her lashes lightly. “Oh, Ward. How’s a girl supposed to stop herself from falling for you?” she murmured. “You . . . you take my breath away!”
And he did. Quite literally. Her lungs were still starving for a little air.
Pleased, Ward allowed her to open the door for him and didn’t seem to notice the forceful way she pressed against his shoulders, trying to get him to move, darn it. Even as the shop bells tinkled overhead, he paused, however. “By the way,” he said, and Luna stiffened, wondering if yet another kiss was forthcoming. “While I was down at the warehouse tonight, I found something. Something curious.”
He fished in his pocket then held out his hand. There, in his large palm, lay a rather bent but still very sparkly shooting star earring. One of its dangling tails had been broken off, but the others still glinted cheerfully in the light glowing from behind the shop counter.
Luna stared at it for a moment without comprehension. Then, before she could stop herself, her other hand flew to her ear, where she felt the matching earring still dangling.
Her eyes lifted, round with horror, meeting Ward’s gaze.
“Thought you might like it,” he said.
“Oh.” Luna breathed. “Yes. It’s . . . very pretty.”
With trembling fingers she reached out, took the battered earring. Realizing as she did so what it was he was doing: offering her evidence. Evidence of her own presence down at the warehouse. Her, a heptagram-marked sorceress. On location at the scene of a bootlegger’s drop.
“Good thing you weren’t down there tonight, Luna Talbot,” Ward said in a low voice, his eyes strangely hooded. “Things definitely got a bit crazy. Hard to say who was there, who wasn’t. Chaos, you know.”
“Right,” Luna whispered. She couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Ward stuck his thumbs in his belt and rocked on his heels. “Might stop by for a kiss or two. If you think you’ll want me around, that is.”
“Oh, of course!” she answered hastily and forced another smile onto her lips, though it wobbled rather. “Have a . . . have a good night, Ward. And . . . thank you.”
“Oh, thankyou,”he replied.
With that, he stepped over the threshold and strode down the night-darkened sidewalk, whistling as he went. Leaving Luna to close the door behind him and twist the bolt.
Turning, she sank back heavily against the wall and stared down at the earring in her hand. It twinkled in the light of the lone thaumatic bulb, faintly mocking. Luna bit her lip. Then she turned her wrist, revealing from under the cuff of her blouse the ugly red marks where binding ropes had bitten into her flesh. And under those, the black heptagram tattoo.
Ward could have taken her in. Tonight. He’d had every reason to.
She could have landed behind bars, held for questioning, incarcerated. Trapped in the confines of a windowless cell.
He might still take her in tomorrow, of course. But she didn’t think he would. Not when he’d handed over the only real evidence against her in his possession. Perhaps she was safe. Perhaps Ward was still her . . . friend.
Luna closed her eyes. Her lips felt tired, her body ached from the life force which had been syphoned out, and her stomach was knotted with terrors she could not fully comprehend. But Mr. Grimm. He was still back in the nook. Still poisoned. She had to help him. She had to pull herself together and make certain he survived the night.
And then she had to face the truth of everything Lancelot Mortimer had revealed.
Mr. Grimm was still seated in the cane chair where she’d left him when Luna pulled back the curtain and peered behind it into the nook. He was slumped, and for a moment she thought he might be unconscious once more. But when she stepped back into the shadowed space and caught a glimpse of the side of his face, she saw that his eyes were open. He seemed to be staring fixedly at the stove, but she couldn’t say for certain if he was alert.
“Mr. Grimm?” she asked tentatively.
He blinked.
