Page 145 of Just One Little Bargain

“Oh, don’t scold him on my account.” His tone turns indulgent, which only makes me angrier. “He can’t help himself. Restraint has never been one of his gifts.” His gaze drops pointedly to where Evie’s fingers are still curled around my arm. “Although I admit, this is worse than usual.”

My jaw locks. “Enough.”

“Or what?” His mouth curves with slow, delighted malice. “Go on, then. Do the thing where the words tangle up in your throat and nothing comes out. I always found it endearing.”

The little desk. The public needling. That exact patronizing satisfaction whenever he managed to leave me with nothing to say.

Krell.

My hands have curled into fists at my sides, and I make myself keep them there.

“You know each other?” Evie looks between us.

“We go way back,” Krell answers before I can.

I step closer, forcing him back half a pace. It isn’t enough. I want him beyond the festival grounds, beyond Brindlewood, beyond any place where Evie might ever have to hear his voice again.

“Careful,” he murmurs. “You’re drawing a crowd, Zavian.”

He tips his chin toward the booths, and the wider festival rushes back into focus. Conversations have thinned around us. A couple near the pie stand have stopped walking. Rebecca’s ladle hangs motionless above a paper cup at the cider stall, amber liquid spilling unnoticed over the rim while she watches. Even the volunteers folding tables have paused with the legs half-collapsed between them.

“Then we go somewhere private,” I grit out. “Now.”

I take Evie’s hand and pull her through a gap between the stalls and into the shadowed lane behind. She stumbles once, trying to keep pace. I hate that I caused it, but I don’t slow until the lights and voices of the festival have dulled.

Krell ambles after us with his hands in his pockets. The easy compliance unsettles me more than resistance would’ve.

“Okay, no.” Evie wrenches her hand free and rounds on me, breathing hard. “You’re acting like a lunatic in front of half the town, so somebody better start explaining, right now.”

“He isn’t Julian.” I place myself between them again. “Tell her.”

“You know,” Krell says to me, glancing around the cramped passage, taking in the overturned buckets and stacked signs. “I tried to leave you your dignity. I gave you weeks. You had the soul sitting right there, wide open, that precious little inn practically boxed and ribboned for anyone willing to exploit it, and what did you do?” His eyes drift toward Evie. “You folded her towels.”

Her expression falters. “What?”

“You never did have the stomach for the work,” he continues, ignoring her. “Too many rules. Too much conscience. All that tedious concern about consent and consequences.” He gives a small shrug. “I only stepped in because watching you squander an opportunity became painful.”

“You had no right to interfere.”

“According to whom?” His brows lift. “The department you’ve already embarrassed? Your father? Please do report me. I’m sure they’ll launch a very stern inquiry sometime within the next century.”

Evie looks from him to me as though waiting for some sign that this is another misunderstanding I can explain away.

“He’s a demon too.” The words come out thin and uncertain.

“Try to keep up.” Krell gives her a bright, approving smile. “The novelty of the reveal wears thin quickly.”

“No.” She shakes her head once. Then again, harder. “No, you’re Julian. You sent the questionnaire. The contracts. The magazine credentials.” Her breathing turns shallow as each detail returns to her. “I checked the website.”

“Try not to snarl yourself on the mechanics of it.” He waves a hand, almost bored. “How is tedious. Why is beneath you. You have a soul, and I collect them. There isn’t a deeper story, however much you’d like there to be.”

Evie looks at me again. Color has leached from her cheeks, leaving her freckles stark across her skin. “And you knew this?”

“I wasn’t certain.”

“You thought another demon was after me, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I needed proof.”