Page 12

No, I couldn’t.

This happened every time I got close to anyone. And every time, I had to walk away, leaving my past in rubble and my heart shattered.

Hey Zee, by the way, you know the prophesied one . . .

Hey Zee, you know why the D’s are missing in every Wilson’s Guide in the hotel . . .

Hey, Zee, in order to save the world, I have to die.

Yeah. No.

We weren’t in a fairytale, or one of those Reyzee fanfics. I already knew this story didn’t have a happy ending. The only control I had was not featuring in it at all.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” Zee said, emerging from the bathroom while buttoning up his pants. He braced over me, making the bed dip, and planted the cutest kiss on my forehead. Then he ruffled my hair, and smiled as though I was the most adorable human he’d ever met. “You’re gorgeous. Don’t ever change, Adam Vex.”

Somehow, I mustered a smile at his words, even as my insides twisted into an emotional knot.

He poofed away in a blast of sparks.

I sighed, and listened to my heart slow.

Don’t ever change.

What if I already had?

CHAPTER 5

Reynard stood in front of the cabinet, looking grumpy. Which is to say, his expression was stoic, but the fact he was staring at the cabinet as though he wanted it to burst into flames spoke for him.

He had on a pair of steel-gray suit pants, with suspenders that criss-crossed at his back over a red shirt. Old men wore suspenders, right? So he should have looked silly. But Reynard did not, in fact, look silly in suspenders. He looked refined, distinguished, and if Zee had witnessed the way those straps accentuated Reynard’s frame, he’d have definitely had something erotic to say, and then blamed his desire on me.

“It looks great,” I said, approaching him after the midday lunch rush in the bar. Zee hadn’t returned from Razorsedge last night, but that was fine. I wasn’t going to worry. Not yet.

Reynard folded his arms. “It is a monstrosity.”

Beside him, I wondered if we were looking at the same cabinet. “It looks fine.”

“Fine?” He scoffed. “I should dismantle it and begin again.”

There was nothing wrong with it. The doors all lined up, the drawers were in. “No, nope. It’s brilliant as it is. And you can’t make it too perfect, remember? Fine is perfect.”

His eyes narrowed and his gaze slid to me. “Are you humoring me?”

“No.” I laughed a little, hoping to ease the tension. “It really is fine. If Zee and I had made it, then it would be a monstrosity. But that looks great.”

“I remain unconvinced.” Reynard sighed, collected his jacket off the back of a nearby chair and shrugged it on. “Where is Zodiac?”

“Oh, he’s . . . He had a thing.” I shrugged, and tucked my hands into my pockets, looking around the bar at nothing in particular. Tom was there, pouring drinks. The jukebox played. “At Razorsedge. Last night. He’s fine.”

Reynard did that thing he does, where he stares until you blurt out what’s really on your mind. But I wasn’t falling for that. Nope. He didn’t need to get involved. I was just here to see how the cabinet was coming along, and definitely did not need his help with anything else.

“You’re concerned for him?” Reynard prompted.

I winced. “Am I that obvious?”

“You would not be you, if you weren’t concerned for a friend.”

Oh well, that was nice of him to say. “It’s just . . . I can’t really talk about Zee’s private life. But he’s worked at Razorsedge for years. He has friends there, and uh . . . there’s been some trouble . . . So, he’s gone back to fix the trouble.”