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“Right…toyouit has. But the last time I saw you… my word, that was nearly ninety years ago.”
“Ninety?” I ask, confused. “Do you mean nineteen?”
“No,ninety.”
I frown. “Uh…okay.” I’m nowhere near ninety so it couldn’t have been me. “I’m sorry to ask, but how old are you exactly?”
“One-hundred and fifty-eight,” she replies casually.
I blink several times, trying to process the number that just came out of her mouth. She doesn’t look any older than fifty—if that.
“Okay. This…um. This is allreallyweird and confusing. Do you think you can tell me how to get back home, please?”
A woman rushes into the office with a crystal glass in her hand. The liquid in her glass sloshes over the rim, spilling over her tan knuckles. “Late, sorry!” she chirps. “I needed this very badly before coming back here to deal with you lot!”
“Juniper, if you’re going to drink, just stay at the damn bar,” Caz grumbles.
“Oh, shut up, Caz. I had a long day, all right? Do you know I was in the village today and some woman tried tofightme? She was out of her bloody mind! I calmed her down, but she kept calling me a bitch, because apparently,I’vebeensleeping with her husband.” She takes a swallow of her drink. “You should’ve seen that greasy fucker! Like I’d ever waste my time having an affair with a man like him!” Juniper sips her drink again, and her eyes bounce from Caz to me. “Ohhh…who’s this?” She grins.
“Just sit and be quiet,” Caz orders.
Juniper frowns and makes a face at him before slinking her way across the office and sitting on a black bench against the wall.
“Anyway, Willow, I suppose getting back would be the same way you got here,” Maeve informs me.
“I don’t even know how I got here. It’s not like I was planning to come to this place.”
“What’s the last thing you remember before arriving?” she asks.
“She was smoking and was high on something calledweed,” Caz drawls, rolling his eyes.
“Weed?” Rowan and Killian ask at the same time. “What the fuck is that?” Killian asks.
“Is it like quish? The shit that made Newton lie in the middle of the street and get trampled by a fucking horse like an idiot?” Rowan laughs.
“Language!” Maeve snaps again, rolling her eyes.
“It’s a narcotic,” I explain. “It…makes me feel good. Probably like whatever you just smoked, Caz,” I say, gesturing to the half- cig on his ashtray.
“That’s not called weed. It’s bloom,” Caz says. “And it doesn’t make me high, or whatever you call it. It just calms me down.”
“Well, that’s exactly what weed does for me. It calms me down and clears my head.”
“Bloom is the finest you can find,” Caz goes on. “I’m sure yourweedholds no comparison.”
“How the hell would you know? You don’t even know what it is,” I argue.
“She was doing drugs,” Killian interrupts, cutting his eyes at Caz. “Can we really trust a junkie?”
“Excuse me?” I turn to glare at Killian. “I amnota junkie,” I growl. How fucking dare he?
He ignores me, still looking at Caz. “I don’t trust her, or this whole story about landing in the fucking forest.”
“You don’t even know me,” I counter. I don’t give a damn if he just beat some guy to death or whatever the hell he did, he’s not about to treat me like I’m scum on the bottom of his shoe.
“What if she’s here to hurt you? You led her right into your home, your place of work—she could be working with the Rippies for all we know!”
“Iwouldknow,” Caz responds calmly.
