Chapter 8
Eight
“I’m all for putting on a show,” Declan begins when we’re back in our tent, “but do you have any idea what you’re going to say when we’re onstage?”
Fennel and Cinder are firmly banished outside, and I’m elbow deep in the trunk at the foot of the bed.
I pull out a gauzy, bronze dress that looks close enough to my size to work and a pair of strappy gladiator sandals that would have been helpful a few hours ago when I was trekking barefoot through the desert.
“Something witchy and storylike.” I shrug. “I’ll improvise.”
He raises a brow. “Are you good enough at improv to bet our lives on it?”
“Fair point.” I chew the inside of my cheek.
“You are an editor,” he says, peeling the bandage from his hand. “And we both know you have a way with words.”
My cheeks heat, and I focus on smoothing the fabric of the bronze dress like it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen. “Assistant editor,” I murmur, mostly to myself.
“Then you’ve probably read more books than your boss. Isn’t that how it works? The lower you are on the totem pole, the more work you actually do?”
“You’ve never been the low man on the totem pole, have you?”
“Not exactly,” he admits. “Nepotism has its perks.”
“Maybe. But you also work hard. How long does it count as nepotism if you keep earning your place?”
He tilts his head. “Are you giving me a compliment?”
I ignore the question entirely. “You are right about one thing. I’ve read a lot of books, and I’m betting most of them don’t exist here.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” I say, closing the trunk, “I can borrow from them. Use pieces to craft something that sounds allegorical and wise. No one here will know the difference.”
“You’re going to plagiarize your performance?”
“Plagiarize is such an ugly word.” I smooth the fabric between my fingers. “I prefer reinterpret. Plus, I’ll change the names.”
“This isn’t a documentary.” He laughs. “I don’t think that’ll count.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
He considers that for a moment. “You could create your own story.”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I’ve spent years rewriting other people’s words. The only ones that are mine are those I post. Even those don’t sound like me. They’re written for the algorithm. Although, that doesn’t seem to be working. Plus, they’re not stories so much as…products.”
His brow furrows. “But you believe in what you’re selling.”
“Well, yeah,” I say, easing down onto the edge of the trunk, the bronze dress pooling across my lap.
“I believe in the effects of positive thinking. In ritual. In the power of small things—candles, crystals, meditation, spells—as a way to focus and shift perspective. It’s something I’ve always been drawn to and love learning about.
But actual magick?” I shake my head, a small, rueful smile tugging at my lips. “That part I’m not so sure about.”
He studies me for a long moment, quiet and unreadable. “Then what brought us here?”
I look away, fingers tracing the gauzy folds of the dress. “That,” I admit, “is a big question. And one I can’t answer. Which is why I’d really love to find Fortune.”
“I asked that stall vendor, the one selling hand pies, if he’d heard of her,” Declan says. “He hadn’t.”
I exhale through my nose. “Yeah… I had the same luck.”
“I guess getting sneezed on by that camel wasn’t quite the blessing it was rumored to be.”
I grab a cushion from the bed and lob it at him.
With a laugh, he ducks and moves to jump on the bed.
I point the second cushion at him like a weapon. “You cannot get on that bed in those grimy, sweaty clothes.”
He lifts his hands, dark eyes glinting with mock innocence. “So you’d rather I take them off?”
Slowly, he pops open the first button.
“Declan.”
Pop. Another button.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He pauses just long enough for a sly smile to lift his cheeks before the third button pops free, revealing a strip of bronzed skin over smooth, lean muscle.
“Just following orders.” He shrugs, fingers moving to the next.
“You’re more of a menace than Fennel.” I fling the cushion, and he catches it midair.
The shirt parts wider, baring the ridges of his abs, the breadth of his chest, and those solid muscles I’ve already felt pressed against me twice in reality and countless times in my head. Heat floods me so fast, it’s dizzying, a hot rush straight to the pit of my stomach.
His mouth moves, lips parting like he’s speaking, but I’m too deep in the mental gutter to catch any of it.
“Yes. No, wait,” I blurt and tear my gaze away, fanning myself with the flimsy dress. “Sorry, I was just, uh, thinking about…costumes. And performance structure. Blocking. You know, theater things.”
Declan’s gaze narrows, and that slow, devastating smirk spreads like wildfire across his face. “You’re fantasizing about me, aren’t you?”
I nearly inhale my own tongue. “What? No. Absolutely not. That’s ridiculous.”
“Mm.” With a wink, he pops another button. “I know when I’m being eye fucked, Amanda.”
My cheeks burn. “You are mistaken.”
“Am I?” He takes a step closer, close enough that the air between us hums. “Don’t forget I was on the other end of all those messages you sent.”
“Being physically attracted to someone is very different from having actual chemistry with them.” I cross my arms, pretending not to notice how my pulse stutters. “If you were half as smooth as you think you are, we wouldn’t be arguing about it.”
He leans down. “Who says I’m trying to be smooth?”
“If this is you not trying, I’m terrified to see what happens when you put in effort.”
Almost on cue, Fennel brays from outside so loudly it rattles the tent poles.
I suck in a breath and stand. “We should get ready. Figure out what we’re going to say. It’ll be sunset soon.”
“Yeah.” Declan rubs a hand across his jaw. “And Tarek wasn’t exactly clear about what happens if we don’t show.”
Gathering the dress and the sandals, I slip behind the velvet divider. “I feel like the murkiness was its own kind of clarity.”
The trunk creaks open, and metal clinks softly as he rummages through it.
“So, Story Witch, what book are we reinterpreting tonight?”
I exhale, shifting my weight as I think. “Something popular. Something we both know.” I unlace my corset dress and let it pool at my feet. “Are you a reader?”
There’s a pause. Then a strange, squeaky sound.
I frown. “Declan?”
“Yeah. I, um, yes. I can read.”
“I know you can read.” I laugh. “We’ve been DMing each other for weeks. What books have stuck with you?”
He mutters something I can’t make out.
“What was that?”
Another mumble, lower this time.
I clutch the dress against my bare chest and poke my head around the divider. “Use your words, Thorne.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “Twilight, okay? I’ve read all the books. Twice.” He shakes his head, a gentle wash of color rising in his cheeks. “Four times.”
My grin is so big it hurts. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. Sparkly immortals, doomed loved, teen angst. It’s practically a classic.” I disappear back behind the divider and tug the bronze dress over my head. “Twilight… I wonder if we can get some body glitter.”