Chapter 14 #2
“This,” Oli said, sweeping his arms like a host unveiling a masterpiece, “is atmosphere. Drink it in.”
They slipped into a booth, and Selene waved down a serving girl who looked mostly human if you ignored the small horns curling above her ears.
Drinks and plates began to arrive with dizzying speed: mulled cider so spiced it steamed, dark bread slathered with honey, roasted pheasant that gleamed under candlelight.
Oli immediately lifted his mug. “To Maude! For finally prying that pastel nightmare off her shop and reclaiming her dignity!”
Maude huffed a laugh. “Don’t start.”
Selene lifted her mug anyway. “To Maude.”
“Thanks, guys,” she muttered, clinking hers against theirs.
The conversation spiraled fast. Selene, halfway through her second cup of buttered rum, launched into stories of healer training, punctuating each disaster with wild hand gestures that nearly smacked a passing goblin.
“So Lydia Dross storms into the hospital two weeks ago,” Selene began, “claiming she’s cursed. Says she can’t stop hiccupping.”
Oli raised a brow. “Hiccups? Hardly life-threatening.”
Selene wagged a finger. “Oh no, not just any hiccups. Every time she hiccupped, she passed wind.”
Maude nearly choked on her cider, coughing into her sleeve.
Selene smacked the table proudly. “Yes! Exactly! A full symphony. Like clockwork. Hic—fart, hic—fart. The whole street was howling before she even made it inside.”
Oli gasped so loudly that the satyr at the next table turned. “Selene, you can’t tell this story. Client confidentiality!”
“She forfeited confidentiality the moment she weaponized her digestive tract.”
Maude snorted. “Please tell me you fixed it quickly.”
Selene winced, sheepish. “Define quickly.”
Oli clutched his heart. “No.”
“Yes,” Selene said grimly. “I tried a clearing draught. Thought it would purge the hiccups. It…amplified them. For two whole hours, Lydia Dross was a one-woman brass band.”
Maude set down her drink. “You made her louder?”
Selene dropped her forehead to the table, muffling her laughter. “It echoed in the rafters, Maude. The rafters. I thought the quadrant was going to collapse.”
Oli slapped both hands over his ears like he could hear it. “The scandal! The indignity! Poor Lydia—”
“Poor Lydia?” Maude said. “I’m surprised the magistrates haven’t commissioned a statue of Selene. Finally gave the town something useful to laugh about.”
Selene peeked up, grinning. “Thank you. Some recognition at last.”
Oli looked between them in open horror. “This is corruption. Medical corruption! I thought healers swore an oath or something.”
Selene lifted a brow. “We do. First, do no harm. Second, if Lydia Dross walks in, all bets are off.”
Maude cackled, and Oli pressed a hand to his chest. “I weep for your moral compasses.”
Selene was still giggling into her sleeve when Oli sat back in his chair, swirling the dregs of his cider like he was about to deliver a speech no one wanted.
“Inevitably,” Maude muttered, stabbing her spoon into her stew, “here it comes.”
“So,” Oli said, lips curling slyly, “how’s our sunshine baker?”
“Alive. Presumably.”
Selene nudged her shoulder. “That’s all?”
“That’s all,” Maude confirmed, taking a bite. It was spicy enough to make her eyes water, which worked well for disguising the spike of heat in her cheeks.
Selene leaned in until Maude could practically feel her breath. “You hesitated.”
Maude slowly lowered her spoon, her gaze flat as stone. “I was deciding whether to say he’s an idiot or an imbecile. But thank you for your forensic analysis.”
Oli slapped the table. “Coward! You didn’t say either.”
“I said he’s alive. Isn’t that enough? For some people, that’s already too much.”
“Pathetic,” Oli declared with mock solemnity. “We raised you better than this.”
Selene grinned. “So if he’s not an idiot, what is he?”
Maude swirled her spoon, watching potatoes sink. “He’s…not brilliant.”
The table went silent for a beat. Then Oli leaned forward, eyes wide. “Not brilliant? That’s the best insult you could conjure? Saints help us all.”
“I’m tired,” Maude whined. “My creativity clocked out hours ago.”
Oli patted her shoulder. “Tragic. The mighty witch of Blightbend felled by vocabulary.”
Selene snorted, and Maude gave her a look.
“Wesley and I are not friends. We worked together. That’s over.”
“You know you can have more than one best friend,” Oli said, lifting his mug.
Selene smacked his arm. “What about me?”
“Fine. More than two best friends,” he corrected without missing a beat.
That earned him a genuine laugh from Maude. “You two are exhausting.”
“Admit it,” Oli said smugly. “You’d be bored without us.”
“Wrong. I’d be thriving. My skin would glow. Flowers would bloom in my footsteps.”
Selene threw her head back, giggling. “I’d pay to see that.”
Maude stabbed another potato chunk. “Anyway. He doesn’t want me as a friend. Trust me.”
Oli’s grin went sharklike. “I don’t know. From the way he was looking at you last week…”
Her spoon clattered into the bowl. She nearly slammed her mug down for emphasis. “That’s ridiculous. He’s…I’m… We’d drive each other insane.”
Selene leaned her chin on her hand, her smile soft. “Or maybe you’d balance each other. Light and dark aren’t enemies, Maude. Sometimes they’re just halves of the same day.”
The words clung, stubborn as burrs, snagging places she didn’t want to admit were tender. And then, mercifully, Oli ruined everything.
“Or,” he said cheerfully, “you’d just have really enthusiastic hate sex and terrify the neighborhood.”
Maude sputtered, cider spraying across the table. Selene shrieked, shoving her chair back as the splash hit her, then hurled a bread roll at Oli’s head. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m a visionary,” Oli corrected, tearing the bread in half and eating it like he’d achieved victory.
“If I hex you right now, no jury would convict me.”
Selene, still blotting cider off her sleeve, muttered, “Do it, Maude. Make it itch.”
Oli only grinned wider, crumbs on his lips. “See? This is why I keep you both around—your dark, homicidal tendencies, my sparkling charm. Perfect harmony.”
Maude rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. But under the table, her boot tapped against Selene’s in silent agreement: someday, they really were going to hex him.
They staggered back through the streets later, Selene hiccupping with laughter every few steps, her braid coming loose and bouncing wildly against her shoulder.
Oli had taken up humming a scandalous ballad about sailors and nymphs, his voice far too loud for the hour.
A shutter cracked open above them, and a poor townsman shouted for quiet.
Oli only blew him a kiss and kept singing scandalously louder.
“Do you know the second verse?” Selene giggled, tripping over the curb.
“Do I know it? Darling, I wrote the second verse. And possibly the third, depending on which edition you’ve heard.”
“Tragic,” Maude muttered, steadying Selene by the elbow as she tried to veer into a hedge. “Truly, your legacy will outlive us all.”
“Yes, worship me appropriately.”
Oli’s manor rose ahead, bathed in moonlight, all ivy-draped stone and sweeping gables, every window glowing warm and golden like an invitation. A place that screamed wealth but also, annoyingly, comfort.
Maude had always hated how the two could coexist so easily here.
Inside, they clambered up the wide stairs, boots clunking, laughter bouncing off polished wood and oil paintings of solemn ancestors who would no doubt be appalled by what their descendant was doing with his fortune.
And then there it was: the bed. Oli’s absurdly massive bed, sprawling across half the chamber like a ship at sea. The carved headboard was inlaid with silver leaves; the quilt was stitched in rich jewel tones. It looked like something stolen from a queen’s summer palace.
Maude dropped onto it without hesitation. The mattress dipped beneath her with a luxurious sigh. “Tell me you changed the sheets since your last lover.”
Oli, peeling off his jacket with exaggerated dignity, gasped like she’d accused him of murder. “Of course. I have standards.”
“Barely,” Selene snorted, crawling across the bed to burrow under the blankets.
“I’ll have you know,” Oli said, flopping down beside them, “these sheets are imported. Enchanted by elves to stay crisp and cool.” He waggled his brows. “Perfect for company.”
“Ew,” Selene groaned, pulling the blanket over her head.
They collapsed together in a tangle, warm and heavy-limbed.
The chamber smelled faintly of amber and myrrh; the curtains were drawn back to let moonlight spill across the floor.
Maude let herself sink into the mattress without thinking of bills, curses, or what she’d lost. Just warm cider, friends, and the blissful hum of exhaustion.
It couldn’t last. Because, of course, Oli had to open his mouth.
He murmured something so indecent that Selene and Maude both shrieked and shoved him off the bed with their feet.
He hit the floor with a satisfying thud.
“Barbarians,” he groaned. “Miscreants. Betrayers of hospitality.”
Selene cackled, burying her face under Maude’s arm. “Shut up and sleep on the floor like the scandalous dog you are.”
“Careful,” Maude murmured into her pillow, cider humming through her veins. “He’ll take that as encouragement.”
Selene wheezed laughter into Maude’s sleeve while Oli sprawled on the floorboards with all the grace of a felled tree. “One day,” he declared to the ceiling, “you’ll both miss me when I’m gone.”
“Out of spite, maybe,” Maude muttered, eyes already slipping closed.