42. Chapter 42
Milo
We find Maddie eventually, and she raises one eyebrow at the state of my hair and the flush on Evie’s cheeks but has the decency not to say a word beyond, “Uh-huh.”
We do the rest of the festival the way it’s supposed to be done.
Evie steers me toward a food truck painted the color of mustard and insists I try a mac and cheese cone, which turns out to be exactly what it sounds like: hot pasta packed into a crisp waffle.
It should be impractical. Instead, I finish most of it before we reach the next booth, with Evie laughing every time I struggle to keep the sauce from escaping.
Everywhere we go, someone stops us. The woman at the preserves table presses a jar of apple butter into my hands because she says Evie never accepts anything without arguing.
A man carrying folding chairs asks whether I’m enjoying my first festival, then spends five minutes explaining which pie booth has been cheating at the judging for the past three years.
Children weave between the hay bales with painted cheeks and glowing bracelets, trailed by parents who call warnings devoid of any real expectation of being obeyed.
No one treats me as though I’m intruding. They make room at crowded tables, hand me samples, tell me stories I have no context for, and expect me to remember them next year. I’ve spent a long time studying human happiness from the outside. Tonight, I’m finally part of it.
“I’m done,” Evie announces into my sleeve. “I peaked at the donuts. It’s all downhill from there.”
Maddie laughs and pulls me into a fierce hug. She draws back and points a finger between the two of us. “We’re doing this again next year. All three of us. I mean it. I’ll hold you to it.”
The words settle wrong in my chest. There’s no next year for me. I keep my face arranged into something that resembles agreement, but the regret is already there.
“Next year,” I manage.
Maddie leaves, promising to text, folding herself back into the crowd. Then it’s just us, walking toward the far lot where Evie parked.
I glance down at her, searching for something stupid to say that might keep the night easy a little longer. But she’s watching Maddie disappear into the crowd, and I let the joke go.
She catches me looking and tries for a smile. “Let’s go home.”
Home.
And I almost let the night end there, with the drive back, windows cracked, nothing between us but the radio and her tired contentment. It would be so easy to save the rest for the morning. But she deserves to know.
“Evie, wait.” I slow my steps. “There’s something I need to tell you. I’ve been sitting on it all day because I didn’t want to ruin tonight. There’s no proof, but it’s about Julian. I think—”
She isn’t listening. Her chin tips up toward the crowd beyond my shoulder, and she breaks into a bright grin. She lifts her free hand and waves it high over the heads of the thinning crowd.
“Oh my god, there he is!” She grabs my arm and tugs me. “Milo, come on! You have to meet him. That’s Julian, from the magazine.”
I turn.
A man in a charcoal coat moves through the thinning festival crowd with unhurried confidence.
Volunteers are collapsing tables and carrying crates beneath the amber strings of lights.
Paper cups tumble across the trampled grass.
Somewhere behind us, the band launches into another lively reel.
He spots Evie and smiles, polished and pleasant enough to belong to an editor visiting from the city.
Then the breeze changes.
Fried dough, woodsmoke, damp earth, and beneath it all, the acrid bite of sulfur.
A human might mistake it for a spent match, but it’s unmistakable to me.
The same odor clings to the card in my pocket, its edges softened from me handling it all evening while I tried to explain the sulfur away.
Because the alternative was this: Evie had invited a demon into her life without knowing it.
The stranger’s attention flicks to me. His grin widens by a fraction before he gives me a slow wink. He pivots to Evie, and every trace of mockery vanishes beneath a brilliant, welcoming smile.
Whatever name he’s wearing, he’s not Julian Ashford. And there’s no version of the next few seconds in which I allow this demon to keep smiling at Evie like that.
“There she is.” He closes the distance and takes her hand in both of his, thumb passing over her knuckles. “The woman of the hour.”
I pull her hand free and move her behind me in one motion. He releases her without resistance, letting his arms fall loose at his sides as though he’s been waiting for this reaction.
“Territorial,” he purrs. “How novel. I didn’t think you had it in you. All those years slumped over your little desk, folding yourself smaller and smaller, and here you are baring your teeth over a mortal.” His grin sharpens. “She must be remarkable. Or you’re more desperate than I imagined.”
I shift farther in front of Evie, blocking the line of sight between them. “Don’t touch her again.”
“Milo.” Evie catches my sleeve and tries to pull me around. “He’s here for the feature. You can’t drag me away from someone in the middle of an introduction. What’s wrong with you?”
“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.”
“And now you have it,” Krell says pleasantly. “So perhaps we can avoid turning this into an exhausting discussion about Zavian’s communication failures.”
Evie recoils when he addresses her, one hand rising to her chest. “Stay away from me.”
His smile drops, more affronted than wounded. “That seems unnecessarily rude.”
“You pretended to be someone else. You came to my home. You’ve been asking questions about my business and family.” Her gaze darts toward the festival only yards away. “How long have you been stalking me?”
“Stalking is such an ugly word.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks.” He rolls one shoulder. “Not constantly. I have other obligations.”
Her face twists with disgust. “You’re trying to take my soul.”
“I was cultivating an opportunity.”
“She is not an opportunity.” I step closer. “Leave.”