Page 35 of A Witchy Spell Ride
He looked at me. “You get one mistake,” he said. “Make it small.”
“I don’t make mistakes,” I said, and for once I almost believed it.
We split. Bones out the back. Cross to the gallery to sweet-talk higher resolution. Reaper to the door to stand like a shadow. Briar and Selene went to the stairwell to grab whatever war looked like on a Wednesday.
I lingered a heartbeat longer.
Selene was the last to pass me on her way to the stairs. She paused, just enough to be a pause and not a stop. Her shoulder almost brushed my chest. She kept her eyes on the middle distance and said, so low only I would hear it, “Thank you.”
It shouldn’t have mattered. It did.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said.
“I’m not,” she said, and there it was again that wry tilt, that blade she keeps in her smile. “I’m thanking you, for finally saying it out loud.”
When the door shut behind them, the shop felt like a lung learning how to breathe again. I stepped to the window, checked the street. A brass band struck up two blocks over. The city pretended to be simple.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number. No text. Just a photo. A close-up of rose petals. Deep red. Velvet. A caption beneath:
Soon.
I stared at it until my own reflection stared back from the black glass. Then I saved it. I didn’t reply. You don’t feed a thing you plan to starve.
I slipped the phone into my pocket and checked my knife by reflex. The gut drumbeat steadied into something I could use.
If this was chess, the board had finally lit up. He’d moved. We had, too.
Next move was mine.
Chapter Eleven
Selene
The moment the words left my mouth, the silence turned sharp.
“I’m being stalked.”
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Even the air felt heavier, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Ghost didn’t blink. Reaper went completely still. Cross tilted his head like he was running math in his skull. And Bones, hand still resting on the crowbar he brought for God-knows-what, muttered something under his breath that sounded likefuck me sideways.
But the worst reaction?
Was my brother’s.
Not loud.
Not yet.
Just… cold.
Controlled.
His voice dropped an octave. “Since when?”
