We share the dessert together like kids, and the whole time I think of the seer. She was bewitchingly beautiful.
She—
“She liked you,” I say as I finish off the last bite.
“What?” A mumbled voice chokes out around a full mouth.
“The seer at the edge of the kingdom. She was sweet to you. And you were oblivious.”
“Fawn?”
“The pretty seer with the curvy hips and fuck-me eyes.”
His cough sounds violent at that description.
That’s what he gets for talking with a mouth full.
“Fawn didn’t have f—fuck-me eyes. She’s a motherly type. She loved to help.”
“Help get you into bed, yes.”
“She’s a hundred and ninety-three years old, Bella!”
My brows lift high at that, and I find it suddenly hard to get them to come back down to their normal sitting position. I blink slowly.
The galaxy cake is kicking in. Its magical herbal remedy is soothing me as we speak. No darkness shall ever pass my fortress of a mind.
I swallow once more before saying, “There’s nothing wrong with dating someone... a bit older.”
“A bit?!”
My lashes lift without speed. Everything, including my thoughts, feel slow and leisurely. Nothing is a bother in this moment. All my worries over the Sand Man, my sister, hell, even my own well-being isn’t important.
Rain taps along my window. Lightening accompanies the steady storm. The beat of the drops on my window is all I can hear despite Ruin’s endless commentary that I can’t seem to focus on.
What’s so bad about wanting to fuck Synder Steel anyway?I think for a long, long moment, but I honestly don’t remember. Maybe I will fuck him. He’s a nice guy. Super good dude, for sure.
I look up, and there, on the ceiling, is a shadow. I look at it long enough to make shapes out of the mass of it. It looks like a hand. Sort of.
Did it just move?
Ruiner carries on about seers and grandmothers and fuck-me eyes and old folks homes. All while I watch this inky spill of a shadow stretch across the length of the ceiling. It travels from the crack at the top of the door...
To right above me.
Two red eyes blink back at me among the mass of shadowy nothingness.
“Ruin?” I whisper casually, interrupting his rant about dentures and kissing. “Ruiner?” I ask again a bit louder until he finally shuts up about the beautiful seer who most definitely wanted to fuck him.
“What?!”
“The galaxy cake, does it cause hallucinations?”
A pause drops in.
“No. Not at all.”
I tilt my head at the shadow. Just vaguely, I can make out its own face as it tilts its head right back at me. The length of it shifts, sliding toward the far side of the wall, and it watches me as I follow it with narrowed eyes. Like a wave, it drifts back above my bed.