Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
I leaned back a little and reached for my tea perched on the edge of my desk. “Yeah. A dozen more or so. Why? Is it date-night with your mate?”
He swayed toward me a little, his eyes a little too wide, a touch manic.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his tone accusatory. “You plottin’ on me, girl? Tryin’ to get me out of here so that you can rig up a trap on my desk?” He stuck out a hammy finger, stained purple. “I know what you’re up to. No dud is going to catch me unawares. I’ve got eyes in the back of my head.” He half-turned to point. “I know all your tricks. Don’t think for one”—he squeezed his eyes shut with the force of the next word—“moment you can catch me with my hands tied!”
I let loose an annoyed breath, re-focusing on my task. Clearly, he’d sampled the product again. He was unreasonable when he was like this, paranoid I’d try to harm or kill him. It wasn’t him who needed eyes in the back of his head, though; it was me. I’d gotten very good at sensing when he was sneaking up on me with a knife or some other sharp object, trying to do the village a “favor” by getting rid of the dud, a slur for a shifter without magic.
“I’m not the one you should be worried about,” I warned. “Granny is in town. You can’t be sampling the product when she’s here. You know that.”
“Let me worry about her. I know what I’m about. You just mind your manners, filthy dud.”
I shook my head as he stared down at me. After a few moments of getting no response, he finally shuffled away.
As a rule, I didn’t create chemically addictive products. My life afforded me very few moral principles, so I stood by those I had carved out. The product could be habit-forming, though, if a person wasn’t careful. Raz wasn’t careful, not in the slightest. He hated his job, he hated his dependency on Granny, our benefactor, and most of all, he hated working with what he correctly suspected was a violent dud.
I didn’t know why he was so concerned. Without access to my animal, I didn’t have a shifter’s enhanced strength and speed. I couldn’t heal quickly. He had the advantage over me in every way. I’d gotten quick with a lot of practice, but that’s about all I had going for me. Well, practice, and honing my sixth sense regarding danger so I could anticipate when he would strike. The guy was delusional in all ways but one: the village definitely wanted the filthy dud gone. They’d all, at one time or another, made that quite clear.
Thank the gods for Granny’s protection. She wasn’t blood—everyone called her that—but she was my fairy godmother. She’d taken me in as a kid when I was on the brink of starvation, chased by dud-hating hordes, having no coin and nowhere to go. She gave me a home, found me this job, created connections with sketchy shadow markets and forced this village to (mostly) leave me be. She was my guardian angel. My divine intervention. I owed her everything.
I dropped the vine-wrapped leaf into the water before stopping for a quick sip of my lukewarm tea. Cup returned, I proceeded to wrap the next vine. Then the next. My mind drifted, conjuring up images that I might try to draw in charcoal. Before I knew it, I stared down at an empty desk with two more slices in my thumb.
I pulled a little jar from the top of my station, by the wall. The few petals within started its slow, mournful throb, glowing a pale, pastel pink. Or maybe ‘mournful’ was just my reaction to having picked the whole flower, thus condemning it to death. I should’ve taken a few petals and memorized the location so I could go back and pick more another time. The flowers were supposed to bloom all through spring and summer.
After unscrewing the jar, I delicately removed one of the petals and paused, holding it in my palm and watching the pretty glow intensify.
“That the Moonfire Lily?” Raz once again approached. He forgot to maintain his distance this time, his head cocked as he stared at the flower.
“Yeah. Pretty, isn’t it?”
He grunted, not tearing his eyes away.
I placed the flower onto a sturdy dish and headed to the hearth with its dainty flame.
“What are you going to—“ Raz cut off with a violent scream.
I jolted, nearly dropping the dish.
“What?!” I looked around in confusion, seeing the simple and well-organized interior of our work shed, save the chaos of his desk. “What’s the matter?”
“No! No, no, no, no!” He rushed toward me. I barely moved the dish in time to avoid his strike, cupping my hand over the petal so that it didn’t flutter to the ground. “You’ll kill the glow! You can’t kill the glow, it’ll destroy the world!”