Desmond went silent. So the overgrown dog likes ladies who curtsy. But even though his growling stopped, he didn’t move from the woman’s path.
“Is there something we can help you with?” Rianna asked, her hands disappearing in her sleeves as she spoke. When they emerged, I caught the glint of metal. A dagger, maybe? Clearly I wasn’t the only paranoid one. Of course, it’s not exactly paranoia when the monsters real y are chasing you.
The woman straightened from her curtsy. She looked about ten years older than me, with wide, blunt features that made me suspect she was a changeling, not a fae. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, just more handsome than pretty.
She smiled, her wide mouth softening her face with the expression. “Actual y . . .” Her focus moved to me. “I think you already have. You’re Alex Craft, aren’t you?”
In my experience, it was rarely good when people I didn’t know recognized me. Stil , it wasn’t like I could deny I was me. I nodded.
“Oh, I thought you were.” She pressed her palms
“Oh, I thought you were.” She pressed her palms together, her smile spreading. “I saw you on television and was sure I recognized you. You were the one who stopped the eternal dance. I know you were.”
Crap. Being recognized as someone who had caused trouble in the Bloom probably wasn’t a good—or safe—
thing. The woman’s excitement grew when I didn’t dispute the claim.
She rushed forward, sidestepping Desmond. The barghest growled again, but the woman had already reached our table. She threw her arms around me, and if she’d had a weapon, I would have been dead. Instead I found myself in an emphatic embrace.
“Uh.”
“Thank you,” she said. The top of her head ended at my shoulders and her cheek felt blistering hot where it pressed against my bare arm. “I was caught in that dance for six hundred years. You freed me.”
At her words, a balance between us shifted and whether she realized it or not, the debt she owed me became a very real obligation. I ignored the feeling. I wasn’t about to start col ecting favors from strangers. I patted her back awkwardly.
“Don’t mention it.” Really. As in please be quiet. I glanced over her head. Several patrons had turned our way, listening.
I extracted myself from the woman’s hug gently, trying not to be rude but anxious to reclaim my personal space. She released me, but she didn’t back off.
“I’m Edana. I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”
She nodded an apology to Rianna. “But I had to thank you when I recognized you. I can’t believe you managed to free everyone from the dance. And you talk to the dead as wel , don’t you? The newscast I saw featured you with a ghost. It looked like you were holding hands, but I didn’t think the living could interact with ghosts and shades. How did you pul that off?”
pul that off?”
“I . . .” I didn’t have a good answer for that, especial y since most grave witches couldn’t. Of course, if she’d been in that circle for six hundred years, I had no idea how much she knew about the changes since the Magical Awakening.
“I have an affinity for the dead.”
“But—” she started, but was interrupted as two men approached the table. Wel , two male fae.
Whereas Edana appeared human, the two newcomers were undeniably fae. The first had skin the texture of bark and wore a twisting vine of mistletoe in place of clothing.
The second stood only three feet from the ground. He had eight spindly legs but a surprisingly humanoid head on the top of his insectlike thorax. Behind him, I caught sight of a curved stinger as long as my forearm on the end of a thick scorpionlike tail.
Desmond’s growl rol ed soft but menacing across the table. He’d planted himself between the fae and Rianna. I was apparently on my own.
“You are the one who s-stopped the endless-s dance?”
the scorpion fae asked.
I gulped. The two fae weren’t the only ones waiting for my answer. Conversation had al but ceased in the bar. Why do I get a feeling not everyone is going to want a membership to my fan club?
“There were extenuating circumstances,” I muttered, dropping eye contact.
“You shouldn’t interfere with situations that don’t concern you,” the mistletoe-clad fae said, stepping forward and making my gaze snap up to him. “Many of the dancers were imprisoned in that circle for a reason.”
But not all. I knew for a fact that some were tricked into joining the festivities and some simply stumbled in by mistake. Not that I was going to say any of that. Arguing with the two fae wouldn’t win me any points and I wasn’t about to apologize and indebt myself to anyone if I didn’t have to, so I remained silent.