by Nova Nelson
But instead, my gaze locked onto someone else. Someone just a few yards to the right and ahead of us, who was staring directly at me.
Donovan.
My heart jumped into my throat and I swallowed to force it down again. Why was he staring at me like that? It lacked the usual disdain, and showed a side of him I’d glimpsed in the Deadwoods, a side I kind of liked.
A side I didn’t want to see again.
I looked down at the grass underneath my feet, regrouped, and turned my attention back to the stage.
Beside the ivy-covered arch was a cactus slightly taller than Liberty himself, upon whose arm hung two ivy wreaths with orange flowers interwoven. Liberty pulled the wreaths off quickly, jumping back to avoid a fierce swipe from cactus’s other arm before throwing his wet towel over the plant and returning to the couple he was marrying. With a few more words about love and trust, he placed a wreath around Ansel’s neck, then another one over Jane’s, covering her engagement necklace that sparkled in the late-morning sunlight.
And then they kissed.
And when they did, some of the crowd cheered while others …
I scanned the people around me, but my mind didn’t have time to put together the pieces of what I was seeing and what it meant until Tanner had already spun me around and planted his soft lips right onto mine.
This must be part of the tradition, too.
I leaned into him, enjoying the kiss and the glow of love I felt radiating through the throng of Eastwinders all around us.
Tanner ended the kiss and joined in with the applause, and I caught the tail end of some of the other couples kissing before I turned back toward the stage and—
Oh for fang’s sake.
Donovan was still staring at me.
Had he leered at us during the kiss?
Nuh-uh. That was just creepy.
I snaked through the crowd, leaving Tanner behind, and grabbed Donovan by the arm as I passed, not stopping until I’d pulled us all the way to where the crowd thinned and no one would overhear our conversation. “No,” I said firmly.
His arrogant look made me want to hit him. “No, what?”
“No, we’re not doing this. No, we’re never going to be together. No, you don’t get to stalk me and Tanner. No, everything.”
“Does that include no, you didn’t really mean what you said back in the Deadwoods about how you wouldn’t be with me even if Tanner weren’t in the picture?”
“What? No! I meant that.” But I could hear my voice shake. Donovan must’ve heard it, too, because he smirked.
“Technically, it falls under ‘No, everything.’”
“You think you’re so clever, but I’m onto you. I know what game you’re playing.”
He held up his hands defensively. “I’m not playing any game.”
“Unicorn swirls! You’re trying to sow discord in my relationship with Tanner—”
“Is it working?”
The muscles in my jaw tightened, and I managed a strangled, “No.”
He shrugged. “It will. Eventually. You’ll realize you made the wrong decision, and when you do …”
I laughed wryly. “I know what’ll happen when I do— I mean, if I do. Which I won’t. You’ll say, ‘Sorry, Nora, I’ve moved on,’ and then you’ll tell Tanner about it and consider us even.”
While I expected him to nonchalantly agree that I’d nailed his plan, that wasn’t his reaction. Instead, he looked taken aback, squinting at me with something resembling… hurt?
He stepped closer. “That’s not it at all. I’m not looking to get even, Nora. I’m just looking to get you. The way I see it, you and Tanner either end up on that stage this time next year or maybe the year after, or it ends. And if the latter happens, I’ll be waiting.” He reached forward, taking my hand in his, and that energy that had moved between us during our connection ritual—and our unofficial “connection ritual”—reignited.
“There you are,” came Tanner’s voice behind Donovan.
We quickly dropped each other’s hand.
Tanner strolled up to stand next to his best friend, throwing his arm around Donovan’s shoulders, and flashing me that sexy half-grin that drove me wild, or, in this case, caused my conscience to perform flip-flops that would do Cirque du Soleil proud. “Glad to see you two getting along. Sure makes my life easier when my best friend and my main witch like each other.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
But Donovan did.
“Don’t get too excited. Nora was just trying to strong-arm the recipe for Franco’s cook-off entry from me. She should know better than to think I’d share the secret.” His crystal-blue eyes bored into me. “I know she’d never share the secret herself. Would you, Nora?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll never tell.”
“Speaking of which,” Tanner said. “Judging is about to begin. We don’t want to miss it.” He slung his other arm around my shoulder and guided the two of us toward the judging table on the other side of the festival. “Time to find out who comes out on top!”
5
Though the schedule for festivities had changed somewhat throughout the decades, as Tanner explained, Eastwind had settled on one that worked and stuck with it for the past few years.
It started with any desired marriages to set the tone and allow time for the happy couple to talk with well-wishers throughout the day. Then came the cook-off. Not only did that allow ample time for the word to spread about the winners and losers, but seeing the judges dig into delicious new eats put the crowd in the mindset to stuff their face right after, making the food vendors quite happy.
Next were magical performances and the Titan games, both things that were supposed to be great to watch while chowing down on dragon-grilled corn or a juicy turkey leg or the roasted pecans Stella Lytefoot made that cleansed your aura while filling your stomach.
Then it was time for drinking. Lots of it. According to Tanner, the party would likely migrate over to Sheehan’s Pub, which was holding its grand re-opening tonight, rather than remaining at the festival grounds like it usually did.
The members of the High Council were already situated at the tall, elevated table when Tanner, Donovan and I arrived. At the end, next to where Darius Pine sat, laid a familiar black mass. More specifically, my familiar, the black mass known as Grim.
I placed a palm over my face. “He is not begging for scraps in front of everyone,” I groaned. Seriously. Did the hound have no shame?
“Seems smart to me,” Tanner said. “Darius will indulge him. They go way back.”
Made sense. I already knew Grim and Ansel had a history of causing trouble in the Deadwoods, back before I showed up and domesticated the hound. If Ansel and Darius were besties, that meant Grim and Darius probably ran together, too.
Sheehan’s Pub was the first contestant up, as announced by Liberty, who seemed to be the go-to master of all ceremonies. I wasn’t complaining. He had that presence and charm, and I could see why he was a favorite of men and women alike. I didn’t normally appreciate muscle men with tree-trunk arms, but I made an exception for the genie.
Sheehan’s entry was, unsurprisingly, deep fried. Deep-fried toadstools to be precise. By the looks on the judges’ faces, the toadstools tasted just like everything else that came out of Sheehan’s deep fryer—crunchy, greasy, a little like chicken. Good over all, but I didn’t see any especially impressed judges.
One down, I thought.
As the list went on, the odds of Medium Rare coming out on top soared, but I also became increasingly suspicious that whoever had orchestrated the order of taste tests had known about the fierce competition bubbling under the surface between Franco’s Pizza and Medium Rare and was intentionally leaving us for last.
No one could know, right?
It was probably just that ours were the two hottest restaurants in Eastwind. This town loved its Italian food—I could hardly blame them, since it was my go-to place second to Medium Rare
. But since I’d made the upgrades to the menu, Medium Rare had become somewhat of a trendy place to eat, not just for werewolves, but for Eastwinders of all types and ages.
The judges scribbled down their scores for the entry from Horton’s Bakery, and Liberty announced Franco’s Pizza as the next up. I tried to play it cool as I scanned the judges’ expressions.
Darius Pine tossed a piece of Horton’s cheese danish to Grim, whose tail slapped the ground in lazy appreciation. Mayor Esperia dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her cloth napkin and seemed pleased with the previous entry … but I wasn’t worried. Quinn Shaw squinted at his score sheet while Octavia Pantagruel and Siobhan Astrid whispered behind flattened palms. And to their side sat my favorite person in the whole town, Count Sebastian Malavic. I wasn’t surprised to find he looked bored and arrogant as usual, but I was surprised to discover he was staring right at me.
I checked the angle to see if I was mistaken. Maybe he was staring at Donovan in anticipation of Franco’s Pizza’s entry, but nope. He was staring at me.
Reading off the card, Liberty introduced the dish. “From Franco’s Pizza, we have fresh salted focaccia bread with hot rosemary and thyme cheese dip. Sounds delicious. Horatio!” He motioned to a raven-haired South Wind witch who was in charge of passing out the tasting portions. “Serve it up, good sir!”
Blood boiled in my veins.
Donovan knew.
Somehow, he’d found out what our entry was and had done his best to create an Italian rip-off of it. But how could he know? The only people who knew were me and Tanner.
And Grim, but I couldn’t imagine him letting it slip to Gustav, Donovan’s feline familiar. Grim couldn’t stand the cat.
Would Tanner have told his best friend? It was possible.
The decadent scent of warm focaccia had never made me so angry. I leaned forward to look past Tanner at Donovan. “How’d you know?”
His dark eyebrows pinched together as he started at me. “Know what?” To my annoyance, he seemed genuinely confused. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Perhaps there was something in the air that inspired a hunger for soft, melted cheese.
Nah. That wasn’t a thing.
It was no secret that Donovan was friends with the elf on the Council, Siobhan Astrid. Would her bias give Franco’s the edge?
Siobhan certainly seemed to be enjoying the dish, and she pointed at her friend though the crowd, nodding her approval while she chewed.
Good Gaia! It did look pretty good, and it smelled even better. I would have to stop by Franco’s the following week to try a bite and—
“Ow,” Tanner hissed, jerking his hand out of my grasp.
“Oh, sorry.”
He shook the blood back into his fingers then clenched and released a few times to recover from my death grip.
“That’s basically the Italian version of what we submitted,” Tanner whispered to me.
“Yeah. I’m aware,” I replied through gritted teeth.
Liberty indulged in his sample like he hadn’t eaten in months, licking every speck of cheese off his fingers once he’d finished with the bread. I don’t think he realized how much he moaned while he did it. This was supposed to be a family-friendly festival, but if he didn’t stop with the noises, with the control he had over his audience, I could see this devolving into something entirely inappropriate.
Darius didn’t leave any scraps for Grim this round, which was a good, I guess; at least I didn’t have to be mad at Grim for an outright traitorous display.
The judges marked down their scores with gusto, each with a small, satisfied smile. Even Malavic.
“Last up, we have everyone’s favorite all-night diner, and the only reason some of us ever risk venturing so close to the Deadwoods: Medium Rare! And for our consideration, they have a dish they’re calling chips and queso.”
He said it kway-so, and I immediately knew it would take about a year to correct everyone on the pronunciation, but that didn’t matter … so long as it won.
Horatio floated the cauldron up toward the stage and passed out the small baskets of chips and tiny dishes of the queso for dipping. This was it. I was nervous, excited … and a little hungry. The fact that it was the second cheese dip in a row might put us at a slight disadvantage, but it would also allow for a more direct comparison.
“I’ll take a little extra of that, too,” Liberty mumbled, motioning for Horatio to dish up an extra serving. The raven-haired Council aide begrudgingly did so, and I held my breath as Mayor Esperia led the charge of crunching the first carefully crafted corn chip.
I didn’t have to wait long before I had my result: we’d won.
By a landslide.
If Liberty’s response to Franco’s entry seemed a little risqué, his reaction—and the reaction of the other judges—to the queso was downright obscene. If Eastwind had a Pope, he would’ve banned my queso right then and there.
I glanced down at Percy Tomlinson who stood next to me, the very first nubs of his faun horns causing cowlicks in his curly brown hair, and I fought the urge to cover his eyes.
Siobhan Astrid grimaced apologetically at Donovan before she wrote down her scores.
Yes! Victory was mine! Or, um, ours. I grinned at Tanner who nodded eagerly.
Again, not a crumb was left on Darius’s plate for Grim’s consumption. Seeing as how it was the last entry and the possibility of more scraps had just dried up, Grim lumbered to his feet and forced his way through the crowd to stand by my side.
“Yours certainly smells the best,” he conceded. “But that’s all I can attest to since Darius decided to be stingy at the end.”
“You glimpse any of the scores?”
“You know I don’t read.”
“You don’t even know numbers?”
“Let me clarify. I don’t care to read. And I know numbers. I’m not an idiot.”
Horatio gathered up the score sheets to be tabulated, and Liberty encouraged the crowd to stick around for a few minutes until the winner could be announced.
Of course I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Gonna be a close one,” Donovan said. “But I tell you what, I’ll be a gracious winner and let you come try our new appetizer for free next week. On me. I’ll even throw in one of those ginger chakra breeze drinks you love.”
I glared at him, though I did love the cocktail and he was the only one who knew how to make it.
“Cute,” I replied. “But I saw the way Siobhan looked at you when she tasted the chips and queso. Nothing but an apology behind those eyes.”
“Oh, is that how you pronounce it? I think I like kway-so better.”
Ooh, I could just deck him. And this was what happened when someone you don’t like knew you too well: he knew exactly how to get to me.
“I swear to all things holy, Donovan,” I began, “that if you perpetuate that pronunciation—”
But I didn’t get to finish my threat, because just as Grim was saying, “Do you feel that?” a strong, bone-chilling wind began to shake the trees surrounding the green on Fluke Mountain, and a moment later, the sound of tents flapping, tables overturning, and children squealing filled the air.
6
I pushed back my hair as it whipped around my face. This was a cold I recognized, a cold that didn’t so much settle on the skin as shoot to the core, working its way outward on waves of shivers.
The gust of wind may have led the charge, clearing the way, but the spirits weren’t far behind. Elves and ogres, witches and werebears, even leprechauns.
The ghosts settled by the judges table, hovering close above the High Council.
“Sweet baby jackalope. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Grim asked.
“Depends on what you’re seeing.”
“A bunch of ghosts hovering around the judges.”
“Yep.”
The crowd around us composed themselves once again now that the breeze had passed. They straightened out their clothing and righted toppled tables,
helping vendors fix their displays. Grim reached down and grabbed a stray cornucopia in his mouth. “Finders keepers.”
“No! Bad boy! You better give that back.”
“Not happening. So you better pay for it.”
I glanced back up at the judges. The spirits were still there, and their steady susurrus floated through the air like a chorus.
But while everyone else in the crowd chatted casually about the strange and sudden breeze, the judges wore quite different expressions.
Octavia Pantagruel stared determinedly ahead at nothing as two ogres floated behind her, and while I couldn’t hear what they were saying—and, let’s be real, it was probably little more than the grunts I was used to receiving from Anton—their body language said they weren’t happy.
Siobhan Astrid’s head swiveled back and forth, searching for something without finding it, even though three tall ghost elves hovered directly in front of her.
Behind Darius Pine, two ghost bears grappled, fighting for dominance, and the witch spirit behind Cordelia Esperia tapped her toe impatiently as she droned on, her arms crossed firmly over her chest as if delivering a stern reprimand.
Liberty Freeman and Sebastian Malavic were the only judges spared, and the Count gazed upon his fellow council members with light amusement. This was probably the most puzzling thing he’d seen in a long time, assuming he couldn’t see the ghosts that caused the strange reactions.
“They can’t see them,” said Grim. “But they know they’re there.”
“Do you think it’s possible that they … hear them?”
“Huh. Sure looks like it.”
Horatio appeared on stage a few moments later and handed a slip of paper to Liberty, who seemed oblivious to the situation happening on the stage behind him, more concerned with the audience ahead of him. He unrolled the slip of paper and read off the winner. “Winning by a narrow margin is … Medium Rare!”
The crowd cheered.
I should have been excited. Tanner sure was, as he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the jungle of bodies. But something was seriously wrong, and considering it had to do with ghosts, I couldn’t suppress the sneaking suspicion that this was somehow my fault. After all, the wind had appeared right after the judges tried my queso, and the only people affected with a serious case of spirit clingers were those who’d just indulged.
