Page 153 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

Her hands tighten slightly against me. “I wanted to tell you something.”

There is enough nervousness in her voice that my attention sharpens, but not enough to frighten me.

“All right.”

Merry looks down for a moment. When she looks back at me, something in her expression has changed.

“I’ve been thinking about us.”

A small sound comes from somewhere behind me, followed by the unmistakable scrape of Aurora’s claws against the floor.

Merry closes her eyes. “No.”

I turn in time to see the cat disappear behind the kitchen island. Something skitters across the hardwood after her.

Merry sighs and lets her forehead fall briefly against my shoulder.

“She does this on purpose.”

I laugh, running my hand over the back of her neck. “I’m sure a cat carefully planned the interruption.”

“You don’t live with her, baby. You don’t know what she’s capable of.”

Aurora emerges again before Merry can continue, batting something across the floor and chasing after it with the absolute concentration of an animal who has never been given a toy in her life.

Whatever she’s found slides up to my socked foot, and I bend to pick it up.

It’s a bracelet.

For a moment, that’s all it is.

Then I turn it over in my hand.

The beads are small enough that the pattern isn’t immediately obvious unless you know what you’re looking for. I do. I remember choosing them one at a time at the dining room table, changing the arrangement until the colors sat together the way I wanted them to. There is a tiny difference in the pattern near the knot where I replaced one of the original stones at the last minute.

I run my thumb over it.

And the room around me seems to recede.

I made this bracelet.

“Where did you get this?”

Merry has climbed down from the stool. “What?”

I hold it out between us. Her eyes drop to my hand.

“Oh,” she says, stretching to grab it. “My bracelet.”

Something in my chest tightens.

“Where did you get it, Merry?”

She looks at me more carefully then, hearing the way my tone has changed. “From Whisp.”

I already know that. I wish, for one irrational second, that she would give me some other answer anyway. A string of explanations immediately following those two words. Anything. Nothing. I don’t know.

“Which shop?” I ask, finally.