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“Flowers all over the mountain,” Luna said. “Really?”

“Once you get high enough,” Oliver answered. He turned and sighed when he saw her sitting in the dirt. “Can you just get over yourself for five seconds? Your feet hurt, boo-hoo. When this is over and you go back to your life, your feet will never hurt again. You couldpaysomeone to carry you up a hill.”

Luna thought back to Hector, who hadn’t carried her the rest of the way no matter how hard she begged. He’d tried joking his way out of it, but the more she begged, the quieter he got. Finally, he’d turned around and said,babe, you’re not making this very fun right now.

It had made Luna go quiet for a full five minutes. They were, admittedly, thefuncouple. It was what drew them to each other. It wasn’t just her; if Hector ever gottoo serious, which wasn’t often, Luna would tell him to go back to normal.Being serious is for boring people,he liked to say.

But this wasOliver. Their tentative truce was almost over. Luna had yelled in his face so many times, what was one more?

“I will get atrainof people to carry me,” she hissed, surging to her sore feet. “I can’twaitto get back to normal! Being bonded to you has been the worst month of my life.”

Oliver’s jaw twitched. For a moment, she thought she might have hurt his feelings.

Then he snarled. “Here I thought you were actually enjoying it. Worming your way into my family, remaking the inn in your own image?—”

“Excuseyou, I’m making it better!”

“Nobodyaskedyou,” Oliver argued. “Just pay for a new sign and leave!”

“I would love to,” Luna yelled. “Unfortunately, SOMEONE decided to drink the bond nectar and?—”

She stopped. There, on a cliff face over a steep drop, was a small flower poking out of the rocks. A cluster of white with a red center.

Luna cried out triumphantly. “Breakup flower!Yes!”

Oliver whipped around to look. His scowl melted into shock when he saw Luna was not in fact joking. Then it set into steely determination.

“Whoa,” Luna said as he stalked toward the cliff edge. “Um… Bit of a drop.”

“It’s fine,” he replied. He didn’t even look downat the steep drop between them and the cliff face. A log protruded over the gap, thick and rotting.

Luna winced as Oliver stepped on the log, testing its give. “Are you seriously going to walk out on that?”

“No,” Oliver said. “Of course not.”

He got down on the ground and started to shimmy across the log.

“Oh,” Luna said. “Much better.”

She padded cautiously over to the edge of the cliff. Oliver was halfway across the log, clinging like a spider monkey. The drop loomed below, maybe ten feet of empty space before it came to an abrupt stop at the patch of path where they had briefly stopped to have an impassioned argument about the dubious usefulness of double-socking.

“Are you sure this is the best way to get it?” Luna asked as Oliver climbed across the log.

Oliver shushed her. “I almost have it.”

He stretched out, straining toward the flower. His fingers skimmed the white petals.

Luna grimaced. “I don’t know. That log looks a little?—”

A sharp crack rang out as the log snapped in two. Oliver scrambled back, but it was too late. The log fell, taking Oliver with it.

Luna shrieked. She rushed to the edge of the cliff. The bond inside her chest spasmed with pain as she peered over.

Oliver lay on the path below them, the log splintered around him. He was groaning, clutching his ankle.

“Oh my god,” Luna yelled. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” Oliver croaked, face twisted in agony.