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Dare blinks his surprise away in two rapid gestures.

Slowly, he unfolds his arms from his chest and pushes from the statue. “Kinta.”

There is no judgement in the way he speaks the word, not like the way Ridge runs his gaze over Bee. Dare says it as though just remembering them, that kintas exist, and he’d forgotten all about them until this very moment.

“Great.” Bee claps her hands together. “Now that we’ve gotten that out the way,” she pauses to twirl her finger in a bossylets-gogesture, “should we get a move on?”

“Where?” I ask and she looks at me for the first time since she called out to Eamon. “Hello,” I add, maybe a tad ashamed. “You look well.”

Her smile breaks out into a grin, then she winks her greeting at me. “It’s Tuesday, so that leaves two clubs. I figured since you’re all fae, you’d like Ceol best.”

Stepping back, she hails us to follow her lead, then starts down the path.

Eamon falls into step at her side.

We peel away from our spots and follow.

Daxeel shadows me, his hand lingering near the small of my back, but never quite touching.

I ache for the pressure of his touch, the strength of his hand on my body, but the ache in my chest grows cold at the thought, because even that little indulgence would betray everything I’m trying to do.

The silence I keep between us, the distance in how I regard him, it’s what draws him in closer to me, desperate for the approval of his evate.

That desperation has him glued to me, shadowing my movements, all the way to the street beyond the arch.

Bee stops at the edge of the road, then raises her hand in the air. Her lower lip sucks inwards before she issues a grating whistle.

It earns a curt hiss from Aleana.

She folds her arms and leans into Dare, who doesn’t take his fierce, steady stare off Bee.

At the sound of the whistle, a black kar across the road rumbles to life. The noise is as deafening and chugging as a beast growling before a brutal attack. It curves around the road ahead.

“You can pay the taxi driver in glamoured notes.” Bee turns to face us, but I suspect Dare isn’t listening, since he’s taken a step to the side to study her better.

His gaze lingers over her pear-sharped backside.

“But at Ceol,” she goes on, “you have to pay your bill in gold or true pounds. No glamoured currency there.”

The black kar stops in front of us.

Eamon pats the pocket of his dark blue trousers. “I have pounds.”

With a nod, Bee yanks the kar door open and gestures for us to get in.

So we do.

One by one, we clamber and climb into the kar.

Dare is last, right behind Bee, and I suspect he stayed behind her in the street to keep staring at her backside.

I almost roll my eyes at him.

That poor shop girl just needed wider hips.

The kar starts down the road. The vibrations jolt me on the seat like I’m stuck in some rogue carriage from Cheapside.

Bee uses the time to dish out more rules. “No fights, no killing, no tormenting the humans whowillbe there. It’s a free space, all species—”