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She pointed to Evelyn’s wrist. “Your bracelet is enchanted well, but my bronntanas can feel through whatever you made it out of. But I wouldn’t worry. I sense more than others.”

“You don’t say?” Evelyn said with a raised brow. She looked around the shop. “Your magic is powerful.”

Aster shrugged, her cheeks blooming with a blush. “Why deny you’re a witch? Is it because you’re in Callum?”

Evelyn shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Well, you shouldn’t worry about being a witch in this town. We’re a friendly bunch.”

Evelyn scoffed. Witches were welcoming. She didn’t doubt that. Yet, one word of a dark-haired, mysterious witch from Nua with secrets would make it to her sisters. For all she knew, her coven had already written to covens an ocean away to keep an eye out. Even though Tovi said the Elders had fabricated some stories, who knew what had changed over the course of two years?

At present, she had a vampyr to find and a murder to focus on, no time for lying her way out of a conversation with a witch.

“Do you mind keeping the fact that I’m a witch between us?”

Aster’s brows pinched with disappointment, and then her eyes went big. “Are you on the run? Are you hiding, by chance?”

Evelyn laughed again, her throat going dry. Fucking flames, she enjoyed Aster’s energy, but she feared the witch sensed too much.

“I should leave,” Evelyn said.

“How about a proposition?” Aster paused, wringing her hands. “A trade of sorts?”

“A proposition?”

“Rent the apartment above my shop, and I won’t tell anyone you’re a witch.”

Evelyn took a step back and laughed. “Proposition is an interesting word choice for blackmail.”

Aster swallowed, twisting her fingers. “All right, it is. But I desperately need someone to rent out the apartment above to help pay off the shop and you need somewhere to stay with someone whom you can trust not to tell anyone you’re a witch.”

Aster was a witch, and she seemed kind. Would she be so kind if she knew who Evelyn was? If she learned she was Daughter of the Goddess? Although she never needed to find out.

As the books floated from shelf to shelf, another plant continued to play with Evelyn’s hair, and the petal butterflies flew around, the shop’s magic, as well as that which ran in her blood, beckoned her to take the risk.

“All right,” Evelyn said, crossing her arms. “How much?”

“Two hundred a month.”

With her captain’s pay from the commissioner and the little she’d saved as a barmaid, she could certainly manage that and have money left over when she readied to leave for the next place. That only left one predicament.

“I’ll take it,” Evelyn said. “But month to month. I can’t promise I’ll rent it long.”

Her words sent Aster into a frenzy. She jumped up and down and launched at Evelyn, startling her as her hug squished Evelyn’s arms to her sides. Unsure how to reciprocate, she stood unmoving until Aster released her.

“Oh, well, isn’t this the start of something fun!” Aster said, clapping her hands.

Interesting . . . not the word Evelyn would have used but difficult to disagree with, nonetheless.

Chapter Nine

Kade

While waiting for word from the commissioner about visiting the McCarthys, Kade ran errands. He first visited a blacksmith, requesting his Drengr crest be welded down to a smooth surface on his brooch, sword, and dagger. The request cost him his spare dagger with a moonstone hilt, but desperate measures ensured his huntsman disguise stayed intact. The blacksmith guaranteed it’d be done by midday, and Kade would have his weapons before they started investigating.

Kade released a breath. He weaved his way through the harbor market, finding his next stop near the watchtower. A messaging post was nestled into the stones, and the courier who managed the birds listened to Kade as he explained his request.

“It’ll be ten silvers to get a letter over to Nua, and I’m half tempted to charge ya extra with the risk of storm season,” the courier said.