Page 242 of Lana Pecherczyk

This—this felt right.

Not because it was forbidden, but because she was good at this. Because when she held tools, when she fixed things, she knew exactly what to do.

No one else’s judgment mattered here.

The broken music box on the workbench looked different now. Less like a disaster. More like a possibility.

“Bloss?”

Blake whirled at her father’s voice. He stood outside the workshop window, confused and frowning at her through the glass. “What are you doing here?”

The magpie and crow squawked outside, but she ignored them. Suddenly, she was seven years old again, tears burning her eyes. The hammer slipped from her fingers and clattered against the concrete.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t mean to break it.”

Her dad kneeled beside her on the floor, cradling the pieces. It was her mother’s. She remembered now. Blake waited for his anger, but he sighed and tussled her hair.

“She’ll be right, love.”

“No, it won’t.” She shook her head. “It was Mum’s, and I broke it.”

He sighed. “It’s my fault, Bloss. I was so worried I’d lose this part of your mum that I was too afraid to fix it.”

“Now it’s ruined,” she wailed.

“The break will make it stronger, you’ll see. Get me the special glue, would you?”

She scrambled to her feet and hunted through drawers and shelves. Everything felt slightly wrong. Tools were in the wrong places. Shadows fell at impossible angles. She found a small tube tucked behind paint brushes. Glitter glue.

“Mum would like it to sparkle,” she whispered, then whirled back to her father with a grin. “We can make it pretty.”

“Pretty won’t make it strong, Bloss.”

“Can’t she be both? She’s rough as guts now, Dad, but wait till you see what she looks like when we shine her up!”

Her father stared at her. “Is that what you want?”

Was that what she wanted?

“Show me how you work your magic.”The familiar male voice, warm and encouraging.“Talk to me like you would them.”

Blake’s heart fluttered as a face came back to her, handsome and devilish. Blue-black hair. Smoldering eyes. Soft eyes. Eyes that looked at her as though she were his whole world.

Eyes that missed her. Needed her.

“There is no world without you, Sparkles.”

An ache filled with longing bloomed in her chest.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I want.”

Blake stared at the glitter glue, then at the broken dancer. She squeezed silver and gold along every fracture, watching it catch the light.

BANG.

She startled.

BANG. BANG.