Page 138 of She Who Devours the Stars

Zevelune.

The city’s rules didn’t apply to her. She didn’t arrive; she was simply there, drifting closer with each step, every molecule in the air realigning to grant her right-of-way. I watched, hypnotized, as she cut a path through the benches and shattered glass, one hand holding a wine glass, the other swinging a plastic bag that glowed with grease and heat and the promise of calories.

She didn’t look at me. Not at first.

She reached the edge of the balcony, simply crossing the last forty feet in a single blurring step, then turned, eyes unreadable under the sprawl of impossible lashes. Zevelune’s skin was cerulean, and I could see the universe glimmering with resonance under the skin. Her dress, if you could call it that, was pure myth: layered and refracted like she’d sewn it from the livers of her enemies and the dreams of every girl who’d ever wanted to be worshipped. She wore it with the casual grace of someone who knew it was a weapon.

I didn’t try to stand. I just kept my knees up, arms tight around them, heart thumping as if I’d been caught trespassing in my own skin.

She regarded me for a full ten seconds, long enough for my heartbeat to go from panic to something almost… shameful.

“Correct the vector,” Zevelune said, voice like silk that had been boiled in starfire. “Control the outcome. Collapse the dissent.”

She was quoting Lioren. Or quoting me. Or quoting the universe.

She sipped her wine, licked a trace of liquid from her lower lip, and only then deigned to actually see me.

“You’re starting to fracture,” she purred. Not with sympathy, but with a hunger I recognized too well. “Good. It’ll make the next part more interesting.”

She leaned on the rail, her silhouette obscene against the city’s battered blue glow. The bag in her left hand swung like a low-hanging sun, leaking a smell that made my stomach contract in on itself.

“You ever been this hungry?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Zevelune grinned. “Yes. But I had better snacks.”

I blinked, and she was closer. She crouched down, somehow managing to make the movement look both predatory and elegant, wine glass still lazily circling. She studied my face, then the bruises on my arms, then the cluster of blue-white mythic script burning faintly through my towel.

“You think you’re the only one who ever broke the world?” she said. “Sweet child. There are ruins built from girls like you.”

I wanted to flinch, or snark back, or just close my eyes and let the next disaster roll over me. But Zevelune radiated a gravity that left no room for escape. I was stuck, pinned by her gaze and by the gnawing want inside me. Her perfume was a downpour of cherry-laced need, sweet as sin and twice as sticky.

My stomach growled, the horizon flinched; Vireleth trembled.

She hung her wine in the air and fished in the bag. Her glass spun on its own, refracting the light like a HoloNet commercial. I leaned forward, eager as a hound, already picturing my tongue on her blue fingers. A sound escaped from me that made even her cheeks rosy.

Zevelune pulled out a single, perfect Döner kebab, wrapped in paper so thin it almost tore just from the touch. Steam kissed our faces; the holy trinity—fat, bread,spice—hit me like a prayer.

She held it up between us. The heat from the meat fogged the night air, and the smell—fat, bread, spice—made my brain collapse into pure need.

“You want it?” she teased.

My throat went dry. “Yeah.”

She let it dangle, just for a second, then tossed the bag with a snap of her wrist. It landed in my lap, burning through the towel.

I lost every ounce of dignity.

I unwrapped the first kebab, bit through the paper and the foil, barely missing my fingers. The taste hit my mouth, salt and protein and mythic memory all at once, and I almost came right there, biting off a piece so big I choked and had to cough it back up, tears streaming down my face.

Zevelune watched, lips pursed, eyes bright.

“Better?” she asked.

I nodded, too busy chewing to answer.

She stood, gathered her wine, and turned her back on me. “You’ll need the fuel. Trust me.”

I looked up, mouth full, hands covered in grease.