Page 64 of The Ballad of the Vampire Prince

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Winning.

“Nothing.” I shrug.

He gives another one of those dark chuckles. “You weird, weird girl.”

And then the most amazing thing happens. He closes his eyes and smiles. Truly smiles. Not one of his smirks or crooked grins.

A smile. I don’t miss the way it creates wrinkles around his eyes.

I blink too.

Once, twice, just to be sure that I’m not dreaming this up. Svenn always seems so restrained, but now he is relaxed and at ease.

“Your hair is beautiful.” I try to coax that smile again. “I like that Ragnar shears it at the sides.”

It’s clearly the wrong compliment to give because his face turns blank.

“Thank you, Nel. But don’t ever mention another guy’s name on our bed ever again.” His voice is downright icy when he says that, but I can only focus on his words.

Our bed.

Though he never sleeps in it.

“You’re beautiful too, Rhianelle,” he suddenly says, smoothing my hair back.

All right… Now it’s my turn to blush.

This is a dangerous dance. I’m ready to go back to my safety now.

“I—I better go to sleep now. Goodbye,” I say, pulling away from him.

“Stay,” he orders.

“Well, let me get my earmuffs.” I wiggle myself to get up, but he doesn’t let me. My eyebrows furrow as I look up at him again. “I really do need them.”

“What for?” he asks.

“Nothing. It’s just a stupid superstition,” I say, biting my lip.

“Tell me anyway.”

There’s a brief pause as I look at him. Then I begin my story. “When I was young, my friend and I got lost deep in the forest. We were so hungry and we hadn’t eaten in… a while. One day, we stumbled upon a cottage made of candies and cookies. We know it’s wrong to eat people’s homes, so we gobbled on the gingerbread man on the kitchen table.”

I pause my rush of words because I miss Blaire. So much.

“We apologized to the old lady who owns that cottage. She agreed to forgive us if we worked for her for six hundred and sixty-six days.”

“What a terrible person… making a kid work,” Svenn curses under his breath. “Do you want me to kill her?”

“No… she’s good, Svenn. She let us eat scraps off her table. Anyway, on the last day of our service, my friend stumbled upon a grimoire. It was written there that witches often put the spirit of their enemy inside inanimate objects like the gingerbread man. If someone were to eat it, the malevolent spirit will search for that person and enter their body through the ear.”

Svenn stares at me blankly. “The gingerbread man’s spirit?”

I nod. “Like I said, it’s a superstition. The old woman was probably just messing with us by leaving that book around.”

Blaire and I are grown-ups now. We don’t really believe it will happen. But it doesn’t hurt to take precaution. So, I wear my earmuffs when I can.