Page 71 of The Devil She Knows

“If you can’t get them directly from Hell, store-bought is fine.”

Store-bought was—“Oh, you liar!”

Daphne burst out laughing. “Aw, were you seriously trying to figure out how to make me brimstone biscuits? A food I pulled entirely out of my ass? That’s so sweet.”

“Excuse me if food happens to be my love language,” Sam grumbled half-heartedly. “It’s how I show that I care.”

Daphne’s lips parted soundlessly, her lashes fluttering against her cheeks. “Do you … you want to know the real answer?”

Sam nodded, and Daphne shuffled closer, hooking her ankle around Sam’s under the covers.

“We called them honey tokens,” she said. “They were pieces of fried dough that we soaked in honey. We only had them on special occasions.”

Now,thatSam could make. “Sounds a little like a beignet.”

“A little,” Daphne agreed. “You know, I haven’t had a beignet in at least fifty years.”

“You don’t say.”

A slow smile spread across Daphne’s lips. “Do you want to go somewhere?”

Sam huffed out a quiet, startled laugh. “Now?To what? Get beignets?”

She shrugged. “If you want.”

“Can’t you just”—Sam waved a hand—“poof some up here?”

“Sam.” Daphne leveled her with a serious stare. “There’s only so long a girl can stay cooped up inside this elevator. I’m starting to feel like a genie in a bottle here.”

Sam only barely resisted the urge to make a joke about knowing how to rub her the right way, snickering inwardly instead.

Beignet Café, a little food cart in Union Square, had great beignets, but they were only open on weekends during specific hours. “Where did you have in mind?”

Daphne paused before asking with uncharacteristic hesitation, “Do you trust me?”

Maybe it was stupid, taking any demon at their word, but Sam had never claimed to be a paragon of intelligenceorsound decision-making.

“I do,” she said, praying Daphne wasn’t going to make her regret this.

The intensity of Daphne’s stare told her that the enormity of the moment was not lost on her. “Good.” She smiled softly and squeezed Sam’s fingers. “Then close your eyes.”

15

SAM HAD NEVER been skydiving before, but she imagined this was what it felt like—intense free fall, her gut floating in space, gravity yanking her down to Earth, and then the counterpull from the parachute. Wind resistance that felt like pressure squeezing her on all sides.

Sam hit the ground and staggered, trying to find her balance, the earth uneven beneath her feet.

“Careful.” Daphne steadied her with a hand on her elbow. “Don’t want you to fall.”

Because falling would be bad.

“Thanks.” Sam looked at the ground, at where her feet, magically tucked inside her favorite tennis shoes, a pair of low-top Chuck Taylors that had seen hundreds of miles—and better days—stood on crushed gravel instead of the transformed elevator’s parquet-wood floor.

The sound of a familiar meow brought Sam’s attention to the soft-sided carrier at Daphne’s feet.

“Nacho?” Sam gasped and dropped down into a lowsquat, her knees protesting a little. She grabbed the thick black strap on top of the carrier and lifted it to eye level so she could peer through the mesh. Two sets of curious green eyes blinked back at her, and from the other end of the carrier, Pumpkin chattered, the same noise he made when he was watching pigeons out the window.

“Oh, Pumpkin.” He bumped her with his nose and her laugh was a touch wet, her throat aching.