Page 264 of The Spider Queen

“How many?”

“Four.”

“A good haul.”

“Not bad. I’ve done better.”

Herron snorted. “The night we met, I was number what? Seven?”

“Eight,” I reminded her. “I would’ve done more but you were quite needy.”

She snorted again.

I’d met Herron soon after I moved to the city. She’d just miscarried for the third time. Though time had passed and she was still childless, she no longer carried the burden of her infertility.

She was the only person who had remained with any sort of consistency in my life. Normally, I wouldn’t have allowed such a thing. I was not a lifetime friend. I was a one-night friend. A lighthouse in the darkness, and the grieving were the lost ships trying to find their way home. Once I helped them to port, I disappeared.

But the night Herron and I had encountered one another, she’d followed me home. And when I’d left my apartment the following day, she’d been waiting for me on the sidewalk.

She’d cornered me. Demanded to know how I’d made her feel lighter than she’d felt in years, and for some strange reason, I told her about my gift. I told her everything. About my parents’ deaths the year before. About their inability to understand me, yet how they’d loved me unconditionally.

Instead of going out to release emotions that night, I chose to confide in someone for the first time in my life. And it had been everything I needed it to be.

I pulled on a blue and white-checkered sundress that was old and faded. The back room of the shop was hot with poor circulation, but I needed to finish a project for a very handsome, Scottish hotel mogul. He’d overpaid to have it done in time for his wife’s birthday, and I would hand deliver it when it was finished.

“Ready,” I said, coming out of the bedroom.

Herron stood, her hand reaching for her to-go coffee. I locked up the apartment and we walked down the creaky stairs. I unlocked the gate and moments later, we were inside the shop. I set the keys down on the counter as Herron flipped on the lights.

“Do you ever notice that when someone describes an apartment or a space as charming, they really mean tiny?” she asked.

I grinned. “I’m not moving the shop.”

“But it would doso wellin Tribeca. No one can find us here.”

“Enough people find us,” I said. “Most of my stuff is bought online anyway.”

“So this is a glorified workspace, not really a shop.”

Herron and I had been having this discussion on repeat. She was glitz and glam. She was in-your-face with beauty and magnetism. I preferred to hide in the shadows.

“It’s so unique, Stella. What you do. You’re like the Fabergé of snow globes.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” I gestured to the back. “Are you ready to see the nearly finished project?”

“Really? You never show me what you’re working on.”

“I need to put the last coat of lacquer on the base so it won’t chip, but other than that, it’s finished.” I tried to stem my excitement, but this was the most impressive piece I’d ever created.

I was just about to unveil my masterpiece when Herron’s cell phone rang.

“It’s Blaze,” she said. “Hold on.”

Herron sighed and hung up with her husband. “My mother-in-law stepped off a curb and broke her ankle.”

I made a face. “Ouch.”

“Osteoporosis. The struggle is real.” Herron shook her head. “She’s freaking out because the menu for her charity luncheon is still a mess. Blaze is begging for my help.”