The Library After Dark: A Novel(22)
Her betrothed stepped through the hearth, and seeing the ash coating her as a second skin, he sighed. And as terror wrapped vines around her feet, he took her by the back of her neck and slit her throat.
Chapter Thirteen
Piper
Vintage posters of Agatha Christie novels plaster the walls, and I feel like I’ve time traveled back to the 1930s. God, I’m obsessed. I twitch aside the fringed curtain. Through the windowpanes, the snow’s still coming down on the street, highlighted into burning embers in the never-ending flash of headlights.
“Do you have any more books coming out soon?” Wes asks Michelle, a couple booths away from me. Would it get old, being peppered with questions by fans?
She’s so gracious, though, a small smile nudging her apple-red lips as her gaze flits to Callum, seated next to her. I don’t know if they’re like a legitimate couple, but they should be. “What do you think, should I?”
“Ah, go on, then,” Callum prods, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. “The news’ll be out day after tomorrow, anyway.”
Michelle covers her eyes, smiling. “Oh dear, it really doesn’t get any easier, does it? Being asked what you write.”
“Consider this a soft launch?” Wes suggests, basically bouncing on the edge of his seat.
“Okay.” The author lets her hands fall to her lap. “It’s my first adult book, a dark fantasy horror. Vespertide. It’s based on ‘Death the Maiden and the Heartless Queen.’?”
“Ooh!” I can’t help exclaiming, twisting around in my booth to look at her fully. “That’s the reaper one from Dark Hearth Tales, right? Grim Reaper meets Alice in Wonderland?”
“So that’s why you’re giving the intro at the anniversary,” Wes says, an awed smile creeping over his face. “I mean, I could see it either way, but a Daedalus author in residence, new book based on The Tales. How freaking awesome is that?”
“It’s hardly a children’s story,” Michelle admits, staring at the table. “And that’s what I am—have been—for nearly twenty years now. A children’s author. But this…it’s a bit terrifying. Especially since Vespertide is the most personal thing I’ve written, I think.”
“And the best,” Callum says kindly. “Certainly the best.”
“You’re just saying that because you practically ghostwrote the book, with all the research about the bean-nighe you gave me. Cal’s been my chief of research since we connected several years ago.”
Oh my God, they’re flirting, and I should not be thinking of them as cute. I’ve got a job to do, for heaven’s sake.
I still flick my camera on, snap a picture of them.
Wes hums. “I was about eleven or twelve when I came across a paperback of Bullies, Vampires, and Other Things That Creep at Night. And I— Well, school was a tough place for me. And that story was…perfect for me at that age. It got me into reading.”
Michelle’s head bobs, her delicate eyebrows meeting.
“And then a couple years later,” he continues slowly, “you started the Green Door series, just as I hit my teens, and those were like, mind-blowing, but the way you wrote about family really hit me hard. Kinda gave me permission to become my own person, but cope with how I still…couldn’t just say ‘screw them,’ you know? I always saw myself in your books, but those were the most powerful, ’cause they spoke to me where I was.”
A flash of gold bounds over his knuckles, down one way and then back—a ring. “People who grew up reading your books aren’t kids anymore. We’ve changed and grown. And I think it’ll be a special treat for us that your books do, too.”
Michelle bites her lower lip, and she reaches across the table, pats Wes’s arm. Her lacy sleeve rides up a tad, showing a bit of ink on her wrist—a tiny rabbit. “Thank you. The luckiest part of this job is being alive to hear that.”
At her side, Callum—oh. The way he’s looking at her, a barely there smile and pride shining in his eyes, is…goals.
Aria and Jasper have been canoodling in a booth to themselves, but when he gets up, heading for the bar, I see my opening and I carpe that diem. Or the booth, rather. I leave my camera on my old table, keep it casual, off-the-record, and see what she’ll say. She was totally scared about the elevator thing, and I need to know why.
Before she sees me, I release all the air in my lungs, forcing every muscle to relax.
“Hi,” I say with a sorry-not-sorry-for-interrupting smile. “Can I sit for a sec?”
Her dark eyes startle but she jerks her head in a nod. God, she’s gorgeous, smoky eye makeup perfect and skin a few shades darker than her shimmery peach-pink dress, though I’m pretty sure her giant braid is a hell of a lot messier than when we arrived. I waggle my eyebrows. “Having fun?”
Her eyes go round, hand going to her hair, and with a snicker I waggle my eyebrows at Callum and Michelle. “Something’s in the air here, that’s for sure.”
Her smile’s perfunctory. Bingo.
“Or not?” I lower my voice, edging forward conspiratorially. “That elevator thing was freaky, right? Do you think it was part of the tour? Publicity stunt?”
A crack forms between her thick, sculpted eyebrows—masterpieces—and her lips thin. “You’d know better than me.”