Page 17 of When the Woods Go Silent

We serve only the best atGoblin Market, but our business model isn't the real reason why our food is so addictive, and our patrons are so obsessed. We don't even need to serve meat here.

The meat comes to us.

"Here's to another night of successful hunting," I say to my sous chef. His wide black eyes are edged with an icy-blue hunger, and his own teeth have sharpened across his lower lip.

"Here's to the first and best 'Gobbelin' Market on Earth," Arlo returns, stirring the last swirls of my blood into the steaming pot, where it will make its way into the mouths of customers all night, tempting the weakest to come back again and again.

Until they can’t imagine ever leaving, and then they don’t.

CHAPTER EIGHT

RUBY

A notification I’ve been waiting for finally pops up on my phone, and I can’t help the squeal. “They’re opening tonight!”

“Who?” Rose asks absently, her unpainted nails clicking across her laptop keyboard as she enters titles into our inventory spreadsheets. Luckily for me, Rose has a thing for stuff like that.

The previous bookstore owner sold us everything he had in the shop, including an absolute museum-quality desktop computer that we quickly trashed, but he’d literally never actually tracked all the books he bought and sold. There had been boxes - andboxes- of uncatalogued used books stacked in nearly every room when we got the keys, and aside from remodeling the old building bit by bit, taking stock is proving to be our biggest headache.

“Goblin Market! It’s that restaurant that made the tart that guy gave you. I found them on social, and I’ve been stalking them. Looks like they open in twenty minutes. Up for a midnight snack?” I’m already salivating, remembering that tart. It was the stuff of dreams. Absolute heaven.

Rose stops typing, eyeing me across the old kitchen table and the stacks of books piled between us.

“You’re not going to try and set me up with Arlo, are you?” she asks suspiciously.

“Nooo,” I say, drawing out the word and fluttering my fingers in what I hope looks like innocent shock. I mean, I might have thought about it before, but the dumbass never did reach back out to her. It’s become a sore spot, and I kinda don’t blame her. Asshole move. But we agreed years ago to stay out of each other’s bedroom decisions unless there was serious cause for concern.

And we do. Mostly.

“I just want some really good food. And if the staff is all gorgeous, what’s better than dinner with a view? Come on, Rosey.”

There are hundreds of gushing comments on their socials about both the food and the hot servers, and I’m dying to see if any of it can live up to the hype.

“Night out, night out, night out,” I begin to chant, and Rose gives me an eye roll. There’s a smile peeking through, though. I’ve got her.

“Fine. But if that loser is there, you promise not to try and convince me to give him a second chance,” she warns. I grin and hold up my pinkie finger to link it with hers.

“Promise,” I say, bouncing a little in my chair. “But if there’s adifferenthot guy there who isn’t such a loser, I’m totally sending you in for round two.”

She laughs, and I cheer as she finally shuts down the laptop. The two of us race upstairs to freshen up and change into something nicer than sweats.

It doesn’t take us more than thirty minutes to get ready and lock up the shop, but we’re still lost in a mile-long queue as soon as we turn the corner onto the restaurant’s street. The night is dark around us, with the only light coming from the soft glow of the restaurant’s windows and a pair of struggling street lights.

“Holy hell,” I murmur, trying to do the math on the number of people, times how long it might take them each to eat. Thiscould end up being an early-morning snack, not a midnight snack. I wrap my jacket tighter against the spring chill.

---