Page 53 of The Candlemaker

“Because I’m here for my sister—for thisinn.” I huffed, like saying it enough times would make it the whole truth. “Good night, Chandler.”

His silence belied how he didn’t want to end the conversation, but ultimately, he didn’t push.

“Good night, Frankie.”

I hesitated and added, “Good night, ghosts.”

We were adversaries. The match and the wick. If we weren’t careful, it would be the both of us that would burn.

Chapter Thirteen

Frankie

I was in trouble.

Strange, since usually I was the one responsible for the trouble, but it was no less the truth.

Kissing Chandler in my shop two days ago had been a grave mistake—a match that ignited an invisible fuse. And that night, when it came to backing down or sleeping in the same bed as him, I summoned every ounce of bravado and pretended like it wouldn’t matter—like it didn’t matter.

But god, did it matter.

The heat of the body next to me, my arm slung like a traitor over his chest.

For two days, I pretended that this didn’t happen. That every morning, I didn’t carefully extricate my body from where it had crept and curled around him like a vine. And that every night, I slid onto the air mattress, my mind ready to chase dreams that brought me close to him.

It was ridiculous. All of it. Every lingering stare. Everycaught breath. Every darkening of his gaze when it met mine for too long.

Every night, we fell asleep with a bomb in the bed, each of us waiting for the thing that would make it blow.

He made a low sound when I pulled my arm away and turned to my side. I waited for a split second, my stomach doing a little flip when I heard him turn and reach for me. Foolish Frankie waited for the approach of his heat like a flame she was dying to touch—and that was when I pulled away, rising from the mattress with such force and enough noise to make sure it woke him, too.

The last thing either of us needed wasbothof us knowing just how close we got each morning.

“Good morning,” I said over my shoulder, quickly tying my hair back.

“Morning.” His first words of the day were in a league of their own. Like salted caramel on my skin, they were sweet and smooth, with just enough coarseness to make me wonder how they’d feel against the shell of my ear or on the slope of my neck. “One more night spared from the ghosts.”

Goose bumps took shelter along my spine.

I needed to do something drastic—something to put an end to this—before the idea of this ending began to ache a little too much.

“And the noises last night?” I shot over my shoulder.

Two nights ago, Nox moved all of our things.

Last night, we’d returned to the inn, fresh sets of batteries and lightbulbs for the lamps in hand, and just as we settled into our uncomfortable sleeping arrangement, there was banging coming from upstairs. The sound of footfalls on the floor.

Chandler had ordered me to stay downstairs while he rushed to investigate. As soon as he reached the second floor, thesounds stopped.

Or I thought they did.

I’d sat up on the mattress, a hint of triumph on my face waiting for him to return, when the banging on the windows started.

I jumped and cried out, diving under the covers as the old panes rattled and shook.

I knew it was Nox—not that we’d nailed down the details of this plan beyond“I need you to haunt the inn. For Lou,”because I couldn’t risk it—but I still clutched the blanket to my chin, my heart pounding higher in my throat as my head whipped from one location to the next, trying to follow the path of the agitated rattle.

And then Chandler had barreled into the room, and the only thing I could focus on was him.

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