Page 24 of Goblin Candy

My eyebrows raise with interest. “A challenge then! Very well—win we shall!”

“Melinda wins almost every year,” she adds with a subtle frown. “I’m not sure how we’re going to beat her. She always seems to know where to find everything.”

“Trust me,” I purr, my smile widening. “You have a goblin now, and no one hunts down what they desire quite like a goblin.”

In fact, I greatly look forward to it.

CHAPTER16

CANDY

Grimsal’s delight at the scavenger hunt is adorable. It’s like turning a little boy loose in a candy shop filled with anything he could possibly want. His eyes glitter gleefully as he looks around at the other paired teams gathered in the clearing in the town center. Lottie is there with her spider demon, and they are getting more than a few nervous glances that they seem to ignore as they cozy up to each other. It’s rather adorable, especially since, due to their height difference, Lyrax is practically carrying Lottie in his arms. Though she looks every inch a whimsical witch in her lace-trimmed costume, his own attire is confined to a large cape that drapes elegantly over his arachnid body.

Good for her—she deserves a guy who’s more than happy to treat her like the world revolves around her smiles. I hope he doesn’t have to return to the fae world too soon, but then it seems we’re both on borrowed time with our males. My heart has begun to ache anytime I’ve thought of the coming separation with Grimsal, though I’m good at hiding it. The guy who hands me my “scroll” has no idea that I feel that pain even now as I accept the rolled-up paper with a smile of thanks.

Grimsal edges closer to me as I unroll our “scroll” with its list of witchy “ingredients.” My lips quirk in amusement as I skim the list. A toad, vampire’s blood… The list goes on with things that could easily be interpreted in multiple ways for the contestants. Everything of which will be placed in our assigned plastic cauldron when we return at midnight. I check the time. Four o’clock. That gives us six hours to acquire everything before the designated witching hour.

“Brine from a mermaid’s fin?” Grimsal reads aloud over my shoulder. “Do we have enough time to corral one of the merfolk?”

“No need. Simple sea salt will do,” I explain.

He heaves a disappointed sigh. “That’s a pity. I’m assuming that the scales of a basilisk are not required from the real reptile either.”

“Nope,” I agree but peer at him curiously. “Why? Do you just happen to have the scales handy?”

He grins. “Not at all, but it would have been amusing watching some of these humans attempt to wrest scales from one of the cantankerous creatures.”

“That’s horrible!” And I laugh in spite of myself. “But no, any shiny chips should do. I think I have gold leaf flakes still at my apartment that would work.”

He wrinkles his nose, telling me exactly what he thinks of my substitution, when Henry Guffery, the event organizer, raises his voice to be heard over the small crowd of scavengers.

“You have your lists. Although there are similarities, we’ve decided to make it a little more challenging in that each pair has a different list. While there may be a few common ingredients, this will encourage you to rely on your partner and work together rather than a giant group—Melinda,” he says, addressing his wife who grins sheepishly from where she waits to begin with her sister. I swallow back a laugh because I recall how eager she was to group up to mark off things on her list as expediently as possible. “Best of luck to you all. I will see you at the magic of the witching hour!”

He swirls his cloak dramatically and steps down from the small podium as everyone scatters in pursuit of their hunt. I grab Grimsal’s hand in mine and tug him back toward the car as I continue to scan the list.

“Jack’s bloody head is a simple one… the jack-o’-lantern,” I inform him as we climb into the car and I thrust the list at him so that I can dig out the keys, “but some of these are going to take a bit more work.”

“And you say that these should be read as allegory for what they resemble?” he asks skeptically as if just to make sure.

I nod as I start up the car and pull out into traffic, and he makes a soft humming sound in the back of his throat.

“Unexciting but doable, though gold leaf is a poor substitute for basilisk scales. Perhaps these will work better.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch him dip his fingers into a pouch at his belt and retrieve two flat, shiny ovals that gleam with the small rainbows they throw as they catch the light. My eyebrows fly up because they look like genuine scales.

“What?”

“Naga scales,” he informs me gleefully. “I had a run-in with one and found a few of its scales sticking to my clothes afterward. This is what’s left. They are quite different from those of a basilisk, but if it truly doesn’t matter then that counts as one.”

A smile stretches across my face. “It absolutely counts as one,” I agree. “There’s a pen in the dash. Go ahead and mark that one off. I should have a few things in my apartment that may work, and then we’ll head over to the park where there are a few trees that I know we will find moss for the ‘witch’s hair.’”

He rummages around in my dash until he finds the pen and pulls it out with a triumphant smile. There seems to be a competitive streak in the male judging from the way he grins as he marks off the scales and continues to read over the list with a keen interest. By the time we’re back in the apartment, his tail is twitching with obvious excitement as his eyes wander with a new light of scrutiny. I’m pretty sure if I turned my back on him and gave him free rein that my apartment would be thoroughly tossed. Since I would rather not clean up a disaster, I chuckle and nudge him toward the kitchen.

“See what you can find in there, and I’ll look around here,” I suggest. The look he turns on me is fully aware of what I’m doing, though his eyes glitter with amusement over it rather than offense.

“As you wish,” he replies with a grin before disappearing into the kitchen.

I refuse to allow myself to worry over what mischief he might get into there as I turn my attention toward my hunt. Shockingly, I have far less that fits for what’s on the list than I imagined I did. The toad stuffy aside, between the skull carved from crystal rather than real bone, a pentacle necklace, and a small besom for a witch’s broom, I’m coming up woefully short on my end.

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