Page 104 of Cherish

“Whatever,” Jaxon says as they finally get within hearing distance of us. “They’re just kids.”

“Kids who—” Hudson freezes mid-joke, his eyes going wide.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, whirling around. And then I nearly die. Because coming toward us from the left are no fewer than six high school–aged mini Graces, complete with long curly hair, tank tops, and very,verypadded bras.

Oh. My. God.

Now would be an excellent time for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

It’s Jaxon’s turn to laugh—and everyone else’s. And that’s before the leader of the Graces, for want of a better moniker, stops in front of Hudson and tosses her hair.

“Hey there, big boy,” she says in the breathiest voice I have ever heard.

Hudson’s eyes go wide, and then he takes two giant steps back to hide directly behind me. “Umm, hello,” I answer, because I don’t know what else to do. “You look very…”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes as she very neatly sidesteps me so that she can sidle up to my mate. “You look handsome today, Hudson.” As she speaks, she tilts her head back in an effort to elongate her neck as far as she can.

“Umm, I, we…” Hudson chokes. He just full-on chokes and abandons ship, pushing past the rest of us and walking very, very fast up the sidewalk.

“Hudson, wait!” one of the others calls out. And then all six of them are chasing him down the sidewalk like little ducks. If little ducks were tossing their wigs, giggling, and doing their best to get big, bad Hudson Vega to suck their blood. “You’re going too fast! We can’t catch up!”

He doesn’t so much as pause in his headlong flight down the street.

Out of nowhere, one more fake Grace appears. Only this one isn’t chasing him down the street. She’s leaping from a four-foot-tall planter, tiny little plastic wings outstretched, just as Hudson passes by.

I gasp, but Hudson reaches his arms out on reflex toward the little girl, catching her—bride-style—in his arms.

All the little Graces freak out. They scream like they’re at a Hudson Vega concert and rush him like he’s onstage.

Hudson, to his credit, very carefully, very gently sets the girl on her feet. He even pats her on her head. And then he fades away faster than he has ever faded before.

56

I’m Trying What

You’re Selling

The midnight market was another one of Hudson’s and my favorite things when we lived here. Considering the sun only sets in Noromar during Starfall, it’s easy to see why the market is so busy, even at midnight. But we didn’t get to it all that often, simply because we were usually tired from work and life. The few times we went, though, we always had fun.

However, tonight isn’t about fun. It’s about finding Polo and convincing him to tell us who his source is for the goods he sells. There’s a part of me that thinks he might be the source—and the smuggler—but I have nothing to base that on but a gut feeling.

Still, it’s a good gut feeling, the strongest I’ve had in a while, so I’m not ready to discount it yet. Not until I talk to Polo and see what he has to say—and what he looks like when he’s saying it.

“Do you know which booth we need to go to?” Jaxon asks as we make our way through the old iron gates that block off the open-air market when it’s closed.

“Only that it’s near the back of the market,” I answer. “But things are pretty organized in there. It shouldn’t be hard to find him—or ask someone to point us in the right direction.”

“You think someone will help?” Eden asks, and she looks surprised.

Which surprises me, at least until I see how they’re all holding themselves—not like they’re looking for a fight, but definitely like they don’t plan on running from one. Even Heather looks tense, like she’s one sideways glance away from activating her fight-or-flight mechanism.

Only Hudson looks completely relaxed, like he’s going for an evening stroll through Adarie. Which, in essence, is exactly what we’re doing. Just with an agenda that we can’t afford to mess up.

For about the hundredth time today, I wonder how Mekhi is doing back at the Witch Court. I wish our cell phones worked in the Shadow Realm. Lorelei promised to text if there was any change in Mekhi, but we won’t get those texts until we leave. We have no choice but to trust her claim that we have more than a week to find an antidote.

We’ve got no other options, so I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. And if that plan of action makes my stomach start flipping again in all the bad ways, well, then nobody needs to know about it but me. Besides, there’s no use borrowing trouble. Not when I have no doubt that it will find us on its own soon enough.

“So, do they have a directory?” Heather asks as we turn down the last aisle of the market. “Maybe we can find him that way.”

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