Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Except...
On the small table beside me, there's a cup.
A delicate porcelain cup, hand-painted with tiny roses, steam curling up from its rim.
It wasn't there before. I'm absolutely certain it wasn't there before.
I stare at it. The steam keeps rising, and the way it catches the light is beautiful. Soft and diffuse, like the fog from a smoke machine on a photo set. It carries a scent that makes something in my chest ache. Sweet and floral, roses and honey and something underneath I can't name.
Don't drink it, the sensible part of my brain says. Don't drink the mysterious tea that appeared out of nowhere in the creepy magical bookshop. That's literally how every fairy tale goes wrong.
But my stomach is louder than my brain right now.
It always is, when I'm like this. When I'm tired and sad and just so done with being careful. With being safe. With doing the smart thing and the right thing and the thing that won't get me in trouble.
Once in a pink moon, I just want to do what feels good.
Even if it's not safe.
Especially if it's not safe.
I pick up the cup.
Take a sip.
Oh.
Oh.
It's...it's really good. It's unfairly good. Warm and sweet and layered in a way that makes me want to close my eyes and just taste it. There's honey, definitely. And roses, but not the cloying kind. Something deeper, more complex. The tea equivalent of a perfectly balanced dessert, where every element is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
I take another sip, and then another, and somewhere between the third sip and the fourth, I realize I've stopped panicking.
The fear is still there. The confusion. The absolute certainty that none of this makes sense.
But it's muffled now. Distant. Like it's happening to someone else.
That should probably worry me more than it does.
I settle deeper into the armchair I don't remember sitting down in and turn back to the book.
FOUR HEROES. FOUR ROUTES. Four ways the story can go.
The book lays them out for me like a tasting menu, each one illustrated with the same gorgeous, impossible detail as everything else.
Quinn Haydraugh. Mafia King of the North. His territory spans Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. White-blond hair, blue eyes, icy demeanor. Cold but fiercely loyal once you earn his trust.
His illustration is all cool tones. Silvers and blues and whites, the kind of palette that reads as expensive and untouchable. He's beautiful in the way a glacier is beautiful. You don't want to get too close.
Skye Wyndham. Mafia King of the West. The Berkshires and Western Massachusetts fall under his reign. Dark hair, silver eyes, mysterious and quiet. The one no one sees coming until it's too late.
This one is all shadows. Deep purples and blacks, with points of light that catch like stars in a night sky. His expression is unreadable. His eyes seem to follow me as I look at the page.
That's...unsettling.
Wolfe Sideris. Mafia King of the East. Boston and the Massachusetts coast bow to him. Broad and rough-edged, with a scar through one eyebrow. The most dangerous of the four—and the most fiercely protective.
Warm colors here. Golds and oranges and deep reds, like embers in a dying fire. He looks like he could break someone with his bare hands. He also looks like he'd pull a stranger out of a burning building and never mention it again.
And then...
Devyn Chaleur. Mafia King of the South. Connecticut and Rhode Island answer to him alone. Dark-haired, golden-eyed, legendarily impatient. His anger runs cold, not hot—and that makes him more dangerous than all the others combined.
I don't look at his illustration.
I don't know why. Something about the description makes my stomach clench. His anger runs cold, not hot. That's...that's the opposite of what I grew up with. My father's anger was hot. Explosive. Loud enough to rattle the windows and send my mother retreating into silence.
Cold anger sounds worse.
Cold anger sounds like the kind you can't see coming.
So I skip Devyn's route.
I play through Quinn's instead, and "play" is the right word, because the book works exactly like a choose-your-own-adventure. Decisions branch into new paths. Pages tell me where to turn next. The story unfolds differently depending on what I choose.
I finish Quinn's route. Then Skye's. Then Wolfe's.
I don't touch Devyn's.
The shop has grown darker around me. The rain still drums against the windows, but softer now, like it's tired. The fire has burned down to glowing embers. My teacup is empty, though I don't remember finishing it.
I should go. I should have gone hours ago. Heart is going to kill me. I was only supposed to be on my lunch break, and by now it must be...
I check my phone.
Dead. Completely dead, even though it was at sixty percent when I walked in here.
That's...fine. That's probably fine. Phones die sometimes. It doesn't mean anything.