Max snorted. “Yeah. Well. I don’t know if I want to go to the Promenade today.”
“Bullshit.” Max and I, both startled, looked at Sadie, who had just lobbed a curse at us without even taking her nose out of her book. “You love the Promenade; you always have. You just feel stupid because Micah had to clean up your mess with the iron warriors. Just go and make nice with our brother-in-law, okay?”
When the Metal Inheritor tells you to do something, you do it, and in a short time, Max, Micah, and I were walking along the border of the Whispering Dell. We easily found the static portal secreted amongst the pines, and, a heartbeat later, we were in the Mundane realm. Micah had used some innate navigational talent, and instead of arriving in REES’ parking lot, we were only a few blocks from the Promenade. The short distance let us walk right up to the gates, lest any drones spy the three of us appearing out of thin air. It also gave Max time to go on ahead and pretend that he didn’t know us. Jerk.
Once we were inside the market, Max immediately took off for the newsstand. Instead of following him, I grasped Micah’s arm and led him toward the flower sellers. Before we’d entered the portal, Micah had donned his human guise of Mike Silver, a tall man with brown hair and a genial smile. We walked practically unnoticed through the customers and stalls, almost like we were a regular couple. As if I had any idea what regular people did.
Micah had also magicked up some metal bits into an approximation of Mundane money, and what was his first purchase? He bought me a bouquet of daisies.
“For me?” I squeaked, far more pleased that a few limp flowers usually warranted.
“Of course,” Micah murmured, closing my hands around the stems. “Did I not once promise to gather flowers for my consort?” My cheeks warmed, and I hid behind the petals. “Now, let us find some refreshment.”
A few stalls later, Micah and I shared some tasteless lemonade; after these many weeks being fed from the manor’s kitchens, I’d forgotten just how terrible Mundane food tended to be, and that the government liked it that way. Still, the liquid was a welcome coolness on a hot day, and Micah’s arm around my shoulder made me forget all about the lack of citrus in my citrus-based drink. Then we turned a corner, and I came face to face with one of the last people I wanted to see—Peacekeeper Jerome.
Frickin’ Peacekeeper Jerome.
“Sara!” Jerome’s eyes lit up at the sight of me, thus ending all hope for a quick getaway. “I was hoping I’d run into you again soon.”
“Were you?” I said shakily. Micah pulled me closer, an action that Jerome didn’t miss.
“Is this another one of your brothers?” Jerome asked.
“No.” I took a deep breath and introduced my elfin consort to a Peacekeeper. Luckily, Jerome wasn’t one of the smarter Peacekeepers. “This is Mi—Mike Silver, my boyfriend. Mike, this is Jerome. He’s a Peacekeeper.”
Micah didn’t miss a beat. “A pleasure,” he acknowledged, with a nod. Jerome, however, proved to be less than mature.
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” Jerome said with a pout, which was quite possibly the least becoming expression a grown man could wear.
“Sara is mine,” Micah declared. “We are quite taken with one another.”
Jerome’s brow furrowed at Micah’s wording, then his eyes settled on my left hand. “At least there’s no ring,” he commented with a grin. “I guess I’ll see you around, Sara.”
With that, Jerome sauntered off down the aisle, and I breathed a healthy sigh of relief. That relief was short-lived, since Micah was less than pleased about that little encounter.
“Explain to me what a boy friend is,” he murmured in my ear.
“It’s what a girl calls her special man,” I replied. “When they’re not married, but exclusive. Like us.”
“And the ring he mentioned?”
“The rings are like tokens,” I replied. “Humans exchange them when they get married.” I finished off my lemonade and turned to toss the empty cup into a trash bin.
“Do you come here often to see that man?”
Micah’s voice was soft and even, but it froze me where I stood. “Micah, I didn’t want to come here to see him. Today was only the third time I’ve spoken to him.”
“The third time I spoke to you, I gave you my token.”
Those words might as well have been a knife in my heart. If there was anything I would never, ever do, it was cheat on Micah. I didn’t know what to say or do, or how I could possibly convince Micah that nothing would ever happen, not with Jerome or any man—