“Here.” Baz pulls my left leg over his and then does the same with my right. As soon as he has them settled, he puts his arms around my waist again. It’s fuckin’ cosy is what it is. “Lean into your whole thing,” he says. “‘I was never the Chosen One, I’ve lost my magic, I’ve heard that you can help…’”

“Oh,” I say. And then, “Oh.”

“Right?” Baz says, squeezing me. “Right?”

“Pretend I’m looking for a saviour.”

“Because why wouldn’t you be! You’d be such a score for this Smith-Richards. If the old Chosen One thinks he’s the Chosen One…”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding, “all right. I can do that. Lean into it. I mean, it sounds kind of humiliating…”

“You’re used to humiliating,” he says.

“Am I.”

“I want to go hunting first.” Baz is already moving on. “You can come,” he adds.

“I always get to come along now, remember?”

He tips his head back and cocks a thick eyebrow. “I don’t think I said always.”

“Yeah,” I say, “always. Every time. Every night for the rest of my life.”

“Not for the rest of my life?”

“Pfft.” I move closer to him, holding on to his sides. “You’re going to be young and pretty forever.”

Baz pulls me even closer, by the small of my back. “Don’t say that,” he says, soft. “You don’t know that.”

“I don’t mind.”

He shakes his head, like he doesn’t want to think about it. “Snow … we’ve got a few minutes”—he pulls on me again—“before we have to leave.”

“All right, I’m ready.”

“No, I mean…” Baz moves his head from side to side like he’s trying to find words for something. It’s a rare look on him. “No matter what happens right now,” he says, his eyes on my chin, “we have to stop in a few minutes. So you don’t have to—you don’t have to worry about it going too far. Or being too much.”

Oh.

Baz glances up at my eyes. His pupils are wide and shiny. I’ve got us both shadowed by my wings. I nod, sucking nervously on my bottom lip.

“Lean into it,” he whispers.

My shirt is untucked. He slides one cool hand under it, just above my tail.

I lean forward to kiss him.

“Just for a few minutes,” he says, before I reach his mouth. “I’ll tell you when.”

The Smith Smith-Richards meeting is in the back room of a trendy pub, the kind of place that hosts acoustic concerts and stand-up comedy. There’s an older man with a clipboard outside, managing the door.

Baz and I watch from the patio of a Costa across the street. We’ve been watching for fifteen minutes. I bought us both muffins.

“All you’ve eaten today is cake,” Baz says.