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"She really is green to the entire world, isn't she?"

"You have no idea," Lachlan says agreeably, digging through the items until he finally produces a dagger that takes my breath away.

This one is the fraternal twin of the one I'm already holding. And I grab it with my free hand and immediately feel a sense of relief flood my body. Instead of the white and blue flash of opals the dagger in my hand has, this new one is worked in fiery red-black opals that seem to burn and shift under the lights in the back room. The blade isn't the tarnished silver of the one in my hand either, but bright yellow gold that should be too soft to hurt anyone with. But when I test the edge, blood wells up under my skin immediately and I didn't even feel a thing.

"Fucking hell," Lachlan curses. "Get a bandage," he tells Theo roughly, then presses my finger into his mouth.

"Gross," I tell him.

"You're the one that made yourself bleed," he admonishes me. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that that's the sharp side?"

"Believe it or not, no one's ever told me much about daggers at all, enchanted or not. But yes, I knew it was the sharp side, and it doesn't look like it should be that sharp. Am I wrong?"

"It's a fucking enchanted blade, woman."

"Oh, now I'm 'woman,' huh? Not 'lass' or 'Vivienne,' but just 'woman,'" I say, trying to ignore the way his tongue is still lapping at my skin.

"Oh, does that little trick work?" Theo says, his voice sounding falsely innocent as he grabs for my wrist and tries to start putting an ordinary band-aid over my finger, which is, of course, still bleeding.

"I thought you said that your saliva stopped my blood," I tell Lachlan.

Theo stares between us both, until Lachlan growls and he drops his eyes.

"Let me do that," he says, ripping the bandage out of Theo's hand with a growl.

With a gentler touch than I would have expected, Lachlan begins to peel the outside of the bandage off, placing it delicately over my finger. "Because the blades are bonded to you now, it shouldn't bleed for too long. But don't do something like that again. And for God's sakes, when I tell you not to fucking touch anything, don't fucking touch anything."

"Tits," I mutter.

"Did she just say tits?" Theo asks Lachlan.

"Don't get her started," he says, sounding ridiculously furious.

I kind of love that I pissed him off, even though the price is the fact that I now have a giant band-aid on my index finger and two beautiful, if not completely ostentatious and over-the-top, daggers.

"She'll be taking the daggers for free."

"I will not," I say. "Theo, don't listen to him. I'll pay with⁠—"

"With what money, lass? Did you bring your purse? Did you bring your bank accounts?"

"You said I was a billionaire," I say, incredulous.

"Aye, and how exactly do you think you're going to access that money?"

"As a matter of fact, House Midnight has standing credit with my store and all stores in the Wishing Wood." Theo grins at me.

"Oh, is that what this place is called? The Wishing Wood?" I say. "That's pretty cute."

"It's not my store's name," Theo says acidly. "That's what your predecessors called this place. The whole place. We mostly just call it The Wood."

"Oh. Huh. Weird. My predecessors." I clamp my mouth shut because I sound dumb as hell.

It's all still so strange to think about that I'm momentarily distracted by the fact that Lachlan's eyes are still blazing as he looks at me, clearly furious with the fact that I've hurt myself.

"If I got sick," I ask him, "would you bring me chicken noodle soup?"

"What?" he asks.