Like a trap, his right arm slipped around her.
Daniyah let it happen, his breath close, the weight of him against her. The world swayed, or maybe she did.

She was all kitted up for ghost work, leather coat, talismans clinking faintly from her belt. No crossbow tonight; bolts did nothing to spirits. She had her charms, her knife, her flask, and a thin silver chain coiled around her wrist. Garrod’s body was heat and muscle and memory. The street was half-shadow, half-firelight. Behind them, tall candles burning in the windows and marigolds bleeding gold across the cobbles.

Every part of her mind screamed don’t, don’t, don’t.
But some damned, stupid part of her still felt the pull.
The scrape of his stubble burned against her skin.

Daniyah leaned in. Lips met his, impatient, hot and hard, tasting of sweat, cheap liquor, and everything they’d ruined between them. A cruel reflex she hated herself for even as it happened. Her free hand caught his collar. But there was nothing sacred in her kiss. Nothing gentle. Want and spite clashed inside of her.
 
She kissed him. Rough. Hard. Teeth biting at his lips. Fingers puling and scratching through the the old cotton shirt. No love in it. He could have been anyone. Did not matter that he knew he was not just anyone. Twisted as it was. How he hated himself for knowing.

She bled for him.

If she wanted to hurt him.

Fuck it.

Fuck him.

Fuck whatever hope he had in his heart. Hammering as it was in his chest so pressed against hers. Happy to feel fucking anything with her again. Hand slipping under coat as he tasted all the regret on her tongue mixing with the tang of blood from a busted lip. The sting on his mouth as teeth sank and breath swirled. Acrid and cloying and damning as it was.

He wanted her. Pathetic corpse that he was. He would take her however she took him. His half dead-again hand splayed across her back. Left tangled in her hair. And if she wanted him to be her little whore for the night. For the moment. Fuck it. He would be that again. It wasn't the first time he had been that. At least it was for her now.

And what had he ever been, if not a whore for hire. A killer for coin. Twisted and writhed and panting against her. Pura Maldizia. Better this than all the blood he had spilled.
 
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She kissed him like tearing at an old wound, not to heal it, but to feel something bleed again. The taste of him was the taste of ruin, the memory of everything she should have left behind. His taste dragged her back to that night. Her heart was hammering, not even with passion but with fear, and rage, and disgust at herself. Every second she stayed, she remembered the last time: the bleeding, to claw for life, the infernal green. She could still feel the ice of almost-death crawling up along her legs.

Indeed, she wanted to hurt him. But the truth was, she only knew how to hurt herself. Leaned into the heat, hoping it might fill the emptiness she’d been dragging around for so damn long. She was digging through the remains the ruin of them, looking to see if there was something to save.

When she finally tore away, her breath hitched, chest rising and falling like she’d just been dragged up from underwater. Eyes wild, glassy, half from fury, half from shame. She wrenched herself free, the motion sharp and violent. Her chest heaved, every fibre of her singing with fury and self-loathing. Heart pounding like she’d just run into a blade.

“Damn it!” Her lips were slick with blood from where her own teeth had met his lips. She spat to the side, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Nothing had softened in her, nothing forgiven.

“You didn’t lose me that day, Garrod... You threw me away." Her voice was a thousand nights spent bleeding and alone. She stepped past him, boots scuffing the dust and dry grass, towards the golden glow of the Cempaxochitl. Her shoulders sagged, heavy with anger and exhaustion alike.

She let out a long, shuddering sigh, “Move on,” she said, voice tight, “Hunt your monsters. Stay out of my path.”
 
Slipped right out of his hands. Blood dripping from his lips mixed with salt and sweat and all the dust of ruin. His eye still there on where the warmth of her had just been.

You threw me away. Move on. Hunt your Monsters. Stay out of my path.

Clutched at it. That ghost of her. Old memories swirling with the new. Motes like all the little candle fires, fluttering on the breeze. Just one fluttered and bobbed about him. Clumsy as it rode the currents. Wings the same proud golden blaze as the flowers. Speckled with black, and white. A Thief's Butterfly. Trailed lazy across and pulled up his eye as it flew away. Landed on the back of Daniyah's shoulder. Wings pulsed easy and soft and hardly there.

What was there left to say? To do?

"Fine then, Wildfire," and how it hurt to say it. How his skin prickled, and his hairs rose. And all of him told him not to. To just bare with it and walk back. But he couldn't. "I threw you away," he choked out. Bitter. Poison. Tell her he knew it was a fucking lie. That she left him in the mud. That she told him not to follow after her and looked at him like he was just another fucking monster she didn't have the heart to kill that day.

"That the fuel you need to burn me out?" felt himself coiling. Wounded. Hurt. Tears boiling over his eye. "That why you came knocking?" he bit. wiped the blood from his lip as the tears fell. "Take it." all bone crack from the back of his throat. "Take whatever you fucking want from me." thumped his right hand to his chest. Flared both hands out to the wreckage of the house at the end of Terminus Road. "From this!" hardly held together. So he squeezed his jaw shut and bared his teeth. "From whatever brought you here," more blood just welled about about the bite on his lips, more tears rolled out as he walked all moth to flame, corpse to burial. Ghost to his exorcist. "But I can't forget about you," confession leaked out of the cracks of him. All pale wraith behind her there, as they stood trembling in the petals that lead the dead.

"I fucking tried, Eight know I fucking tried," he coiled an arm about her waist. Then the wretched other. Whispered in her ear. "I cursed you, I spat on you, I set the thought of you to fucking pyre" voice trembled raw and aching with hate. With loathing. "And there you always were, clear as the silver moons that hung over me like your bloody coins," but his hands held her so carefully. Wrapped around her like all the living want she made him feel. Fingers spread firm about her belly, about her breast and over her heart. Buried himself in her neck, her scent. Growled it out in low rumble against her ear. Bone to bone there in the side of the eye he still had. "So I wrote that damned bounty, and I summoned you here,"

A cough from the house behind them. "WILL YOU TWO GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN ALREADY!" the house rattled.
 
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Daniyah stood there, her jaw working as he ranted, chest heaving, his voice cracking on old wounds. She just watched. Watched him unravel with blood on his teeth. She stood still through it all, arms heavy at her sides. He finally spat it out: Take it. Take whatever you fucking want from me! Offering himself up like an old relic.

“Yeah,” she said at last, voice rough from disuse, from drinking, from too many nights spent talking to ghosts. “Maybe I did come to take something..." She had indeed come to see if she could take something from him, something that would make it even. Her gaze swept over him. "My sword."

His arms locked around her waist when she started to walking away from him. Her back slammed against him. “You think this is what I came for?” she asked as his hands pressed against her softer parts. “You still don’t understand a gods-damned thing, do you?” When he leaned in, trying to breathe her in, she turned her head away from him. “Enough!” she growled back. Daniyah twisted hard in his arms, hips jerking, shoulders snapping back, and drove her elbow back, hard.
 
Knocked the wind out of him with a cough. Loosed. Hunched over in a wreck. He laughed. Bitter and dark.

"I don't have a fucking clue," watched the blood and tears trail down his chin. Wiped it off.

It didn't matter what he did. What he said. He had thrown her away. He went after power. He had her sword. She was done. Enough.

Turned away from her. From the golden road of the cempaxochitl.

"You want your sword?" he said a step away. "It's in the house," All misery in his throat. He stepped back to the house.
 
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Lust flared hot in her throat. It should be so easy to turn away... But she wanted him. Desire was a cruel thing. That part seemed to survive even after trust bled out. She wanted him. Wanted to feel him rough and real and alive against her, wanted his hands on her, wanted to drown the loneliness that had been gnawing her hollow for months. But wanting was poison, and she’d swallowed enough of his already.

Because what did it matter, when she couldn’t trust him?
When the thing inside him might wake, and the next time she opened her eyes, his hands could be at her throat instead of her waist? It would always hunger. It would always take.

And that girl. That cursed little spark of fate’s amusement. A miracle, people called Brinda, a child pulled from death. Daniyah did not want to be someone who hated a child, but she did. She had tried to summon compassion, but every time Daniyah thought of the girl, she saw the fiend’s grin. Saw the blood. Saw another soul who hungered. Who would always take.

So what did her desires matter anymore?
Every time she’d wanted someone, it ended with blood.
It was almost funny, in that cruel way fate liked to laugh.
Had her bound to the same wheel, turning and turning.
Finding these men who swore they could keep their hungers at bay.
Until they couldn't.

She wanted someone who would shield her for once, not break her, not test her strength, not make her bleed. Every time she reached for safety, she came back with a blade in her hand and blood on her chest. Theirs not hers...

... so it hardly mattered anymore.

If she needed warmth, she’d buy it. No promises, no blood on the floor come morning.

When Garrod turned and stepped back toward the Sinns' old shack, she exhaled hard. "Of course it's in the house..." She murmured and followed him.
 
Up the way and toward the house Garrod went. Each step darker. Greyer. Colder with the blues and purples of a drowned and breathless man. The flowers' glow dimmed, and the candles burning about the altars scattered across the streets flickered and wavered against the howl of wind. Guttered out.

A rattle. A rumble. A shift in the very cobbles as a step came down. Heel pulled wide by the moving rock.

Garrod stumbled to catch his footing. Quick steps forward. Felt the ground swell beneath the balls of pushing foot that sent him careening forward.

Door opened like the mouth of a toad snatching up a fly. Slammed hard against Garrod's face and sent him back, flat on his ass.

The house shook with a bright and cruel laughter. "That's for embarrassing me, boy," windows angled to cold and wicked judgment. "Sitha knows I damn well raised you better than all that." A slam of the shutters. A flutter of the roof tiles. All grind and crack.

Crumble and slip off. A chunk of tone smashed right between Garrod's sprawled out legs.

"Now be gone with your sorry self, before I go and teach you some more."

A hiss from the one eyed Cazadore, through the teeth. Shook it off, popped up and slammed his hands onto the handle of the blue wooded door. Shook it. Rattled. Thumped it with a fist. "Open the doors Sinns..." He hissed beneath his breath.

The house but swelled up with breath. No give to the old rusted hinges. "Piss off, boy." Stoney disappoint delivered like a sword's stroke.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Jostle and shake of the handle. No give.

"I went and told you, LEAVE ME TO MY TOMB BOY!" The whole house swelled up. Orange fire glow burning bright through the window slats. The impossible expansion enough to shove Garrod back before the old ruin of a home settled back onto it's bricks with the shift and crunch of all its weight.
 
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She watched Garrod stumble and fall, the house rending itself against him, throwing chunks of brick and masonry with all the wrath it had accumulated over decades. This house was filled with grudges that clashed within its walls. The building groaned and rattled, splinters cracking and windows shivering under the weight of its own rage. The wraithbinder sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

Daniyah strode forward, boots crunching over the broken cobbles and dry leaves, eyes fixed on Garrod as he struggled with the door. She knew what had to be done. Ghosts without ofrendas could not rest; they drifted, twisted and bitter, hung between the living and the dead, and this one, poor Sinns, was no exception. Her hand landed on Garrod's shoulder “Leave it,” she whispered.

“Forgive the intrusion, Don Sinns,” she lowered her head. "I should’ve known better than to come to your threshold empty-handed. No rum.” The house groaned, a slow, grinding exhale through the eaves. Daniyah glanced toward Garrod, then back to the locked doorway. “You must be parched,” she went on, a flicker of rueful humor curling at the corner of her mouth. “All this talking, all this haunting. I’d wager you’d kill for a drink.” One of the shutters creaked open, just a slit. “Thirsty...” it rasped. Something clattered inside, the faint rattle of an empty cup. An empty bottle rolling over the floors.

"We’ll fetch you something proper."

Her eyes flicked back to Garrod from the house, the heaving ruin of the house. "I am going to help you make this right. I need supplies. You knew Sinns better than me, you come with me." Mezcal, flowers, candles and the kind of offerings that remind the dead they were loved once. She moved down to the road leading toward the town, expecting his steps to fall in beside hers.
 
Taunts. Shouts. Threats. These were the things Garrod had learned to ignore from his old master. Artorias Sinns, the devil neath the blue heron cap. As a younger man, it had helped him keep his focus. Pulse daringly trained to stay low after so many jibes and beatings.

Lose your cool before a blade. Your life was dashed across the floor.

All that started to twist. Change. Gnarl, burl, and rot as the years went by.

All the smell of sweet poison. Sugary and cloying as it poured out. Heaped on the ground. Sour and dank with the bitterness of old sweat.

Still felt it on his nose. Tasted it on his tongue. Hands tight as he wanted nothing more than to thrash at it. Coiled his fingers to white knuckles as he held that handle.

Till a hand landed on his shoulder. A whisper in his ear.

Something in him shook. Trembled. Hands loosed about the handle. Slipped and let go.

Then she got to work. Made it so gods damned easy he felt shame sear down inside him. Swirl like a sickness still too thick to burn out. The clink of the glass had him jolt, all animal to danger.

We'll fetch you something proper.

Cold trails down his right eye. Why the fuck was he still crying. Wiped the tears off with the back of his ruined right hand.

I'm going to help you make this right... you come with me.

He hung there a moment at the door. Cold as the dead man he knew himself to be.

"Don Sinns," the old house brimmed.

Garrod clicked his teeth, and turned to follow after. Stopped a breath, to see her up the path. Lantern petals skirted at the hem of her coat. Thinned by the wind, but still so bright and gold just beyond the gathered darkness.

Bricks rattled like the tail of a cascabel serpent. "Cascabelero," the old house wheezed, in timeless taunt.

White brow furrowed. A sharp turn of head over the shoulder. Something twisted up on his lip. "Haven't heard that one in a while," he said. Stepped on after the witch who had come knocking. Ribs still hurting. Heart still ripping. He caught up in a few eager strides. Cleared his throat. Tried to keep his eye off her. The why of it all gnawing at him. but only "Thanks," fell out of his mouth.
 
Here she was. Helping him. Because who else would? Because she was a fool for the broken ones. Because she couldn’t stop herself. This was for the man Garrod had lost. The one that’s still screaming inside those walls...

She glanced at Garrod. Daniyah tried not to look. Tried not to feel. His eyes were rimmed red, his face drawn... too much sorrow carved into the lines of a man who should’ve been drinking, singing, living tonight. She took a breath, then another, trying to steady the mess in her chest. Daniyah stopped just as the carpet of marigold petals began to thicken along the cobbles, their golden trail leading away from the shadow of the house behind. She reached out and caught Garrod’s sleeve before he could walk further.

“Garrod,” she said quietly. “I know this night’s not easy. And I know I haven’t made it easier. ” The laughter from the town swept past them, a soft, living tide of joy that made her heart ache all the more. “ I've hurt you today, I know. You don’t deserve more pain." Garrod had made a mess out of her.

She went on; “And it’s not fair that I now have to ask you to remember the good in Sinns. But I need you to remember him, as the man he was before... The man who had your back. He saved you once,” she murmured. “Now it’s your turn to return the favor.” Trying to patch up what’s left of Garrod, when she can barely hold herself together.

And with that, she faced forward again, leading him down the road toward the glow of the living. She caught sight of a couple of children chasing each other between the offerings, their skull paint cracked from sweat and laughter. “Hey!” she called, voice low but sharp enough to catch them. They froze, half-terrified, half-curious. “I’ve got a job for you.” The older one squinted. “What kind of job?”

She nodded toward the black stretch of road leading out of town. “You know the old house at the end of Terminus Road?" The gang of kids nodded slowly, eyes wide. Small hands still sticky with sugar. "I want you to take the cempaxochitl and toss them along the way, every few steps, all the way to the door.”

The kids looked at her, wide-eyed. “It’s haunted,” one whispered.

She managed a smile. “I know. That’s why we’re leaving them a way to find their peace. There’s a restless one there tonight. He needs a path back to the light."

The children looked between each other, then nodded solemnly. The older one took the lead. “We’ll do it.”

"I’ll give a gold coin to the one who’s brave enough to walk all the way up and leave flowers on his doorstep.”
One girl shuddered, clutching a bouquet hard “What if he’s angry?”

Daniyah crouched so they were eye to eye. “The dead don’t stay angry when you bring them something beautiful.”

She stood, brushing dust from her knees as the kids darted off, their small feet pattering against the stones. Petals fell in their wake, gold against the grey. A trail of light for the dead to follow. Daniyah watched them go for a long moment before turning to Garrod.

"You want a drink?"
 
The steps felt easy as sinking into quick sand. All mud on a rushing riverbank. Splayed and spread underneath. Wrapped warm about whatever it enveloped. Breath long and pushed out cold. All warm swirl come the draw. Jaw weak. A hand moved up and down over his brow bones and scrape down the side of his face. Rubbed at his neck, all tendon and gristle. A pull on the sleeve and he stopped a step after.

Garrod...

His eye darted to her. Stuck. Moved about like a fly trying not to get caught. To the kids. To the flowers. The candles. All those things he knew were part of who he had been. This place he had come from. Tried to shut it all out. Leave it behind. But she just kept giving. All, water eating away at stone.

... not easy. I... I've hurt you today, I know. You don't deserve more pain.

Fucking hells. Drew his eye in sharp. Shaking and shattered. Closed shut with a breath. He was a fucking mess. Deserved more than pain. Eye open. And she...

... saved you once, the smell of burnt sugars and sweet corn cakes. The spice of dried chilies and hot chocolates. Rice milk. Breads. Splashed with the the sharp herbal burn of agave and zing citrus. Now it's your turn.


Smells that woke the dead. Turned his stupid head inside and out. Bold and unforgiving. Burned. Stung. Tickled or tingled.

All the laughter and glee there about to welcome them. Felt so far away after all the shit he had flung. All the hurt he let out. Like a vile wound, lanced to be drained. Damn.The way she looked at him.

What if he's angry?

A laugh, more bark, from the one eyed. "He is." grinned down at the kid. "So ponte trucha." Opened his eye real big as he pulled the skin down with his mangled up hand.

The little girl stared. All gasp as her fingers held strong the flowers.

Let the skin go and hand fall. Smirked. "Become trout,"

A petal fell from the the bundle of glowing cempaxochitl. Blank stare and gawking.

A shift. All ease and hush. “The dead don’t stay angry when you bring them something beautiful.”

Off she went, after the other two. "Guy's! Guys! We gotta be trout! And I gotta be first!"

Up again. Patting herself down. Coat trailing, hair stirring. Felt a sting on his lip from teeth.

You want a drink?

Nod. "I know a place."

Old yellow bricks cut in near off limestone quarries, bleached by long days in the sun. Cracked and patched, and cracked again. Bold blue letters blazed across the old stonework, faded and peeled as an old fire. EL CANGREJO AZUL. Squat framed door hole for the entrance. Every bit a burrow the namesake would crawl down into.

All the atars flickered and flamed about the portraits of those passed. Parts of the road worn down where so many feet circled about, and bodies seemed to scuffle.

A weird smile crooked up one corner of his face. "Used to put me right there," he jut a chin to some print in the dirt. Almost a corner in a square circle. "First blood," he almost laughed. Looked over to her. Nod at the hovel of a cantina that somehow held together. "Best legs in town," leaned into the step, down into the hole he went. All mudcrab to the muck. Smacked the top of the frame as he crossed in.
 
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The street bled gold and candle soot beneath the lanterns, every flicker of flame catching on the glittering calaveras and bone-white faces that grinned from every shadow. Catrinas glided past, pale phantoms, silk whispering around their ankles. Their faces like polished ivory under a crown of roses, red as heart's blood. Incense curled from clay burners shaped like jaguars, thick and sweet with copal, the smoke of the gods, a fog between the living and the dead. The scent did something with her mind.

Daniyah walked with a heart full of mud. Garrod moved ahead, a shadow among shadows. He looked smaller somehow under the lanterns, the weight of his grief pressing him down. When he spoke about Sinns, it was always like a half a confession, half a curse. She understood that sort of pain, loving someone who’d ruined you.

She caught up to him outside El Cangrejo Azul. “Place looks lively...”

Inside, the air was thick with laughter and music. Candles burned low in skulls carved from obsidian; offerings of tamales and orange slices sat beside mugs of pulque left for the spirits. A woman in a skull mask danced on a small raised scene, skirt swirling like a burst of flame. Men with bones painted up their arms clapped along, shouting old songs of the underworld, songs that begged the dead to join the living for one more night. Mouths grinning as if death were an old friend come for a drink.

“Come in, Cazadores!” someone laughed. Someone tossed a handful of marigold petals into the air. They looked like fireflies falling. Someone shoved a drink into Garrod's hand. A smiling, beautiful woman in a white dress covered in ruffles and flowers tugged Garrod toward the crowd before he could say a word.

Daniyah stood just inside the doorway for a moment, watching it all, when a figure leaned over her from the side of the door, tall, dashing in his black, elegant clothes stitched with silver threads. A king of rot. “Hola, preciosa,” he purred, hollow-eyed and smiling. A single marigold bloomed from a buttonhole, bled orange like a wound. “Haven’t seen you here before..." he murmured, grinned wider, teeth glinting like pearls in the candlelight. The wraithbinder wasn’t sure if the others saw him. If they noticed the faint shimmer of bone under that fine black cloth. Maybe they did. Maybe not. Maybe she had simply grown too used to speaking with ghosts...

She smiled back. "You could show me where a one might find a drink.”

“Con gusto," He tipped his hat. “The thirsty are always welcome here.”

​
 
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Jostled and pulled all laughter and squinted eyes. "Vamos, Cazadore!"

Eye wide. Drink in hand. Head shaking no no no.until the young beauty bid him stop. Ruffled her skirts under the flutter of petals.

Swirl and spin. Spin and whip. Twist of the hips, shimmy and kick. A hop skip step. His eye widened. Laughed. Drink rattled in hand, almost spilled when a firm hand pulled at his wrist into a twist. The pulse of feet and pumps of thighs come off push step taps.

Clumsy at first. One two, stumbles. Disoriented. Hazed by all the Gods' breath swirling in his lungs. Alongside all the cold grief and heartache. Could swear he felt the amber glittering in his blood. All smiles and raven hair spilled across the pale dress. Cascaded over the deep red of roses and bronzed sweat shone skin. She spun, and her hair flared out like the fingers of black wings.

Feet found the rhythm of the music. And he matched the bounce dip boom of the drums and strings. Grinned. Hips shifting and boots kicking toe tapping steps as hands guided the beauty round and round and into the hands of another man. Both of them laughed.

Garrod grinned all the wider. His fucking knee was flaring up. All the old wounds creaking. Didn't stop him from the quick hop skip right round the churn of the crowd. Took a drink, gave up his own. Smelled it quick. Gave it a swig mid turn. Rinse and repeat until. He smirked in impish, boozy victory.

The cold chilled glass clattered against the bar with the tink think of shroudborn ice come against the thick old tumblr. Two parts tequila dorado, one part orange liquor, lime juice. And sugar. Shaken. "One Old Vapna," he said a little stronger than he thought. "For the lady Cazadore," Garrod sat in the stool beside Daniyah, some pride in his voice. Sweat on his brow, red across his face from the excitement of drink raiding and dancing. "Oh wait," took the drink back as he remembered something.

Got up and snagged a bright green lime from behind the bar. Still round and full. He took out his knife and cut It to halves with a mindless chop. Then thin rounds right there at the bar. Slinked the tool back into its sheath and dropped the fanned lime slices right onto the rim, like a proud little hat. Hands out like a frame. Shift the angle just so. "Right," he said as he laughed, slid it back to Daniyah, "Now it's an old Sinns,"

Above the bar hung a long billed hat. Proud blue felt dulled by dust. White feather grimey and grey in the shadow. Stirring with the sway of the sounds, and the drop of thrum of the drums.

Garrod blinked. "Who's your friend?" Eyes the silver threads. "Nice duds," shift his eye to the bottles of spirits that lined the back of the bar like an arsenal. Raised a brow as he thought a moment.
 
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Daniyah let her gaze drift around the cantina, and it was no surprise: Garrod drew attention. Some knew him from before, some knew him by reputation. His one-eyed grin and rough edges made him look like trouble, and people loved trouble on nights like this. Young women leaned a little closer, and men tried for sly smiles and teasing nods. Laughter tucked under glances that lingered too long. A few bold leaned in, whispering jokes she couldn’t hear. All in hopes of a touch, a word, a shared drink. So many beating hearts chasing shadows. None of it was hers to stop.

She hoped one of them might hold his attention long enough to let her breathe. He deserved a bit of joy, and she needed a moment without the pull of his grief. So she watched with a tired kind of fondness as he was pulled into a circle of dancers. One hand rested casually on the bar, it was easy for her to fall into the shadows. It was what she was good at.

When Garrod finally wove his way back through the crowd, she lifted her half-empty glass in salute. She followed Garrod’s gaze to the silver-threaded figure leaning lazily beside her. She met Garrod’s look over the rim of her glass. “My friend?” she said. “Could be a ghost. Could be a gentleman. Hard to tell the difference tonight.” Rey del Hueso liked the flattery. He chuckled and tipped his wide-brimmed hat.

Daniyah forced a smile. She took the glass when he was done fussing about with the lime. “Por los muertos!” She tilted her glass against his with a soft clink. “And for the living who still drink in their honor.” Before she tipped it back.

A man in a crimson waistcoat, shirt open at the collar. His face was painted half white, half coal-black, a grinning skull made charming by the curve of his real mouth. “Mira, mira” he purred, teeth white against the paint, as he slid in between Daniyah and Garrod. Close enough for his and Garrod's shoulders to touch. He leaned an elbow on the bar beside Garrod. The man’s eyes glinted ember under his dark curls, lingering on Garrod’s jaw, the scar, the single bright eye that caught the candlelight like green water.

"They said the one-eyed hunter walked again. Didn’t believe it till now.” His gaze raked Garrod up and down, then lingered, amused.

He dropped a pair of dice onto the counter, bone-white things carved with glyphs that shimmered faintly green. “Play with me, cazador.” His grin widened. “Win, and I buy the next round. Lose…” He tilted his head, the feather in his hat brushing Garrod’s arm. “You owe me a story, Emeraldo."
 
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