Page 118 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
Winnow’s expression is compassionate. “I could scry, but I imagine she has wards to prevent being spied upon.”
“What about her friends?”
Winnow’s mouth opens and closes as if searching for the right words. “I don’t know any of Violette’s friends…”
Or if she even has any.
The reality of that possibility hits me square in the chest.
Fuck me, I’ve completely abandoned my soulbound,and she had no one to turn to.
Except Azrael.
Gideon clears his throat. “Didn’t you say she owns a matchmaking business?”
Doubt creases Winnow’s features.
“I thought so, yes, but then she returned the jewel I gave her, which is what I thought she needed to use in order to fund it... I assumed she decided against it to continue?—”
Winnow’s cheeks redden, and she exchanges a look with Gideon before giving me a pitying look that makes my stomach drop impossibly further.
A tremor starts in my hand as I pace the length of their living room.
“Well, as far as I know, Violette worked as a um…”
Oh my god, I’m going to have a fucking heart attack. My eyes leap to Gideon’s. Expression stone cold. “A brothel mistress.”
An iron fist sinks talons into my heart at the reminder. At everything she likely had to endure in such a profession.
Winnow fidgets with her robe. “She didn’t enjoy it or anything! She was quite desperate to leave?—”
Gideon silences her by taking one of her hands in his.
“Levi doesn’t judge her, angel... Only himself.”
I am... the worst.
The suffocating fist of despair, guilt, and shame seems to squeeze my windpipe. “Please, just help me find her.”
Winnow nods reassuringly. “If she started a business, Ginny will be able to find her.”
“Ginny?”
Winnow smirks. “You’ve never met an orc, have you?”
My brows lift as my face drops.
Winnow chuckles, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “Oh, joy…”
A bobblehead of a garden gnome appears in her open palm. She whispers words I can’t understand into its pointed ears and then tugs on its shuddering head before setting it on the living floor between us.
The gnome, previously inanimate, springs to life, briefly throwing me a curious glance before it withdraws a bright green piece of chalk from its pocket and begins illustrating something that only vaguely looks like a pentagram on the wood floor. The lines appear to dissolve into the floor before the entire space within the illustration, line by line, appears to drift like sand into a sinkhole until nothing remains but a hole in the fabric of this realm that leads into Winnow’s—which appears to be set at an entirely different angle.
My heart is a thunderous beat in my chest. Shock, awe, hope, and desperation pump fire through my veins as I stare lamely into what looks like a storefront taken straight out of some kind of Elven-Dollhouse-Willy-Wonka-world.
The space is lit solely by apinkfire crackling within a large stone hearth, softly illuminating the room decorated in greens, golds, and blues that boasts squishy-looking velvet furniture with elaborately carved clawfoot legs.
Winnow stands about to step through the portal, hesitating as she looks down at her bathrobe. Before I can blink, thebathrobe is replaced with a dress. A shirt appears on Gideon as he slips his hand into hers and gives me a look.
