Page 135 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Excuseme?” He didn’t know how much he’d offended me.
“Here, I thought you were warming to me. Instead, you’re trying to poison me.” He pointed a damning finger at my bottle.
“What—I’m not trying to poison you!” I held the ketchup to my bosom. “I thought you’d like it!”
“How couldanyonelike that sludge?”
“Oh, come on.” I dipped my own finger into the ketchup. “You’re being ridiculous, even if you don’t like it.” I swiped a good dab of ketchup onto my tongue.
When a foreign grit settled into my taste buds, and I caught flavors of dirt, ground bugs, and decaying humus, I dropped the bottle and crumbled to my hands and knees, barfing the little I’d eaten that day.
Pete knelt beside me and pulled my hair back from my face. When I’d finished, he helped me right myself on my knees, his brusque fingers clearing tears from my cheeks.
Coughing and shaking, I wiped my nose. “It must’ve gone bad.” My gullet spasmed again. I gulped to stave off another gush. “Terribly,terriblybad.”
Pete retrieved the ketchup off the ground, held it in the moonlight. Gone was the cheery red delight I’d last seen in the bottle. In its place was a slurry reminiscent of excrement.
I gasped. “That’snotketchup!”
Pete’s generous mouth twisted. “Aye, Shorty. I’d wager your sauce is still with the cunning cretin who sold it to you.” He rubbed my back. “Looks like you got swindled at the Goblin Market.”
“But I said I wanted the entire,sealedbottle! I made sure!”
“Aye, but you made no mention of the ketchup itself.”
“But that’s asinine! Who’d buy a bottle of saucewithoutthe damn sauce?”
“Shorty, I told you to be specific.” Pete rose to his feet, jerking me to mine in the process. “Your bargain must include every minute detail. That’s how the market works.”
I shook my hands. “But I asked for thesealedbottle! How the fuck did he get the ketchup out without breaking the seal?”
Pete spread his hands. “Do you seek a more complex answer than magic?”
I snorted like a warthog and spun on my heels to stalk back to the market.
“You may as well turn back toward camp, Shorty,” Pete said, following. “Arguing with that weasel will serve nothing. He gave you precisely what you asked for.”
I shoved a wayward strand of hair from my face, the breeze ripping around me. “I don’t care! He won’t get away with this without getting a piece of my mind!”
“Aye, that’ll teach him.”
Fuming, I barreled onward.
No matter Pete’s reasoning, as the potential queen of this realm, I couldn’t let a slight like this go unanswered. How many other fine fae folk had that Goblin conned out of their hard-earned seeds? He needed confronting.
At least, that’s what I told myself to explain my piercing need for vindication. In truth, it was far more personal than that.
Which was why I should’ve listened to Pete and returned to camp. Maybe the storm would’ve passed us by.
Twenty-Three
“So,what?”Isulked,trudging around wheat stalks. “You’re just never going to talk to me again?”
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Pete’s shoulders further stiffened. He prowled ahead of me, fighting off the wheat with a barely contained fury I knew was meant for me. His hands had fisted.
I frowned at his silence, already guilt-stricken enough.
We continued in the charged silence, the tension growing with each step until we finally came to the clearing where we’d established camp. On our return, Sionna rose from Pete’s pallet, tail wagging, only to sense his mood and run to Bob for protection. I watched her cower under the masticating donkey and hated myself for what I’d done that night.
