Chapter OneAria
Every time that damn bell over the door rings, I have a mini heart attack. How mortifying that something as mundane as a date could smite me with something like fear.
The warped floorboards moan under my thick-heeled boots as I shimmy through the forest of cramped bookcases, their mismatched shapes encroaching overhead like trees. The highest shelves haven’t met a duster in the last century and the smell of burnt coffee beans has soaked into the wood, but I never feel more at peace than when I’m surrounded by books.
At the little card table with the sign perfect gift! blind date with a book, I swap one brown-paper package reading trope-filled rom-com for the one saying serial killer thriller, so their actual titles are alphabetized. But that’s ridiculous, because they’re wrapped, so I re-swap them. And now I’m the ridiculous one.
I should be fizzling with excitement. I already know Jasper’s a good date—a hell of a date, actually—which is harder to find than a good man.
Ha. A Good Date Is Hard to Find would be a fabulous title for a book about braving the wilderness of relationships in New York City.
But he’s been away for three weeks. Maybe he’s changed his mind.
That bell.
Icy air scrapes at my calves as the door swells open, the spear of light making me figuratively hiss. My manager, Carmen, pops her head out like a periscope from behind a bookcase, her eagerness pretty deeply buried beneath permanently angry eyebrows.
A spritely girl with red shoes dances into the bookstore, trailed by what I assume is her grandmother, and I quickly dim my megawatt smile to a polite customer-service smile.
I give Carmen a chastising flare of my eyes.
“You’re never this jumpy,” she observes, retracting her head from whence it came. “I’d almost think you were into this guy.”
I make a noise that’s halfway between a snort and a grunt, but my cheeks warm—hopefully with a rosy glow. When life gives you lemons, et cetera.
At the front counter—a repurposed bar top Carmen rescued from a dumpster three blocks away, which she conscripted me into dragging to the shop—my fingers flick through the Read Albatross’s store bookmarks. I turn my mental picture of Jasper over in my mind, but the more times I turn it over, the more it rubs off, like an old photograph worn shiny by my fingers. We’ve video-chatted almost every day since he’s been gone, but he’s not a fan of pictures, so no selfies for us. The only photo I have of him is from the light stalking I did of the luxury architecture firm he works for. With that headshot on their website, I’ll bet they get plenty of business.
While he’s been swanning around designing a skyscraper in Seattle, the graveyard shift of sleepless nights has quietly convinced me that the distance will make him reevaluate us. He’ll show up tonight for a last hurrah, and ditch me. Only one guy ever beat me to the punch, and he did it over a fancy meal, too.
“Happy Val—”
My hand slaps the entire stack over, and a hundred bookmarks fan out onto the threadbare Turkish rug like a deck of cards.
From under a bookcase an explosion of silver Siberian fur—the bookstore’s mascot, Serif—darts over to investigate.
“—entine’s Day,” Jasper finishes, looking down at me with glittering eyes. His sharp cheekbones are wind whipped and he’s still taller despite my heeled boots. The bleached-blond highlights threading through his golden hair would be a turnoff if the rest of him didn’t perpetually look like a men’s business-wear catalog; in fact, I might actually like the highlights. They give a slight edge to his horrifyingly polished aesthetic.
When he leans in, lips grazing my forehead, there’s a mischievous tilt to his mouth.
Smug bastard. “Where the hell did you materialize from?”
“That seems to be people’s response of choice when I enter a room.” He crouches to scoop the fallen merchandise. Serif winds between his legs, declaring her insta-love with a pronounced mew, and something warms in my chest when he runs a thumb over her cheek. “Back door. It was unlocked.” He straightens, his startlingly pale gaze flitting down me. “You look stunningly vampiric today.”
That’s a good sign, right? I’d tried to dress down the slip dress with my white pleather jacket and combat boots, but Carmen still eyeballed me up and down when I showed up for work. “Pink is just about the least vampiric color out there.”
“I wasn’t referring to the dress. Which is lovely. By the way.”
My teeth sink into my lip to hide a smile, which I should not do—it’ll ruin my lipstick. “Just so you’re aware, my boss is probably trying to read our lips.”
“Ooh.” Jasper leans over the counter, elbows resting on the wood slab as he stares up at me through his eyelashes in mock adoration. “Should we give her a show? Reenact the breakup you lied about wanting?”
I roll my eyes, but my stomach flutters. I find my mug, still half full of cold coffee-flavored milk. “How do you feel about a dramatic dousing?”
“Long as it dry-cleans. Do I get to storm out?”
“No, obviously I do the storming.”
“Then if we’re about to break up, I assume I shouldn’t give you this.” From within his coat, he withdraws a small rectangular box, matte black, tied with emerald velvet ribbon. He sets it down on the counter between us, and the faintest hum of interest comes from Carmen’s direction.
At four months, we’re still shiny new, packaged and pretty to each other, and he’s wanted to take it surprisingly slow. We haven’t even actually kissed, and while that would normally be weird, I have a tiny flicker of hope that maybe it’s different this time. Maybe he’s different.
He insisted on taking me out today, and who am I to stand in the way of someone doting on me?
“What’s this?” My cheeks are definitely hot now.
“First part of our date.”
“Only the first?”
“Mm.”
I like you, I like you, and maybe it’s too soon, but damn, I like you. My fingers graze the black box’s surface. It’s soft, almost silky to the touch. “It’s a book?”
One eyebrow slides up.
“Yes,” I answer myself. We’re leaning across the counter, our faces incredibly close, his sharply cut lips a breath from mine. “If this is one of about four books, dousing will occur.”
That gets a startled laugh. “Now I have to know what those four books are.”
“Not until after I check your bookshelf for them.” I slide the velvet ribbon free, leaving it to curl against the counter while I tease the lid off the box. Nestled inside is a small pocket-size book, and I go still.
Fear slips cold fingers across my throat.
Thin gold embossing crawls across the shiny green leather, sketching out an arched door in a gnarly tree, a small girl gazing up at it with a fox at her side.
Beneath the design, filigree script reads The Dark Hearth Tales: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition.
“It’s the Letterpress Society special edition,” Jasper says, jarring me. “Came out five years ago, but there were only two hundred made. I found this one and thought you might like it.”
Might like it? This book easily costs four, five hundred dollars, if not more. I didn’t realize architects did so well for themselves, but from Jasper’s frankly ridiculously elegant coats and the way he insists on paying for everything—which, hey, I don’t mind since this city is bleeding me dry—apparently they do.
Serif teleports to the top of the counter, and her tiny nose snuffles at the cover. The vivid green and gold are deceptively beautiful.
“Have you read it?” Jasper asks, interpreting my silence as confusion.
Copyright © 2026 by Ande Pliego. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
