now at @wishbonetea

i just realised i never got around to posting the promo lmao but ch38 is up!

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“Allison! How’s it going with the new building?”

Allison thought back to Kevin’s reaction at Jeremy’s apparent interest in Jean, and wondered how Jeremy felt about the situation. “Kevin punched Neil,” she said.

“Why?”

Why, as if there could be a reason for hitting Neil, some kind of justification. It made Allison smile. Neil was an instigative bastard and the whole world knew it. But the answer to Jeremy’s question would have to come with an explanation about Kevin and Riko’s relationship, which wasn’t yet public. It was possible that Jeremy already knew, having spent a year at the same art school as them, but if Kevin had kept it hidden from the media, it was just as likely he could have kept it hidden from his friend. Allison knew that it would be better to rip off the bandaid and let the press frenzy over it for a couple months before getting bored and latching onto the next story, as holding off the inevitable would only make it worse, but she didn’t expect Kevin to be as smart as she was about these kinds of things. Kevin might have spent the last few years in the spotlight, but Allison had been bred for it, and she’d spent over twenty years hiding magic and monsters from the people of Earth. Not even the mafia could trump that.

Besides, she was in a rush and she didn’t think she could explain Kevin’s part in a yakuza family within a couple minutes.

So what Allison said was: “Neil doesn’t take Kevin’s arrogance too well, and he likes to fight with words.”

Jeremy smiled, like he knew exactly what Kevin had said to irritate Neil and thought on it with fondness.

Renee had told Allison how Jeremy had taken to Jean’s less than kind attitude, and wondered why Jeremy didn’t think of that as fondly. It was another clue to Jeremy and Kevin’s history, and Allison always liked to know as much as possible before placing her bets.

“I heard you met Jean Moreau,” she said.

Jeremy was well-practised at hiding his displeasure, but Allison was better practised at spotting someone hiding behind a mask. “Yes,” Jeremy said. “He came with Renee when we had lunch a couple weeks ago.”

“What did you think of him?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he was hired at The Foxhole Court,” Jeremy said, as if he were being interviewed by a vulture-like reporter. Allison supposed it wasn’t the strangest of comparisons. “He’s certainly a Fox.”

chapter 37 is now up!

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“Do you wonder what’s at the centre of it all?”

Oh, oh, oh. She’s sharper than she looks. Andrew’s smile was amused this time, almost genuinely so. “I hope you’re not accusing me of being interested.”

Bee smiled. “It wasn’t an accusation.”

But Bee was wrong. Any assumption was an accusation, and every accusation came with some path of crumbs to lead her astray from the truth. ‘Evidence’ collected in a biased basket. Beware of the big bad wolf, but who knows what’s lurking in these woods.

Even Andrew wasn’t sure what was hiding. Sometimes the easiest way to picture the space in his brain where his sexuality lay was if he imagined it as a dark wood on a night with no moon. The stars were dim and they shifted across the sky, causing chaos in their wake. With no path or stars to navigate, Andrew was well and truly lost in that forest. Alone but not in a way that made him feel safe. Each shadow put him on edge, every rustle in the bushes behind him was a reminder that this was not just any wood on any dark night.

Neil was…Andrew didn’t know what to think of Neil. Half the time he was so infuriating Andrew wanted to grab him by the hair and bash his face into a block of concrete. Sometimes he wanted to use one of those knives Neil hid in his coat and carve his own name into Neil’s skin. MineMineMineMineMine. Sometimes Andrew wanted to buy a car and drive as far from Neil as he thought possible.

Andrew thought about Bee’s question and eventually settled on, “He has this way of making people want to kill him.”

It was the truth, but not all of it. Omission was the easiest way to lie, of course. Neil did have a way of making people want to kill him, and Andrew was first in line. But to summarise Neil Josten as a walking death threat was to underestimate him, and Andrew knew far too much about being underestimated to make that mistake. What is at the centre of Neil Josten, Bee wanted to know. Andrew hadn’t a clue, but it wasn’t a path he would ever go down. The mystery that was ‘Neil Josten’ was a maze Andrew needed to steer clear of, lest he get lost in that dark forest forever.

tumblr is forbidding me from the tags so i'm posting through this sideblog until the helpdesk get back to me lmao

of smoke and bone chapter 36 is now up!

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Neil had not been her first student, not even in Earth. Nine years ago, Renee had started to teach thirteen-year-old Andrew Doe how to fight with his fists. It was an odd thing to witness, because a part of Andrew already knew how to fight, with both his body and with weapons, but the other part—the more dominant part—hadn’t yet reached the point where he could punch with full effort in a staged setting. Renee had no doubts back then that Andrew had fought as hard as he could when the occasion called for it, but she had asked him to spar with her once a week to improve: “It’d be better than fighting shadows” she had said.

Now, strapping the sheaths to her thighs, Renee whispered the same chant to herself. She was done fighting shadows, but it never hurt to be prepared.