Bee’s POV:-
We go to what had once been MR. CELLOMANN’S SWEET SWEETSHOP!
Of course, Mr. Cellomann himself was in Lakoswazonic Penitentiary for having betrayed us to the Coven last year. So the shop had been renamed: THE DEMOCRATIC SWEETUMS!
Doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? But the quality of the miracle candies and chocolate and rides inside are good as ever.
Or at least I imagine they are. I’m not having anything, no matter how tempting. I got cavities last time, remember? I’m pretty sure I told you about the dentist incident.
Oh, the real reason? Yeah, it just didn’t feel right. With Rasthrum gone.
He would live on in spirit forever as the sun, though, which I guess is as good a deal as you get when you heroically sacrifice yourself. Plus, Bob the Blob would keep the Congress Rasthrum had set up for the City of a Hundred Haunts oiled. We are taking him at his word. If he breaks it, the Lobster Queen and Goof’s army of butterflies will take care of him. Goof who had been taken to the tilapia fish who magically fixed my ankle for healing.
‘Hey.’
I whirl around. ‘Hey,' I say to Aar.
He walks up right besides me, admiring the color-changing pool of jelly in front of us. ‘So, how you holding up?’
‘Just . . . holding up. How about you? You can’t be doing that well, or you’d be attacking some candy.’
He chuckles dryly. ‘Tried. Didn’t taste anything. Tongue feels like parchment . . . with you not there.’
My eyes swing over to his face. Thin, angular, stupid. But I love it. I think I always have.
‘When you moved,' he goes on awkwardly, ‘I . . . I tried to act cool. Keep distracted. Figured if I kept busy, I wouldn’t think about you. But . . . you always found a way in. Into my brain. In here.’ He taps his stupid, prideful chest.
I make calf eyes at him at an angle only he can see. He takes my hand.
We catch Marra’s heterochromatic eyes, which flick downwards at our joined hands for just a second before a broad smile blooms on his face. He gives us a thumbs up.
We watch Niffy and Es wreck havoc in THE DEMOCRATIC SWEETUMS.
Almost at the end.