Chapter Sixty One

HECTOR BAYES

I hadn't been in the banquet hall for as much as three minutes before I realized I hated it.

Three minutes!

That was all it had taken for me to walk right into the green-eyed imp again. The slender line of her shoulders went rigid when she realized I was the one behind her. Like I was some monster!

But you are Hector, forgotten our past so soon have you? A small voice nudged inside me and I preemptively tried to shake it off, but it stayed, the voice.

Like poison in my marrows.

I wished there was some other way to get through to the woman, but I was beginning to realize I might never be able to convince Nola Reynolds to stay.

She was like that, stubborn and head-strong once she'd made up that impish mind of hers.

She might be the one that gets away, and I was powerless to stop it. I couldn't watch her all the time. Not even the witch could manage that, and Ma Jules had three eyes.

“Your highness, sweets for you,” A willowy elder I vaguely realized from my father’s parti