We were half way down the street by the time Luke dropped my hand. Belatedly, I realized I still needed to call off of work at the restaurant. Texting and trying to follow the path Luke lead me down was downright impossible.

I couldn’t keep track of the turns and streets we walked along. It was too confusing. I had no idea how Luke managed to navigate us to a little brownstone building twenty minutes later. Not only that, but I didn’t recognize the quiet, tree lined street we were on. I’d thought I’d been all over the city and knew most of the neighborhoods. As I looked down the street of cozy brownstones though, I decided I was apparently wrong. It also didn’t strike me as magical secret base material. Part of me wondered if Luke was going to pull me through a hedge and into some kind enchanted forest. However, he didn’t seem too preoccupied with finding a hedge. He’d pulled out his phone and kept glaring at the screen.

“Okay, so where exactly did you lead me?”

“Give me a moment.”

He actually held up a finger to me and continued to stare at his phone. Really? Luke cast a glance around at the brownstones. With a huff he walked approximately fifteen feet down the sidewalk before promptly turning around again and walking fifteen feet in the opposite direction.

“Um… problem?”

“You know normal people give addresses the first time they come over, but nooo we have to give landmarks! Brownstone with a red door. They all have red doors!” His tirade ended in a muffled string of curse words.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” I asked, holding out my hand for his phone to look myself. He had a bad tendency to skip over important details while reading. English class had never been his strong suit. Luke ignored me.

“I thought I told you to memorize my directions,” a feminine voice with a slight Spanish lilt said behind us.

The girl that suddenly appeared behind us had long, curly black hair and skin the color of warm bronze. For someone so tiny she shouldn’t have looked so intimidating with her arms crossed over her chest. Luke gave her a quick look up and down. “I did memorize them. You just didn’t bother giving decent directions for once I got here.”

“My directions were perfectly clear!” she snapped. “Meet me at the brownstone with red door and talavera flower pots on the porch.”

“What the hell is talavera?”

“Traditional hand painted pottery from Mexico.” I instantly spotted the brownstone the girl was talking about and pointed it out. It was literally right behind us. The girl pulled her eyes away from Luke. She flashed me a dazzlingly white smile. Soft, bright, white snow on a sunny winter day immediately popped into my mind.

“How do you even know that?” snorted Luke. He threw his hands into the air in exasperation. I had the answer on the tip of my tongue but got cut off.

“Glad to see someone here isn’t oblivious. It’s nice to finally meet you Genevieve. I’m Bianca.” The girl leaned forward, took my hand to pull me close, and kissed me on the cheek. I blinked in surprise. “We technically met last night. I’m sorry for scaring you. Between the Reapers and the Troll. It really wasn’t my intention.”

“You’re Snow White?” I asked when I was finally able to pull away from her.

“Yes, but call me Bianca when I’m not wearing my hood. Can I call you Gen?”

“S… sure,” I stammered. Connecting happy and bubbly Bianca to the death defying Snow White from last night proved to be nearly impossible. There was no way they could be the same person.

She gave a little clap. “Excellent. And you’re Luke correct?”

“Yep.” Luke still hadn’t uncrossed his arms. Or stopped glaring at her for that matter. Bianca, I think, chose to flat out ignore the animosity. I reached over and elbowed him in the side to shut him up for the moment.

“I’m glad you guys could make it. Let’s go upstairs. Colin’s already here.” Bianca motioned towards the brownstone but her body was already angled towards the stairs. The smile on her face never faltered. “We’ve been waiting for this day for awhile now,” Bianca told us as she opened the door and ushered us inside.

“I’ll bet you have,” Luke muttered. Thankfully Bianca was to far ahead to hear him.

“Try to be a little nice,” I whispered in Luke’s ear as we stepped inside the stunning home. The same Latin American decor continued throughout. A stunning talavera mirror hung as the center piece of the room. “They’re supposed to be on our side right?”

“I’m allowed to be wary.”

“No but it makes it clear that I’m not happy that they broke their promise to keep their distance from you.”

I frowned. Luke and Snow White had gotten into this argument last night as well. Not that I understood it any more now than I did last night. All I could assume was that Dad and Luke had some kind of stipulation in their deal with the Queen to make sure we were left alone. Not that it would’ve done me a lot of good last night had they kept their word and their distance with Reapers taking shots at me. “Just to be clear, I’m glad to be alive right now.”

Though he looked thoroughly affronted, Luke never got a chance to answer. “Color me shocked,” someone said from the top of the stairs. “You actually came.”

Luke bristled beside me. I heard him make a kind of growling noise in the back of his throat as he stared down the man who’d spoken.

Bianca smiled brightly at the man who leaned against the banister lightly. “Aurelio!”