“Dago,” Deianira said, her voice revealing that she was as puzzled by this encounter as Hera. Then her gaze landed on the hand the man held her with. The muscles in her face tensed and her eyes flashed with something that couldn’t be easily classified but certainly had nightmarish connotations. “So Zeno was telling the truth. Your own Charm dazed you and you think you’re fireproof.”

“Of course I was telling the truth,” said a dark-skinned magus standing beside her. His hair was shaved almost to the skin, a blue robe casually slung over his shoulder. “I never joke when it comes to money.”

Zeno seemed relaxed on the surface, but his resentment was so strong that, like Nira, he couldn’t completely hide it. It was understandable, considering that elixirs containing mistberries had brought the Nereus family significant profits until Hera developed a formula that worked just as well without them. As a result of her educational campaign, sales of products containing ingredients that could cause harm to animals—as was the case with beetles that were forced to migrate due to the overexploitation of mistberries, which were their main food— dropped so much that alchemists felt compelled to use her recipes to avoid bankruptcy. Even the fact that she’d made them available for free didn’t lessen their resentment. So Hera wasn’t surprised by the man’s hostility. It was his last comment that made her feel discomfort about Dago’s touch.

I never joke when it comes to money.

What exactly did that refer to?

Hera felt an urge to shake off Midais’s hand, but she didn’t know what he’d told his friends about her, and she didn’t want her impulsivity to ruin what could have been a planned move.

“Nira, Zeno,” Dago said in a perfectly nonchalant tone. “It’s so nice to meet you. I see you’re leaving now, but don’t hesitate to visit me tomorrow. I will gladly remind you of the manners you have clearly forgotten today.”

His friends gave him a strange look, but when he made a move as if to get off the carpet, they not only moved aside to let them pass but also managed to show Hera fake smiles as they said goodbye.

“Have a nice day,” Nira said with barely audible irony.

“Have a nice day,” Hera replied in the matter-of-fact tone she used when she was talking to one of her patients.

She hadn’t intended to give Nira lockjaw, but when it happened, she felt a sense of satisfaction. It was too cloying to enjoy for long, though. Dago called the woman his friend, but Hera had a feeling that Nira would like to be the one the dragon magus touched.

When the strawberry carpet had lowered its flight and its passengers got out of their sight, she moved away from Dago and looked around the terrace.

“Your table is in the middle,” a melodious voice said. A white-haired morpheus with red irises stood nearby. At first glance Hera took them for a tall man. At the second glance she saw a well-built woman. And after a closer look, she stopped wondering about their appearance and started thinking about the anti-mischief amulets that she left at home.

“Do you know where the middle is, or I should help you find it?” they asked.

“There is no need,” Dago said, likely suspecting a trick in an innocent question. “We will find it ourselves.”

The phantom smiled. “Wonderful, Mr. Midais. Make yourself at home.”

Though this terrace was smaller than the one below, the tables were spaced further apart. Almost all of them were occupied, but the space didn’t seem confined. However, the overall decor was not significantly different—comfier armchairs and prettier tables were not that significant—there were also no luxuries such as echo-absorbing screens, and Hera still couldn’t see the point in the entrance fee. After following a confident Dago and taking a seat, she shared her doubts with him.

“If something doesn’t make sense but works, then it does make sense,” the red-eyed phantom said.

Hera twitched in surprise at the sound of their voice, but Dago was apparently expecting the morpheus to follow them sneakily, because his lips curved into a half-smile.

“You took it out of my mouth, Mxes. Ainone.”

“Really?” the phantom wondered. “We don’t remember taking anything out of your mouth.”

“That was a metaphor.”

“And what did this metaphor carry metaphorically?”

“The meaning that someone said something that someone else thought but didn’t say.”

“Who didn’t say?”

“Someone else.”

“And what did someone else think?”

“Something someone said.”

“Then who is someone?”

“In this specific case, you.”

“And why you are someone else?”

“Because I’m not you.”

The morpheus bared their teeth in a grin. “As always, you are an adorable interlocutor, Mr. Midais. From which stand should I bring what?”

Dago looked at Hera. “Do you want something specific, or will you go for the sundae from Dame Rainbow?”

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop the blush spreading across her cheeks.

Have a rest, sundae.

These were the words he’d spoken after making her come with his tongue. Of course he remembered it too, and of course he decided to use it when she least expected it.

And of course he kept a straight face.

I have to learn how to do that, she thought.

“Sundae sounds good,” she said, determined not to give in to her embarrassment.

“What flavor and topping?” Ainone asked.

“For me, caramel with nuts,” Dago said, not tearing his gaze from Hera—who looked at the morpheus only because she didn’t want to offend them, and not at all because Midais ordered her favorite ice cream.

“For me, lemon with chocolate syrup.”

“Double portion or single?” the phantom asked with such sweetness that Hera barely stopped herself from grinding her teeth.

She ordered a single portion and Dago a double one.

“That would be sixty-nine lunas.”

Despite herself, Hera felt herself blush even more. Dame Rainbow’s ice cream was one of the most expensive on the market, but Ainone’s calculations were nonsensical.

“One portion cost ten lunas,” she dared to say.

“We counted all portions.”

“This is still too much.”

“We included the service cost.”

“Which is higher than the products’ price?”

The shadow narrowed their eyes. “Do you suggest that our effort is worth less than ice cream?”

Hera froze. Morpheuses had a nightmarish tendency to get angry when they felt they were being treated unkindly. So to avoid the damage that would certainly occur and the accusations that would fall on her, instead of simply leaving indignantly, she had to continue the absurd conversation…

“Please add this to my account,” Dago said. “It was my idea to bring Mrs. Galenos here, even though I knew her tastes were rather simple.”

“Oh, I see.” The phantom brightened immediately. “Then we will round out the bill to eighty-eight.”

Without waiting for their reaction, Ainone shifted into a swan and rose into the air with a flap of their wings, blithely ignoring the human physical law according to which clothes weren’t a part of the body so they couldn’t be transformed into it.

Hera couldn’t pick a winner for the most outrageous thing of the day, so she started with the most obvious.

“They are extorting money,” she said, forcing herself to look Midais in the eye. “If you’re always this indulgent, they’ll fleece you to the last obol.”

“Contrary, I would say. The more indulgent I am, the less they rip me off.”

Even though he seemed amused, Hera became flustered again.

“I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back,” she said.

“No.”

His uncompromising tone annoyed her. Lowering her voice so that the people sitting nearby couldn’t hear her, she hissed, “Don’t you think you’re being rather hasty, Midais?”

“Hasty in what?” He too lowered his voice, but his behavior had little to do with conspiracy.

There’s no hurry, sweetpearl.

The words with which he’d rejected her offer to return the pleasure she’d experienced vibrated in her head and echoed deep inside her body…

…which tensed with anger.

“We were supposed to accustom others to our view, not throw it at them like ogres with stones. You make everyone think I’m your…”

“Lover?” Dago suggested when she stammered. When she clenched her jaw, he cocked his eyebrow. “Would you prefer to pretend to be friends?”

Hera swallowed her shame. “That would be more believable.”

His eyebrow rose even higher. “Is that so? I got the impression that every person we’d met so far found our relationship believable enough.”

Hera pursed her lips. This insolent ghul was right. Even her friends were more puzzled than suspicious. Apparently, to everyone, the scenario in which a woman did not succumb to Dago Midais seemed stranger than the possibility that she had an affair with him.

He answered her glare with a smile. “Brighten up, sweetsun. I have something for you.”