Chapter Nine
Loren’s face blossomed like a plant that had been in a cold, shaded corner for a year of winters and now was getting its first taste of sunlight.
Igraine looped her arm around Loren’s trim waist. My strong bestie who’d stood firm in a crowd of ninjas intent on tearing her apart, who’d flicked her hair at an irate Greek goddess bent on enslaving the world—that woman wilted. It was as though her body couldn’t hold up the beautiful bloom that had suddenly sprouted from her person.
Igraine rubbed Loren’s lower back as she began a tale of a precocious Magda who dreamed of traveling the world and ran off with a dashing young man who dug holes in remote, forgotten places for a living. As Igraine talked and rubbed, Loren’s body unfurled and grew tall again.
They walked down the ha
