“Just sign right along the dotted line, lamb chop,” Aunt Hestia cooed, thrusting a gold-plated ballpoint pen toward the hammock. “It’s a simple conservatorship clause. With you rushing off into an impetuous, low-class elopement, someone responsible needs to manage the Vance salt-wharf dividends. You wouldn't want the burden of asset taxes, would you?” Delancy nestled her cheek deeper into the crushed plum velvet. The fabric smelled faintly of vanilla candle wax and old motor oil, a combination that hit her brain stem like chloroform. “No,” Delancy murmured. Her eyelids weighed fifty pounds each. “No taxes! Exactly!” Aunt Hestia set the steaming ceramic mug on an upturned wooden crate and clicked the pen with a sharp, metallic snap. “So just take the pen, precious. Scribble your name, drink your herbal blend, and go night-night forever—I mean, for the night.” Delancy looked at the pen. Then she looked at her own right arm, which was comfortably tucked under a down pillow. To sign the paper, she would have to slide her arm out. Lift her forearm against gravity. Close five individual fingers around the plastic casing. Press downward. Move her wrist in an intricate series of loops and slashes. It sounded like trench warfare. “Too much work,” Delancy muttered, letting her eyelids fall shut completely. “Arm is offline. Call back on Tuesday.” “What?” Hestia’s sugary cadence curdled around the edges. “Delancy Vance, it is a single signature! It takes two seconds!” “Two blinks is two hundred percent more effort than I have available. Also, that tea smells like boiled ditch grass.” Delancy waved a dismissive finger—her sole physical exertion of the hour—and burrowed her chin into the velvet piping. “Shoo. Napping in progress.” “Why, you ungrateful little slacker—!” Hestia’s hiss cut off instantly as a heavy shadow fell across the workshop doorframe. Vaughn Mercer ducked under the suspended tire rack, wiping blackened motor oil from his knuckles with a rag. His soot-streaked brow knitted into tight ridges the moment he took in the scene: his newly acquired, impossibly dainty bride curled in a ball, and a perfumed matriarch looming over her with hot liquids. “She said no tea,” Vaughn rumbled. His baritone vibrated right through the concrete floorboards. Hestia snapped upright, plastering on a society-matron smile that looked like it had been glued together with dry flour paste. “Mr. Mercer! I was merely offering my poor niece some restorative chamomile. She looks so faint. So dreadfully frail.” Vaughn’s gaze dropped to Delancy’s face. To him, her half-closed eyes, completely limp limbs, and utter refusal to lift her head looked like acute heat stroke. The coastal air in Velvet Cove was thick with August humidity, and the shop radiated the stored heat of ten cast-iron engine blocks. “She isn’t just frail,” Vaughn said, his voice dropping into grave, protective reverence. “She’s burning up. Look at her. She doesn't even have the strength to lift a pen. The indoor ambient temperature is seventy-eight degrees. It’s criminal.” Delancy didn’t correct him. Agreeing to be sick meant nobody would ask her to chop onions or sweep a floor. “Leave the tea,” Vaughn ordered, pointing a massive, oil-stained thumb toward the driveway. “Take your papers. She needs rest. And industrial climate control.” Hestia pressed her lips into a thin, bloodless seam. “Very well. But Delancy, my darling… drink the brew before it gets cold. For your health.” With a venomous glance at the inspection pit, she hitched up her floral skirt and scurried into the foggy neon glow of the street. Vaughn didn't waste a moment. He tossed his rag aside, stepped toward a wrecked 1974 Chevy Impala sitting on rusted jack stands, and ripped the hood off with a violent shriek of sheared bolts. “Kip!” Vaughn bellowed into the gloom of the scrap yard. A gangly boy of sixteen, wearing oversized denim overalls and sporting a smudge of graphite across his nose, came tumbling out from behind a mountain of discarded alternators. He was clutching a half-eaten sleeve of orange powdered snacks. “Boss! I didn't break the lathe, I swear, it was vibrating like that when I found it!” “Shut up about the lathe,” Vaughn snapped, his hands already flying across the Impala's interior, yanking rubber hoses and unbolting a massive, dual-piston rotary compressor. “My wife is enduring a thermal crisis. Go to the corner bodega. Buy every bag of cheddar curls they have. Get ice. And do not make a sound when you come back. If you drop a wrench and startle her, I’m docking your pay until 1989.” “On it, boss!” Kip sprinted across the shop, skidding on his sneakers right next to Delancy’s hammock. He dropped a fresh, crinkling bag of puffed corn curls directly onto her lap like an offering to a slumbering pagan idol. “Here you go, Mrs. Boss. Maximum crunch, zero effort. Don't die of the vapors!” Delancy cracked one eyelid. “You’re a good boy, Kip. Open the bag for me.” Kip ripped the foil top cleanly and propped the bag against her ribs, bowing with chaotic theatricality before sprinting out into the night. Delancy chewed lazily, perfectly content. Through the open bay door, the streetlamp illuminated the cracked asphalt of Pacific Boulevard. Across the road, neon signs buzzed in magenta and teal, reflecting off the chrome bumpers of passing cruisers. Right on the sidewalk stood her sister, Pru Vance. Pru was wearing a stiff, mustard-yellow power suit with shoulder pads so wide they made her head look like a tennis ball. Sweat poured down Pru’s neck, melting her pancake foundation into beige paste as she dragged a massive leather briefcase containing real estate portfolios. Beside her stood Bradley Callow, a chinless heir to the local cannery dynasty, decked out in a pastel polo shirt and boat shoes. Pru was laughing hysterically at something the idiot said, her smile rigid with sheer agony. Every time Bradley took a step, Pru scrambled ahead to open the door of his sports car, dropping her papers, stooping to gather them, and furiously brushing grime off her knees while pitching a high-yield municipal bond scheme. *Eighteen hours of hustle,* Delancy thought, slowly popping another crisp into her mouth. *She’s going to pop a blood vessel before she turns twenty-one. What a terrible way to spend an evening.* Behind her, Vaughn was moving with terrifying efficiency. He wasn't just fixing things; he was inventing. Sparks rained down in silent showers as he used an oxyacetylene torch to modify a copper condenser coil. He had dampened the metal vice with rubber gaskets to suppress the clanging. He worked like a phantom artisan, building a bespoke, whisper-quiet refrigeration unit completely from scratch just so a cool breeze would caress her forehead. Delancy sighed in utter contentment. Marrying the mechanic had been the greatest executive decision of her life. She shifted on the suspended velvet to stretch her legs. Her left foot caught the side of the wooden crate. The ceramic mug Aunt Hestia had left wobbled. “Oops,” Delancy whispered, far too relaxed to actually reach out and catch it. The mug tipped over. Warm, murky brown liquid sloshed off the crate and pooled into the soil of a potted Boston fern resting on the floorboards. The fern was a hardy little survivor Kip had dragged in from an alley three weeks ago. Delancy watched, idly expecting the dirt to soak it up. Instead, the soil hissed. A faint, acrid smoke curled upward from the pot. Before Delancy could even blink, the vibrant green frills of the fern curled, blackened, and shriveled like paper tossed into a blast furnace. Within two heartbeats, the thick stems collapsed into brittle gray tendrils. The leaves turned to fine, powdery ash, scattering across the grease-slicked concrete in the draft. The ceramic rim of the mug pitted and corroded where the dark brew lingered. Delancy froze. The orange puff remained suspended halfway to her lips. That wasn’t a sedative. That wasn’t a grandmotherly sleep aid to ensure a sound night of slumber. That was concentrated, flesh-melting arsenic compound. Aunt Hestia hadn't brought a legal contract to steal the Vance estate dividends because Delancy was flighty. She had brought it because she intended Delancy to sign, drink the tea, and drop dead before the ink was dry. A cold, crystal-clear realization pierced through Delancy’s velvety fog of chronic lethargy. If she had signed that paper, she would be a corpse. And worse—infinitely worse—if Aunt Hestia succeeded in killing her, Delancy would never get to sleep in this hammock again. She would lose the custom-built silent air conditioner Vaughn was welding. She would never get Kip to bring her free salted snacks. If she was dead, she wouldn't be able to enjoy her retirement. In fact, being dead sounded suspiciously like an eternal, permanent disruption of her peace. Vaughn stepped over, carrying a brilliantly retrofitted brass cooling vent that hummed as soft as a cat’s purr. He looked down, took in the smoking black ash, and set his teeth.

Lethal Tea and Cordless Dreams