Lyra Willowmist's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Lyra came back the next morning, as promised. But Johnny was not alone. A blonde nymph in a red bikini stood on the bookshop step, blocking the door, a pink butterfly perched on her finger. Lyra knew her. Coral Meadowbrook. She had chased more men than Lyra could count, and she never lost quietly. "You're the one who cracked him," Coral said. No greeting. She flicked her wrist, and the butterfly lifted off. "Word travels. Sixty-three of us failed. Then you walk in and he starts talking." Lyra kept her voice flat. "He wanted honesty." "Honesty." Coral laughed. "You studied his walk. His schedule. His mother's book. You told me that yourself last week, over drinks." She turned toward the open door. "Wonder if he'd call that honest." Johnny stood inside, close enough to hear. His book hung shut at his side. His face had gone still, the guarded look Lyra had watched him give sixty-three nymphs. Lyra's stomach dropped. Coral was right. Every fact Lyra had used to reach him had started as a hunter's notes. If she argued, she looked like a schemer covering her tracks. If she stayed silent, Coral filled the silence with poison. So Lyra did the only thing that had ever worked on him. She told the truth again, all of it, out loud. "She's not lying," Lyra said to Johnny. "I did study you. I planned to trick you like the others. I told Coral my whole plan." She made herself hold his eyes. "Then I met you, and I couldn't do it. So I stopped. That's the only reason you and I ever talked." Coral's smile thinned. "See? She admits it." "She admitted it before you got here," Johnny said. He looked at Coral now. "Yesterday. She told me she came to seduce me. First thing she said." Coral opened her mouth. Nothing came. Her wit ran out. "You came to save me from her," Johnny went on. His voice stayed quiet. "But you didn't tell me one true thing about yourself. You told me about her." He stepped back into the shop. "That's the difference." Coral stood on the step, red bikini bright against the gray wood. For once she said nothing. Then she turned and walked off, and the pink butterfly trailed after her. Johnny held the door for Lyra. "You could have denied it," he said. "She'd have had no proof." "You'd have known," Lyra said. He nodded once. The same nod he gave the nymph with the flowers. But this time he did not walk away. "Come in," he said. Lyra stepped inside, and her heart pounded harder than it had the night before. She had beaten Coral. She had kept his trust. But she saw the trap now with clear eyes. Every truth bought her deeper in. And she still had not told him the one truth that mattered most: she had never planned to stay.