And just like that… August slipped away into a moment in time. I did quite a bit this month, including going on a NYC trip that I definitely didn’t accidentally talk about in my July reflection post, lmfao. If you want a refresher on how that went, go back to that post. Now, let’s talk about all the fun and amazing things I did in August!

Immortal Rose Event!

Avon invited me to the HarperCollins offices to celebrate the release of Immortal Rose by Alexandra Bracken. The event was so much fun; I always have a blast when I’m with the Harper crew. I made perfume, a bookmark, took photos on the iconic staircase, ate great food, and even got to go book shopping, where I picked up some highly anticipated reads! I’m looking at you, The Sweetest Fiend by Raven Kennedy!

Seeing Your Name in Theaters!

I never thought I would be able to see one of my favorite movies on the big screen, and yet it happened! The first time I watched Your Name was during my sophomore year of college, in my dorm room on an iPad. Ten years later (omg), I got to see it on the big screen, and it was magical. This movie was meant to be viewed this way. The animation was stunning, the music was magical, and the story, as always, brought me to tears. Easily one of the best nights of my life.

Seeing Kesha in Concert!

My sister surprised me with tickets to go see Kesha for my birthday. I’ve been a Kesha fan for a really long time; I literally remember hearing “TikTok” on the radio for the first time. I got to scream some of my favorite songs of all time — “Praying,” “Die Young,” “Your Love Is My Drug”??? Banger after banger after banger! Kesha is such a good performer, and I love seeing her finally thriving.

Movies I've Been Watching!

The Drama — 4 stars

A movie I’ve been meaning to see and finally got around to watching. I had no idea what this was about, and consider me gagged that it was about gun violence. Also, these people had some nerve gaslighting my girl Zendaya like that. Solid film, I recommend.

Ice Princess — 5 stars (rewatch)

Hayden Panettiere died, I was sad, so I decided to watch the best movie ever made, and guess what? It’s still a masterpiece.

Freakier Friday — 5 stars (rewatch)

Another rewatch, and still one of my favorite sequels that felt like it added to the existing lore of the original film. It feels so good seeing Lindsay Lohan back on the big screen; I’ve missed her.

The Last Sunrise — 1.5 stars

Easily one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. A nothing burger of a film with terrible acting. The only thing that got me through it was watching it with friends and our very funny commentary throughout.

TV Shows I've Been Watching!

I finished The Ninth Jedi, the Star Wars: Visions show, and I really enjoyed it. I hope they make more of these, but please, for the love of God, make them longer than eight episodes! I also watched Sterling Point, which was really solid. It’s the first time I’ve seen a show where the teens actually feel like teens of the current age. I rewatched The Nanny, still a banger, and I’m currently rewatching George Lopez, also still a banger.

That was my August, let's see what I do in September!

This week’s guest is Sophia Benoit, author of the historical romance The Very Definition of Love and the essay collection Well, This is Exhausting. I asked her about putting her own spin on the “rake accidentally compromises a bluestocking” historical romance trope. We talked about our favorite historically accurate dirty slang terms and why there are so many euphemisms for sex workers. Plus, how she thinks about responsible depictions of relationships and intimacy as a sex writer and a romance author, and why we both have strong feelings about choking and breath play.

Listen on:

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Follow Sophia on Instagram @sgbenoit, and purchase The Very Definition of Love from the Rebel Ever After affiliate bookstore at bit.ly/REAbooks

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Theme music created by Dalton Deschain.

Media mentioned this episode:

• A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grouse

• The works of Jane Austen

• The works of Nora Ephron

Upcoming Events: 

9/30: Launching Happily Ever Afterlife with Emma R. Alban at the Ripped Bodice BK. Tickets here.

JUST ADDED 10/5: I'm hosting another Romance Read-In to benefit Authors Against Book Bans at Book Club Bar in Manhattan on October 5th at 7:30pm! Tickets just went on sale here.

Voting has officially begun for our September Book Club selection!

We invite you to join our Discord community to participate in lively discussions, connect with fellow readers, and share your thoughts throughout the month. For those who prefer to vote here on Bindery, we'll also be posting a poll so members can cast their votes directly on the platform.

🗳️ Voting will remain open for 24 hours.
📖 Our group reading will begin on Sep 10th.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please join our Discord and let us know. We're always happy to hear from our community.

Happy reading, and we can't wait to see which book you choose for September!

Chapter 8

Maren’s mouth was set in a grim line--part worry, part annoyance he had waited until the morning to tell her. Icarus ran a hand through increasingly unkempt hair and made a mental note he would immediately forget about needing a trim. The image was seared into him every time he blinked--two glittering eyes reflecting light that did not exist in the alley, the feeling of foreboding that swept over him like a winter wind. He stared at the tips of his fingers, already starting to turn azure even after such a short burst of magic. He frowned. 

“You need to dose,” she pushed off the low file cabinet and placed the ampule on his desk. 

She left him alone without another word. Off to theorize, lost in the map she was making in her mind’s eye. They had not quite gotten to her new research in light of his exchange with the creature the previous evening. 

He sighed and cracked the glass, leaning back in his chair. The pearlescent liquid hit his sclera with a burn that was more about surprise than the Eidolon. His slip into the hallucinatory space between worlds was swift. Reality sighed open around him. Eyes closed, the sound of birdsong sharpened in his ears. 

When he opened them again, he was standing in the familiar field. He reached out to brush the soft petals of gorse stalks. Illusion or not, they always felt real to him. A sea of yellow blooms stretched out to the horizon, continuing infinitely as far as he knew. He tried to take it all in. Churning indigo waters effervescent with life he could never quite see when he looked over the edge of the canyon. Light bent through the spray in a peculiar rainbow. It did that on occasion--shifting bands of pastels from one angle, jewel tones from another. He never knew what prompted it to show one time but not another. Another mystery of wherever the Eidolon carried him.

Staccato laughter drifted on the gentle breeze that tugged at the stalks under his hands. He sighed. It was absurd that in this place outside of time he managed to feel a modicum of peace. He looked down at his fingers and noted the faint shimmer in the blue receding before the color drained away. When the distant flutter of wings sounded, he was not quite ready to go. Then his foot found the ever-familiar root and he tumbled back into reality again

Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. That was all the Eidolon ever gave him and it was never enough. Therein lay the danger of Eidolon, unfortunately. Plenty of priests and common folk lost themselves to the Blue Fever--a sort of emotional addiction to the in-between and the euphoria it left in its wake. Too much and a person wasted away, not thinking to eat or drink while lost in the haze. He never questioned why someone might chase that high. Some days he considered it himself.

He got to his feet with a private groan of protest. One burning shot of whiskey later and he headed for Maren’s office. Her commitment to organization was both a marvel and the bane of his existence. Antithetical in every way to his organized chaos, she kept everything in labeled boxes and had a system other people could comprehend. He hated it. 

She turned to look at him, glancing to his now-normal fingers and back to her cork board. New information was pinned--notes she had made and a hastily sketched copy of the sections in the book she had harangued the librarian into giving her. The rendition of the woodblock print was especially terrifying. Maren was many things, an artist was not one of them. 

“An abhartach,” she gestured, “is a nocturnal fae creature. Not much about them, unfortunately. They’re not a common species.”

“Right. So how do we get rid of it?” He pretended to review her research, but they had done this dance for too many years to fool her anymore. 

She folded her arms and looked at her feet, “That’s the problem. We don’t.”

“Mare?” He raised an eyebrow at her, a sinking feeling in his gut. 

She sighed and gestured to one of the tacked-up sets of pages, “They don’t possess, they turn. He isn’t possessed by an abhartach. He is one.”

He cursed under his breath as he read, “Damnú air.”

“Unfortunately, this isn’t a magic problem. But it is still our problem,” she ran a hand over her face. “We have to tell Eilonwy.”

“She likes you. Might forgive you when you tell her we’ve got to behead her brother,” he winced at the sharp punch she landed on his arm. “All I’m saying is I don’t think she’s my biggest fan and me telling her might elicit a… reaction.”

Maren appraised him, “If she already hates you, what’s hating you a little more?”

***

He never did figure out a reply to that by the time they had Eilonwy seated across the desk from him. She sat straight, rigid in the stiff black brocade of her mourning gown. She was still not permitted access to the bodies of her family, despite vehemently arguing with the faithful coroner about their immortal souls. If she was still red-eyed from crying about it, Icarus could not tell under the fine mesh of her short funerary veil. 

“Say it again. Slowly.” Her tone was clipped, so cold it might snap if he put too much weight on it. 

He cleared his throat and wished she would dispense with that idiot veil so he could hold her gaze properly, “He isn’t possessed by an abhartach. He just is one. There’s no exorcism to be had. According to our research--which I assure you we have done a considerable amount of--the only option is… to separate the head from the body. Body goes into running water, head goes into consecrated ground.”

“With an iron nail through the heart,” Maren amended. If he could kick her without being noticed, he would have. That detail was one he would have preferred to keep between them. 

Eilonwy sat unmoving across from him, impossible to read in her perfect silence. He had not forgotten his discussion with Maren about all her peculiarities. This stillness she cultivated was starting to become one of them until she spoke again. 

“Will that bring him peace?”

The question caught him off guard, particularly the tone she asked it with, “Will it-? I- I can’t answer that for you, my lady. All I know is it’s how it must be done if we want to rid the city of him.”

She lifted her hands and rolled up, pinning it in place. She was clear-eyed, practiced, sharp with a brimming intelligence she had kept poorly hidden. A flicker of grief escaped from its hiding place, though, and he softened to her a little. Try as she might, he could see the way her tenuous thread of hope had just snapped. The green of her eyes brightened like a hawthorne under the light of the full moon, then she blinked and it was gone. He rubbed at his eyes and cursed his bad sleep. 

“If he’s not possessed and he were to somehow be… restored,” she took a shuddering breath, black leather gloves creaking with the tight fist she made out of sight, “he would be tried and hanged for what he did.”

“Possibly,” Maren shrugged, “but restoration is, unfortunately, not an option in his case.”

Eilonwy lifted a hand in a polite bid for silence, “He would be tried and hanged if it were. Either way, Dáire’s fate is sealed. It would be cruelty to bring him back, but it would be a mercy to end him before he continues down this murderous path.”

For all her sharpness and fire, Icarus had to respect her ability to take what the Pale God handed to her with grace. He exchanged a look with Maren that caught her attention and her eyes narrowed, “What else?”

“We-,” he sighed and tapped his thumbs against each other atop his threaded fingers, “We’ll need your help drawing him out to us. It followed me last night-” he held up a hand to stop her questions before they started, “-and I’m fairly certain it’s because my colleague and I smelled like you. When it didn’t attack me, I think it’s because it was confused why the trail of you faded.”

They had pieced it together. It was strong enough, could have lunged for him and been done with it. Faefire or no, Icarus had a throat to rip out the same as any man. It had observed him, watched him. The more they read, the more it made sense. 

“Part of your brother was still… himself for some time. We aren’t totally clear on the mechanism for what turned him into this thing, but part of him remained who he was for a while at first. It’s why he killed a few orphans and… ladies of minor public concern,” he glanced to Maren in an appeal to transfer this horrible conversation to her, but she pointedly refused him. “The final rite of transformation is to drain the life of those he loves. After that, when all ties to his old self are severed, he enters the final stage of his transformation into this… thing.”

Try as she might, Eilonwy could not conceal the tremor that had overtaken her. She swallowed hard, staring past him at the frosted glass limned with early afternoon light for a while. Resolutely, she set her sight on him again, “What’s the final stage?”

“We don’t know,” Icarus willed the apology into his tone so he would not have to say it aloud.

She exhaled hard, annoyance replacing the grief for a moment, “And you need me to lure him out.”

He nodded, singular and sharp. The plan was simple enough to be stupid, but if the abhartach could not tell the difference between someone who had touched his sister and Eilonwy herself Icarus had little faith in its intellect. Trap it, question it, kill it. The only wildcard was how it would react to Eilonwy when they used her as bait. 

***

Icarus bounced his leg as he leaned against the stacked crates in the alley. There was a blank spot in all of this. An empty palace where information should have been. He folded his arms tight across his chest and stared between the cobblestones at his feet. Running back through the case had not helped. Still, he smelled it like a bloodhound and could not let it go. 

Fae and demonic traces had resonated. While he could explain them away, none of them fit in a way he found satisfying. Maren--if she had been troubled by it--said nothing. Even when they set out in the cold to prepare, she made no mention. So here he was peeling apart the layers in silence waiting in the damp, foggy dark for a monster. 

His hand slipped into his coat and he rattled his flask, lamenting not topping up before they left. He drained what was left and took a steadying breath. Simple as the plan might be, plans had a funny way of getting away from people. He was not such a fool to believe himself immune. 

There was still something fundamentally wrong with this whole care. He could not put his finger on it. Whatever was being concealed skirted the edges of his awareness and stayed just out of reach. He had hoped the remnants of his flask might help turn over some stone of knowledge to illuminate the mystery-

The air changed. 

He stiffened, head cocked, listening. Shadows grew longer at the mouth of the street. The amber light of the streetlamps change as if drained by the inky darkness trailing behind the slow-moving, familiar figure approaching. 

He stayed out of sight, fingers wrapped around the hilt of his knife. His awareness sharpened, keen on the weight of his sword strapped to his back. The chill in the air hollowed out--cold in a way that had nothing to do with winter. 

One breath.

Two.

Footsteps echoing in an even tempo. Eilonwy kept her shoulders straight from what he could see of her, staying even and standing tall. If she were afraid, he could not tell. The creature trailing at a distance too close for his liking, however, could probably hear the mad hammering of her heart. 

Every muscle wound tight like a spring. Hand ready at the edge of the small blade. If this did not go colossally fucking sideways, he could grab Eilonwy in a pinch if he was ready. She was closer now. Almost there. His pulse slowed, breath even and deep. One hand flexed when the calm of battle washed over him. He whispered a prayer to the Archangel Lazriel, Right Hand of the Pale God, for strength and speed. 

He slashed his forearm and drew his sword. The alley flared with blue firelight, abruptly channeled into the metal where it flowed into every sigil like molten iron. In the same breath, he stepped into the street.

“Go!” He shouted to Eilonwy. 

She lifted her skirts and broke into a run. He stepped forward, careful to miss the salt line--the most critical part of their idiotic plan. Twin pinpricks of light raged and widened in the dark. Light refracted from some corrupted inner place. A howl filled the air--bitter with fury, agony, a thousand trapped souls emanating their last fearful cries in one single haunting bellow.

It moved, slower than he anticipated. In the muted light of the gaslamps, the abhartach allowed itself to be revealed. He raised his sword in a high guard, barely inside the strike from the thing’s long, talonlike nails. He shoved and it took a surprised step back. 

“Maren!” He roared. 

The thing that was once a man straightened and whirled in time to catch Maren closing the final line of salt along the road. Its howl turned into a shriek--violence and peeling metal rolled into one hideous noise. With a whisper, Maren’s hand hovered over the grains and they began to glow. With its path sealed and its movement enclosed, it turned to the only thing that remained inside the battleground it was trapped in. 

Icarus. 

Good morning and happy Labor Day! I hope you're finding a way to rest today. Here's a look back at my reading over the past week. Books marked with a * were gifted to me and books marked with a ^ I was paid to read.

Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast by Pamela Colloff* - I saw Colloff speak at the National Book Festival and immediately downloaded this audiobook. I found it to be a bit scattered in the first half. It seemed like her subject, Paul Skalnik, did so much and ruined so many lives that it was hard to organize it into a narrative until she focused on Jim Dailey's case. Overall though, it's clearly written and horrifying in that way nonfiction can be where if it was fiction you'd say it wasn't believable. I appreciate Colloff highlighting the way the legal and carceral systems failed - and making it clear that this wasn't a fluke, but the way things are structured.

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong - This was a reread for me so I can dive into the sequel that came out this year. Also, I totally dropped the ball on holding a book club discussion for it, I'm so sorry! I was not expecting August to be as busy as it was. If you've read it, please drop your thoughts in the Discord!

Stories of a Devoted Mother: From the Kovno Ghetto to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn by Diane Cypkin^ - Through reading manuscripts for Books Forward PR, I've read a lot of memoirs. I've discovered that I really enjoy this sort of subgenre of them - books about people who aren't famous and maybe didn't lead an extraordinary life, but that show us what life was like for a specific community at a specific time. In this case, Cypkin was the child of Lithuanian Jews who survived the Holocaust and made a new life in New York City. It's vignettes of life in midcentury Brooklyn, and I greatly enjoyed it. (Now, I said "not extraordinary life" but that's not true for her parents, and we do get their horrifying experiences as well.)

Cold in Mississippi: A Memoir of the Human Soul in Medicine by Dwaine Rieves^ - This is another memoir in the "regular-ish people" subgenre outlined above, but unfortunately this one was a miss for me. It's quite scattered, often bouncing between several decades within one page. Rieves is trying to sort out whether the concept of the soul should be considered in medicine, but the parallels he's trying to draw between his research and caring for his mother dying of cancer don't really land due to how all over the place the writing is.

Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi - This was, as I expected, unhinged and fun. There's not a ton of depth to the characters given h0w high concept and fast moving the plot is. I didn't really care, though, and was just gleefully along for the ride. Scalzi is so good at snark, and this novel is like 75% snark.