If everything was real, then that was real too. And Dan couldn’t not help. Not when magic needed him, and oh his storyteller’s soul swung on flying trapezes at the thought; and not when another person, a flesh-and-blood bit of flirtation and compassion, could use his garlic.
He exhaled. Found the jar. Came back out to the living room. “Is it like an anti-vampire thing or—is that blood?”
“Don’t tell me you’re squeamish.” Sterling had pushed up both sleeves, baring smooth forearms; one arm bore an elegant spiraling tattoo of vines that ran up under vivid orange fabric, leaf-green and black against fairness, and the other had a new shallow nick across the back. “It’s only a couple of drops. I’m working with your dried stuff here, so it’s less potent, so I need to throw in something living.” He caught those drops with fingers, stroked them over the knife’s blade: blood and steel. “Got a Band-Aid or something? It’ll stop in a minute.”