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SOYER
June 14
I lounged on my couch and stared out at the still-bright sky above the city before heaving a sigh. It was 8 pm, fucking hours before I could walk into the Moonlight without flustering Amory or getting him to worry.
On a normal day, I might have just crept into the bed upstairs which smelled a lot like him these days, but last night, during the tail end of celebrating our three-month anniversary, it had gotten a little messy, and Amory had been embarrassed to the extreme, and so I’d run him a bath, left him in the tub for ten minutes. I’d changed the sheets before I’d joined him in the warm water, and now, our sex scent was gone, replaced by Magical Forest body wash.
I sat up and looked at my screen, but of course Amory hadn’t texted. He was too fucking diligent at work, and I hated it. I walked around the house to see if there was anything—anything at all—that I could potentially clean, anything that I had missed in my regular, make-time-pass-faster cleaning sessions I’d started since the Moonlight had reopened and taken Amory away from me.
Since I was nothing if not efficient, the place was fucking spotless. Sure, normally that didn’t keep me from rubbing one out and cleaning that, but masturbating without Amory here was even worse, and the mere though bored me.
I went upstairs and changed out of my sweatpants and tee into an outfit appropriate for leaving the house, put on boots, and grabbed my coat. I needed to do something to kill the time.
Downstairs, right when the elevator doors opened, I saw the young Star-Garbed behind the front desk and smiled. He was still green enough to be fun to mess with.
I started by walking toward him, but I did it real slow. He noticed. Being a wolf, he looked down to emphasize his submission.
I stopped at the front desk, put my hand on there, and used my fingers for staccato taps against the wooden surface. Tack-tack-tack-tack. Tack-tack-tack-tack. I said, “I did laundry earlier today.”
He swallowed. “Yes, sir?”
I cocked my head and drew my eyebrows together, something he wouldn’t miss with the glances he stole at my face.
“I’m going out, and I need you to move it to the dryer.”
He exhaled with some relief. “Of course, sir. Not a problem.”
“You’re going to run the gentle cycle.”
“I will.”
I forced myself not to smile as I said the next bit. “I also need you to fold it. It’s a fitted sheet. You know how to properly fold a fitted sheet into a neat thirty-by-fifty rectangle, yes?”
He did not, because no one fucking did, and it showed. If he’d been in his wolf form, he would have whimpered and shown his belly, maybe after peeing a little.
“I…I will…I will figure it out, sir,” the pup said, and I knew he was going to call Atkins or Lola, and maybe I was a childish fuck who didn’t handle his boyfriend going back to work all that well, but the idea of the three of them Googling and attempting to figure out the stupid sheet filled me with unabashed glee.
“You better do,” I said. I’d have to throw the damn sheet right back in the laundry, because three people putting their hands all over it when I knew Amory was at some point going to sleep on it filled me with discomfort on a visceral level. I couldn’t explain that and I didn’t want to analyze it, so I didn’t.
I took all my petulant attitude and walked out of Sundial Tower.
My feet carried me to Lorenzo’s Bodega without much conscious thought. I realized it was because I was craving fried potato pancakes the moment I walked in there.
Lorenzo—the spawn form that was wearing that name tag anyway—was in his normal place by the register, but another spawn form was stocking the shelves. The latter looked much younger, like a teenager.
“Black Shuck,” Lorenzo said.
“Hi. Passing this one off as your son?”
“Nephew,” the younger spawn said.
“Hmm.” Several spawn forms meant the soil conditions in Lorenzo’s—the real thing’s—pot were just right, or it was under a lot of stress to produce an extra to protect itself. And because I was nice and neighborly, I asked, “Everything okay?”
The young spawn smiled. “Very, actually. Lord Hawthorne has just been leaving some extra bone ash with me. It makes wonderful fertilizer.”
“Ah. Of course. In that case, I’m just passing through to the underground.”
Both nodded, and I made my way to and down the escalators, walking instead of just standing there. Not that I was in a hurry. I checked my phone on the way, and Amory hadn’t texted. That first day of reopening—it had been good, but I’d known he’d not give in that easily on a regular basis.
“Why the fuck did I have to pick a rule-follower?” I mumbled into the assembly hall with its vaulted ceiling at the bottom of the escalator.
Unsurprisingly, I drew some attention on my way along the boardwalk. I stared too, right in people’s face instead of behind their backs. Pseudo-faces in the case of the salinian, a saltwater dweller who had managed to either shift two of his tentacles to legs or had gotten them to look remarkably like legs. They wore a long coat and hat, so I wasn’t sure which. They had tea and cake in the company of a human, all of which spelled out date .
I hated that and looked away. I damn near missed a step when I spotted one of the rarer sights, even in the underground. Sitting at a back table on the boardwalk, behind the salinian’s, I saw two black widows, their faces veiled in black, and one very difficult-to-miss Cassandrian who usually gave his name as Echo. I knew next to nothing about the Cassandrian, but Valentin hired him sometimes. Echo’s rates were astronomical if he decided to take the job.
Even his looks spelled exclusivity. His hair was practically white and his eyes blue, clear blue if I remembered correctly, nothing of the type of pattern that made it look like a normal iris. The curse he had inherited had apparently come down especially strong in him, and it showed.
For three steps, I pondered simply walking past, but then Echo looked right at me. I stopped, turned left, heading straight for their table.
The salinian’s shape vibrated, making their date stop in their story. I ignored that and stepped right up to the table at the back.
“We meet again,” one of the black widows said, the distorted voice anathema to that childlike body.
Huh. The one I’d met on Silver Line, near the Asymptote. Where that graffiti had been. The thing still nagged at the back of my mind.
I said, “A rare pleasure, madam.”
Echo picked up his teacup. He was still looking at me. “Beautiful evening for a walk, Lord Shuck. Though, I hear you do not spend much time down here or anywhere.” He cocked his head. “Did. Before you took a lover, and two vassals on top of that.”
“I’m not a lord.”
He lifted both eyebrows. “But you are.”
“No. And don’t argue with me. I don’t want to have to make a point with a man of your reputation.”
Echo chuckled. He looked pretty doing it in a way a lot of men could never hope to. Only Amory was more sublime if he deigned giggle for me.
“Fearsome, Lord Shuck. Anyway, the ladies had a disagreement and were about to ask me to settle it. But perhaps, since you are here, might you try first?”
The black widows nodded. Eagerly? I wasn’t sure they did anything eagerly. I shrugged and nodded, because I really had nothing better to do. And of course something interesting was happening here.
The other black widow—not the one I had met—said, “There are tunnels beyond these walls that make our world. You are aware?”
“Yes. Old maintenance mostly and connections never fully built out that Valentin had walled up.”
The widow nodded her veiled head. “You know of the Old Theater?”
I searched my memory and low-key hated that I’d spent enough time in the city to sort of know about the place. I said, “It was supposed to become an elevator or something, but the city shut that project down.”
“Emergency exit stairwell,” the widow I’d first met on Silver Line said.
The other spoke. “We were arguing whether it was behind this wall next to us and down, or whether it was up.”
“No idea,” I said. “I don’t really know the maintenance tunnels that well.”
Echo smiled at me. “It’s up, Black Shuck. Not ever the first choice of those who feel close in mind to the dread offered by hell or any underworld. Up like hope.”
Well, the fucker was a Cassandrian all right. I wasn’t going to give him lip. For all I knew, this was important, so instead of telling him where he might want to stick his idea of hope, I said, “Would you allow me to pay for your tea?” like a fucking gentleman.
Echo winked at me. “Not today. Another time.”
And that right fucking there, that was the ominous part. The suggestion I might owe him. Fucking Cassandrians. I excused myself, thinking, Should have just kept on walking.
The triglav brothers did make good business with their foot truck. Of course they spotted me right as I joined the line, just a moment before the chimera dude right in front of me did. The eyes of the man’s demon head went wide, the yellow cat-slit pupils contracting.
“Oh,” said that head, which also came with horns. It made sense, given he had a tail like a lion’s tail that was swishing over the ground right in front of my shins.
The chimera turned and said, with their human head, “Would you like to go ahead of me?”
“Sure,” I said.
That brought me right up behind a kludde who had their wings out in a half shift and was otherwise naked. They waved me through as well as did the shifter ahead of them.
One of the triglav brothers leaned out. “Just skip the line already and stop that nonsense.”
Well, okay. What had I done in my last interaction that made me so very much not scary for them?
The other triglav split his attention—and the focus of his eyes—between his brother and myself. That one was the one I had talked to before.
“Excuse my brother. What can we get you, sir?” he said, and it made me feel a lot better about my place in the world.
“Potato pancakes. Extra applesauce.”
The nice triglav brother nodded, and the grumpy one got to work frying my pancakes, so I sidestepped the line. And because that brought me closer to the triglavs, I said, “Busy day?”
“We like them busy. But yes, so many Pride parties happening.”
Right. That certainly explained the naked kludde, and now that I was at leisure to observe, the chimera was wearing a pair of tailored fake leather pants with a matching shirt that showed generous cleavage at the front. And the human head wore a collar while the demon head didn’t. That was going to confuse people, but who was I to judge?
I looked at one set of the nice triglav’s eyes. “You do Pride brownies?”
The other triglav grumbled from three mouths. My Czech was rough, and I didn’t give a fuck if he thought I was an ass for doing some subtle marketing.
“No, but we do breakfast burritos. And tacos.”
The kludde took note of that. They looked woman-shaped, apart from the leathery wings, maybe their real shape, maybe not.
“We’re coming back for tacos,” the demon head of the chimera said.
“Burrito for me,” said his human head.
That got them to glare at each other in that hilarious way you only ever saw with real chimeras whose heads were having a disagreement. Getting dressed had been worth it, just to see this.
“Crispy bramboráky, extra applesauce,” said the grumpy triglav and handed me my order on a paper plate.
I was tempted to mess with him too, but the food was amazing here. The bit about the rainbow Pride brownies was as far as I was willing to go.
“Looks delicious,” I told him and fished a bill out of my pocket. “Keep the change.”
Both triglav’s eyes settled on the money for the moment it took me to grab some extra napkins.
“This is more than ten times the price,” Grumpy said.
“My lover works in the service industry and believes hard work should be honored. Thanks for these, and don’t cuss at me in Czech next time I come by.” Well, the brownies were almost as far as I was willing to go.
I walked off, my reputation hopefully intact. Nice got Grumpy to shout an apology at me. I gave them a lazy, dismissive wave and headed a little further along the boardwalk, just to get some people-watching in.
I was able to eat half of my pancakes in peace before I ran into a tiny problem. Her name was Ella, Rae’s sister, and she was lounging on one of the many park benches along the boardwalk with equally young and noisy teenagers. They were drinking soda and eating artificial flavorings and food coloring in the shape of so-called “snacks.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have given Ella a wide berth, but I fucking couldn’t. Because her sibling was my fucking vassal. Children were the fucking worst.
I approached silently, and since they were also staring at their phone screens while consuming trash and sugar, I walked right up to them without any one of them noticing me.
Ella’s company included, to my increased distress, one Star-Garbed fetus wolf among a serpentine shifter going by the traces of scales on his face, a red-scaled gorgon, and another shifter of some kind or other.
The Star-Garbed noticed me first. “Oh,” she said.
I ignored the ones I wasn’t responsible for and said, “Ella. Could you give me the time, please?”
That made everyone fall silent. Ella blinked at me a few times. She never looked at her phone but met my gaze and said, “Rae knows I’m out.”
And yes, she was a good liar given that it had been a survival skill for her, but I saw her twitch and saw her pupils dilate. Luckily, while I was responsible for her, I was under no obligation to give a fuck about her attitude. Or the fucking eyeliner, which was still too much.
“Don’t give a fuck. Put the junk food in the trash. I’m taking you home.”
I bit into one of the pancakes before they all got cold. Ella thought that was an invitation to a staring contest, which—brave of her. Her friend’s snake hair slithered around Ella’s shoulders as if to boost her strength, but after very nearly a minute, the kid finally got up and walked her soda can over to the trash. By this time, most of the attitude had melted out of her. Her hand trembled a little when I tossed my paper plate and wooden fork into the trash as well.
“Say bye to your friends. We’re leaving through Lorenzo’s Bodega, and from there, we’re taking a cab to your place.” Knowing what was happening should at least put her at ease. Stupid vassalship.
The Star-Garbed jogged over to Ella when Ella didn’t move right away and hugged her. “See you at school, Ell.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
I started walking. Ella followed.
“I wasn’t doing anything bad,” she said, breaking the blessed silence.
“Awesome. Keep that up.”
“Really, I wasn’t. It’s just that Rae works, and I don’t like being home alone.”
“Watch TV or video chat.” The latter of which I would love to do as well, except my boyfriend wouldn’t while he was working.
The kludde zoomed past, flying just above our heads, paper bags that spread the smell of delicious food in what was now a claw. Ella didn’t respond, and I thought the silence would last. It didn’t.
“Are you going to tell Rae?”
“Sure.”
She stopped, which meant I had to stop. We were right at the café where the salinian was continuing their date, and reconsidering it now, maybe that too was a Pride thing. I could see a human wanting to date tentacles or experiment during one of the many events this month.
Ella pulled my wandering mind back to her. She wasn’t going to cry, but some sort of emotion was churning inside of her, making her vibrate like a struck tuning fork.
She said, “Please don’t. They always worry. And they always do stuff for me. I… I wasn’t doing anything bad, and I wouldn’t. Because I know they would be coming to help me. I really just didn’t want to be alone at home tonight, okay? I won’t do it again. Please don’t tell them.”
Fuck. I didn’t do this kind of shit. This kind of shit came with vassalship and all those loose ends that entailed. I held out my hand. “Phone.”
To Ella’s credit, she didn’t really hesitate and handed me the device. I never knew when I’d have to use it for work, so I had some software I had custom-made on me at all times, tucked in a hidden pocket and safe on a flash drive. I plugged the USB 3 plug into the port while Ella watched with wide eyes framed by that atrociously thick line of black.
The software was designed to self-install quickly and run in the background even with the screen lock on. I handed her the phone back.
“What did you do?”
“Made it so I can keep an eye on you,” I said then thought about what the Star-Garbed had said. School. “I’ll also be calling St. Auguste.” I was going to send an email. Or even better, stop by in person the next time Amory’s absence upset me, so tomorrow. “If I hear a negative word out of one of your teachers’ mouths, I’ll blame Rae for it. They’re my vassal, not you.”
That hit home. If I were not me, I’d probably feel bad about using one of the sex demon siblings against the other, but I was very much me, so this was fine.
Ella said, “There’s this one test I got a C on, but that was sort of an accident.”
“Huh.” I turned, ready to head toward the escalators, but then saw three abandoned teacups still sitting on a back table. On a hunch, I headed toward the table. Ella followed.
“Really. It was a surprise test, and I was still catching up, okay? They are fucking strict at that school, and the curriculum is intense. You have no idea.”
“Sure.”
“It won’t happen again! Plus Math, I’m really good at Math, okay?”
“I’m sure your teachers will confirm that.”
Under the teacup Echo had drunk from, there was a card. His name, embossed in beautiful cursive the color of rose gold, and his phone number. In ink—not some cheap pen, but proper ink like I liked to use—he had written, See you around, Lord Shuck.
Fucker. I hated a Cassandrian who needed to prove their skill for prophecy at every turn. And while I didn’t owe him yet, I still might, because he was a fucking Cassandrian, and he’d told me some stupid shit about hell and the underworld.
“Fuck,” I said.
“They will, I swear!” Ella said.
I pocketed the card and decided to use my momentum with the teenager. “They better.”
She nodded. “What are we doing here? Are we stopping for tea?”
“No. Left something. March on. I’m taking you home, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“Really? Do I also need to check you are carrying condoms while you’re out with your friends at night?”
That shut her up once more, at least until we got to the escalators. There, she said, “You don’t need condoms with another girl.”
“Couldn’t tell you. Not anything that I ever had on my to-do list.”
And Ella just nodded.
I was almost back to mostly ignoring her when I put things together. The way Ella had leaned against the werewolf in her group. Had smiled. The way the werewolf had made a point of hugging her.
“Wait. Are you telling me you are fucking the Star-Garbed?”
Ella’s face turned an unhealthy shade of red. “No! I mean, do you have to say it like that?”
“No. You want to fuck the Star-Garbed?”
“How even—that’s none of your business!”
It wasn’t, not really. But the fucking Star-Garbed would be delighted the little sister of my vassal was getting close to one of their own. They would double my holiday candy. Triple it, because with Amory there, they would already double it anyway. I pulled out my phone and ordered several more fitted sheets I could put in the laundry over the next month.
When I put the device away and we changed to the second escalator, I said, “The pack is good people. They take care of their own.” I swallowed against a sudden lump in my throat, said, “You could do worse than one of them.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“And I’m just saying.”
She nodded. “You’re a nice guy.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
Ella smiled at me. If I remembered correctly, that was the first time she had ever done that.
“Just… people usually pretend to be nice and aren’t. But you pretend to be mean and bad, and you are neither.”
“You remember how we met, right?”
She shrugged as we stepped off the escalator and the lights around us switched on automatically.
“I do. But those were bad people. Very bad. And you saved me and Rae.”
She didn’t say anything else. So I handed her a plastic shopping basket and let her go wild in the bodega. Stupid children.
“Want some?” Ella asked, holding out a candy bar to me in the back of the 47 cab.
“I’m not in a hurry to die tonight, thank you.”
She chewed on whatever vile thing she was eating. “You’re weird.”
“Just eat your fucking junk food and leave me out of it.”
“Weird love language,” the kid mumbled, just barely quietly enough for me to ignore.
The rustling of candy wrappers made the drive long, very long. Once we finally got there, Ella walked up the stairs slowly, probably because of the heels, and she dug around in her purse for ages before she finally found her key.
When she had the door open, I turned toward the stairs, relieved this ordeal was over.
“Wait, are you just gonna go?”
Fucking hell. “Yeah.”
Ella pointed. “But… I should offer you something to drink, right? For taking me here. I can make you coffee.”
“I’m not having coffee with you when you should be in bed.”
“It’s not even ten, and I’m not a baby.”
“Now you tell me.” I turned back to the stairs.
“Wait. Can you just please… Can you please just check the apartment?”
I knew who owned the building—the Star-Garbed Wolves. In addition, everyone knew Ella was the sister of my vassal. The only thing that might have been hiding in their closets were spiders.
Still, I could hear the fear in the kid’s voice, even if she tried hard to hide it. And I imagined that Amory had once been like Ella, about the same age, all alone in the world, and equally scared. Had he also been working the night shift then?
“Fine. This one time only.”
Ella had made me a cappuccino before I managed to extract myself from the situation. The damn kid was evil. The cappuccino had been decent. I’d stayed and used the time to criticize Ella’s schoolwork and her dearly lacking cursive, something I sure as shit was going to bring up with St. Auguste on my little errand there tomorrow. I’d only learned reading and writing years and years after meeting the witch, and I took pride in it. I’d be damned before my vassal’s little sister left school with cursive skills that were that underdeveloped.
When I was finally back in a cab, it was a little after ten. Still early, but I’d earned an early treat for myself after tonight.
“Moonlight Diner,” I told the driver.
She nodded and took me there.
The silver bells above the Moonlight’s door twinkled, and my heart felt like a flower thrust into bloom by the arrival of summer when Amory’s eyes locked onto mine.
He was by the coffee machines, making a new pot.
“Welcome to the Moonlight Diner,” he said.
“Hi.”
I cast a look around the place. All tables save the one next to Mr. Laptop were taken, and that was not happening. Humans sat at my table, chatting and laughing and taking photos of their food. Rae was busy, laden tray in hand. Ben had eyes on Amory.
Amory looked from me to my table, clearly uncomfortable and afraid I was going to chase his customers off, and so I grabbed a chair at the counter instead, one with room to either side.
“You’re early today,” he said, but he was happy to see me. The cherry blossoms blooming in his cheeks told me as much.
“Should I leave and come back later?” I said, reaching out my hand because I longed to feel his touch. He gave it, and I closed my fingers around his.
“No, I don’t mean that. I’m happy to see you.”
“Good. Because I’m happy to see you too.”
He leaned in, giving me a clear look at his eyes and their golden corona… as well as the slightest peek at his chest.
“Hmm. One of your buttons came off on your shirt.”
He sighed, put his hand on the gap and closing off my view. Shame.
“I know. Happened earlier. It’s in my pocket. I’m blaming you because of last night.”
I gave him the smuggest look I could muster. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Oh, you know.”
“I told you to run or else.”
He smiled at me shyly, looked left and right to make sure no one was overhearing this. They were, of course. Maybe not Roland, yet another Cassandrian, but Ben certainly.
“You can’t always tear my clothes off me, Soyer. It’s hot and all, but you shouldn’t. I have to get this one to my tailor tomorrow.”
I cocked my head. “You’re not kidding. Why do you have to get the shirt to a tailor? Did I manage to tear it anywhere else where there’s an even better view?”
“Shh! And no. It’s just that I can’t sew, and getting a button done is only going to cost me a short trip to Archway Station, so it’s not a bother. I can pick up some groceries on my way.”
“I’ll sew this back on for you. All it’s going to cost me is about five minutes of my time, and you can pay me for that right away.”
“Wow, you can? And you would?”
“Of course,” I said. Then realized something, just a little thing. Archway Station was barely still downtown, even had one exit that led up to the financial district. It was very close to Gold & Sage, Shamhat’s place. Where I had almost seen and certainly felt Amory in a crowd. I’d never been sure it had been real and not imagined.
“Well, since you destroyed it, I’ll take you up on it. Thank you.” He pointed to a set of plates Dwayne had just gotten ready. “Those’re mine.”
“Right. Just one moment. Did you visit your tailor earlier this year? Around the time we met?”
He cocked his head. “Might have. Oh, I definitely did. You remember that jacket, the one you, erm, ruined?”
“The only winter jacket you had, the one you didn’t tell me to replace right away. Yeah, I’m not going to forget.”
“It needed a new zipper in one pocket, and that was probably February. If only I’d known I’d meet you and—you know.” He mouthed blood before collecting the food and serving it.
I sat there, waiting for Amory to get me coffee and sweet cherry pie, the mystery of that feeling, that almost sighting of him the day I’d gone to Gold & Sage to ask about the job I’d been hired to do, finally resolved.
I didn’t imagine you. You were there. Through chance and your lacking skill as a seamster, you were there. And I might have met you that day, sans blood.
The thought, this almost touch that had been so magnetic on my end, it left me floating in the hubbub of the busy diner for about an hour, even after Amory served me like he did every night, after he told me to give Ben the rest of the night off, which I did though the werewolf chose to stay.
What pulled me out of reliving that day was Amory getting out another piece of cherry pie and bringing it to fucking Mr. Laptop, who maybe needed his knees bruised a tiny little bit. Amory wouldn’t like that of course, and so it remained a cherished fantasy.
Amory, even after his busy night, wanted to walk. We compromised on taking a cab but letting it drop us two blocks away from Sundial Tower.
“It’s such a pretty night,” he said, his hand in mine. “Hey, is that a waxing or a waning moon?”
I looked where he was pointing. “Waning.”
“You just know stuff like that, huh. Just like fixing my shirt.”
I chuckled. “You’re adorable. It’s just a button.”
But Amory wasn’t talking about the moon or buttons. He went quiet, his jaw working. He wanted to know more about me without being nosy.
I said, “I traveled a lot. You pick up on things.”
“What’s your favorite place? Of all the places you went to?”
“Well, let’s see. I liked the anonymity of London, but it was a disgusting, dangerous place.” That too had been something that—at least a part of me—had liked, and it wasn’t anything that Amory needed to hear. “Salzburg had music and light and cobblestones, but the people… well, they’re all dead now, so I don’t need to tell you how stuck-up they were. Bombay—and I know it isn’t called that anymore—had temples and heat and a thousand types of food I’d never eaten before. Got me sick on more than one occasion.
“You know, I’m not really sure actually. I have seen beautiful places and ugly places. Maybe I need you there with me to be sure.”
“Oh stop,” he said, bumping my shoulder. “You already got me to agree to go follow Caecilius’s trail with you.”
There was a name I didn’t like coming out of my lover’s mouth.
“Yes, but this would be for our enjoyment. Stop looking like you have to make plans or excuses right away. I’m not saying we’re leaving in the morning, I’m saying we’re going to be doing more than the same routine everyday eventually. Okay?”
Amory immediately relaxed and said, “Okay.”
I would use this against him to get him to take time off work as soon as possible.
“…and they said it got lots of comments and people came in hoping to see them—or someone—dance,” Amory was saying as we walked into the foyer of Sundial Tower.
“Nice of them to handle PR.”
He tried elbowing me, but I stepped out of his reach before closing the distance again. “We don’t dance though.”
“Right,” I said, agreeing that there should be no dancing. A brief nightmare image of Amory dancing with Mr. Laptop and Mr. Laptop putting his hands around Amory’s hips popped up in my head. Yeah, that was not happening. “No, of course you don’t dance. Would break the Moonlight’s flair.”
“Exactly.”
The Star-Garbed at the front desk stood as we approached, head lowered. Well. I’d wanted to come back here after the underground and make him squirm a little about the damn sheet. Damn Ella and her cappuccino.
“Sir,” the Star-Garbed said, and Amory stopped, giving the man a friendly smile. That was so wrong. After closing. Amory’s smiles should belong only to me.
“You got it done?” I asked.
The Star-Garbed fidgeted, and fuck. He glanced at Amory once, so typical for a wolf who knew he was in trouble and was looking for support from his pack.
“Oh?” Amory said.
“I asked the house pawn to take care of some laundry while I was out.”
“Oh.” He smiled at the pawn. “Thanks, Jules.”
Here he was, made plain and evident, my greatest weakness and threat to my long and carefully cultivated reputation, even among these house pawns: Amory, love of my immortal life and incorrigibly nice guy. He’d ruin me, utterly.
“Yeah, thanks, Jules,” I said, wondering when my Amory had found the time to inquire after and memorize the pawn’s name.
We rode up the elevator, me knowing full well that I would no longer be able to torture the house pawn with laundry—at least not in any fun way—Amory oblivious. The laundry basket waited right outside my door, and Amory picked it up while I let us in.
“Wow, this is super neat,” he said, flushed, his forehead wrinkling. “That’s last night’s laundry, isn’t it?”
“Stop worrying. It’s just laundry. And yeah, they’re neat house pawns if they want to be.”
Amory lifted a corner of the indeed very neatly folded sheet. “Isn’t this a fitted sheet? I didn’t think it was possible to fold them like this at all.”
“It’s not. They’re Teufelswerk, the devil’s handiwork, made to frustrate every normal person and make them doubt their sanity.”
Amory chuckled as I closed the door behind him. “What language was that?”
“English.”
“Soyer.”
“Fine. English with a dash of German. Why?”
“How many languages do you speak?”
I shrugged. “A few I speak well. A lot of them good enough to order food.”
“Will you tell me how many?”
I took the laundry from him and put it down on the ground in the hallway, then put my hands on his hips. “That changes, because language changes. Can I kiss you?”
He nodded, and I did. And he felt so fucking good, skin cool from the night air, breath warm when he opened his mouth to me. I’d learned to read moods from the way he kissed, and tonight’s mood wasn’t the one where I could just strip him and take him to bed. I had known that already given how chatty he had been since getting into the cab with me.
I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t cook. Can I make you a sandwich?”
“You don’t always have to cook for me, and a sandwich sounds wonderful.”
“Hnm. Wonderful. Leave your shirt down here and get changed while I make it.”
Amory nodded, and I watched him while I took off my coat and put it away in my former armory. He was still so self-conscious, getting naked in front of me, even if it was just taking off his shirt.
Some ten minutes later, I was still in the kitchen, slicing the last of the heirloom tomatoes, when he came back down, looking like a delightful treat.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Sure. Come here,” I said, surprising him. Amory knew he was supposed to relax after work and let himself be served.
He came into the kitchen eagerly rubbing his hands. “What do you need?”
I crooked a finger. “Come closer.”
“Says the assassin with the fancy knife.”
I looked at the nakiri knife in my hand. “This isn’t an assassin knife, my heart. It’s for veggies.”
He chuckled and came closer. “Okay, if you say so. What do I do?”
“Open your mouth.”
He did, and I fed him the last bit of the juicy tomato.
“There. That’s all I need you to do in the kitchen tonight, Amory. Go sit at the table.”
Still chewing tomato, he gave me an indulgent look and slowly made his way around the kitchen island and sat, waiting for me.
“Soyer, can I ask you something?”
I assembled the sandwiches I’d made for us and sliced them diagonally. They had the tomato, shredded cabbage, spicy tempeh, pickles and cucumber slices along with homemade eggplant dip, not exactly baba ghanoush, but similar. I still got a kick out of thinking that Amory’s favorite food was eggplant.
“Always.”
I put the sandwiches on a nice serving plate and brought them and two extra plates and napkins over to the table. Amory, his elbows propped up, watched me and not the food, which was objectively pretty to look at.
“I know you don’t like talking about your past much.”
“Hmm.”
“And that’s okay. But I wonder what it was like, back then. Back—I mean in the past, in general.”
I watched him fidget as I placed a plate in front of each of us, the larger serving plate with the sandwiches in the middle.
“I see,” I said and headed back to the kitchen to get two glasses and some water from the fridge.
I had tried to live, at least for a while. Just live. Alongside people, with people. For stretches, there had been laughter in my life, intimacy, both physical and to a lesser degree emotional, but all of these encounters ended in pain and death. And the pain in my past—the witch and everything before—always napped at my heels. I’d come to a certain kind of peace over the years, but it was nothing like the sense of belonging I felt each time I touched or kissed Amory.
All of that made a shit story, unworthy, just marginally better than lemon juice to sour milk. But I knew I had to give the man I loved something of myself. He deserved everything and generally asked so very little.
I sat down, poured him a glass of water and said, “A few hundred years ago, I decided to learn baking.” He froze as if I’d stop if he did anything, so I put a sandwich on his plate. “Eat. I wanted to learn something useful that would make the time go by faster, and I was thinking of staying in one place for a while.
“At the time, I’d been traveling all over the Alps—literally, going over. Goods, people, news, it was a decent way to make money, but after the third time dying on those fucking mountains—oh, hush, it’s fine—well, after the third time, I was pissed off and done.” It hadn’t been dying. It had been dying over and over while those who had been traveling with me had not been so lucky in the blizzard that hit our group.
Amory finally bit into his sandwich after I paused, and as a little reward, I decided to go on. Don’t think about the bodies in the snow, forget about those frozen faces.
“I picked a town just north of the Alps. It was a pretty place with a river and busy streets, affluent enough and big enough to make it easy for me to move there, stay there, and be undiscovered for a few decades.
“I found a childless baker who was looking for a good apprentice, and he took me on.” The man’s wife had died after suffering from syphilis. He’d not contracted it. I became something of a houseboy to the baker, who was genuinely kind and taught me everything he knew. “He was a good teacher, and the work was hard but enjoyable.”
“I didn’t know you could bake,” Amory said.
“Oh, I can. All day if I have to. Fine. You don’t have to give me that look. I’ll make some bread for you before the month is out.
“The baker died.” And I grieved and hated myself for deciding to take a break from my nomadic life. But I stayed, because the man had no family, and someone needed to make sure he received a proper burial. “My time in that place was running out. People already commented that I needed to get married, always a sign they thought you were getting old back then.
“But I couldn’t just do that. You see, the baker had loved his art and his little bakery. He’d taken care of his tools and his ovens, and he’d gifted me his recipes. So I looked for an apprentice of my own. I found two.” They had been a brother and a sister who had given mercy to their mother. Who had told me all about the witch in the tower where they had been conceived. They had no home, and after that hunt, I’d needed the semblance of a home, and just like that, I taught them baking.
To Amory, I said, “They were siblings, one with a head for the business, one with a sense of the art that baking is. I stayed long enough to teach them everything the baker had taught me. I even taught them the recipe he’d held closest to his heart: a recipe for Osterbrot or Easter Bread.
“Yes, my heart. I’ll make that for you as well. The same way he taught me to, if you want. A way for you to taste what was last tasted centuries ago.
“The baker had a rule when it came to Osterbrot, which was typically eaten on Easter Sunday. He was churchgoing to some degree, because you had to be back then. He wasn’t faithful. It’s why we got along so well.” And of course the less public side of our relationship, but I’d spend a day dying before I told Amory. “One rule he had for the Osterbrot was that at least half the loaves wouldn’t be sold. He would give them away, to orphans, to less fortunate families, to homeless people. If I’m being honest, it was the most important ingredient he ever taught me.
“On my last day with them, I walked the streets of the town with the siblings, just as the morning sun woke up the world. We handed out the small feasts together, though in the end, I let them do it alone. When our baskets were empty, I told them to keep the shop and the recipes and the baker’s most valuable ingredient—kindness and generosity. I left, not taking anything but the clothes on my back and the little money in my pocket, because I wanted to start fresh somewhere else.”
I sighed. “And if you can believe it, not two days later, I run into Simeon in a pigsty. But he’ll sue me if I tell you about that, so forget I said anything.”
“Wow,” my lover said.
“Eat your dinner, Amory.”
“Yeah. Wow.” He bit into his sandwich, but I could see the gears turning, his mind a clockwork I longed to understand more than that of any timepiece I had ever owned. “How long were you there for?”
“Hmm. Around twenty years. People then took note of who was making their bread, and much longer would have been dangerous.”
“Right.” He smiled as he took another bite. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that. Or that you can bake old-fashioned bread. I definitely want to try this… what do you call it?”
“Osterbrot.”
“Yes, that.”
“I’ll make it for you,” I said and finished one triangular sandwich myself. I let Amory have the rest, because he’d been on his feet all night and was definitely hungry, and I’d had pancakes and pie.
After dinner—and he didn’t try to clean up anything for once, bless him—we moved to the couch, and he watched me fix his uniform shirt, which took approximately three minutes, although I drew it out because I enjoyed his attention.
“Soyer, how many trades do you know?” he asked, examining the mended shirt, fingers running over the button I’d resewn.
“As many as I needed to.”
“You and your half answers.”
“They’re not half answers,” I said, pulling him close until he was propped against my chest. “I’m older and need to remain a fascination for you, my younger lover.”
“Seriously, you are being silly.”
I said, “I know a good number. But you don’t do things for a while, you lose some skills. And others have become outdated. Times move on, my heart, and I always stayed the same.”
He chuckled, finally flung his shirt toward the other end of the couch, and turned until he could look at me.
“That’s such bullshit. You change. Look, you grew a new habit, coming to the Moonlight each night. That’s change.”
My Amory. I couldn’t really fault his logic there.
“As you say.” I kissed him tenderly, but with him, I’d never be able to hide my desire.
Amory pulled away, not looking for sex clearly, but wanting me close. He said, “Do you want me to… do anything to make you feel good?”
I ran my thumb along his bottom lip, remembering that Easter Sunday long ago. The twins, handing out tiny, special loaves of bread to the sick and homeless, to coughing children and destitute mothers who couldn’t afford medicine. The special loaves had contained drops of the twins’ tears. I’d told them to do it that way, so that the healed could always blame any miracle on a deity they’d never met instead of connecting it to the twins’ work. Doing it that way would still allow them their calling, because that’s what healing was to them. They had to do it like they had to breathe. They were too giving in nature.
Amory was the same, in his way. Too good for me, but mine, his affection unearned but complete.
“I can tell you don’t want to have sex with me, so why on earth would you offer me that, my heart?” I asked softly.
He flushed. “Well, because… I mean, you know. I know you’d like it, and you always give me what I want.”
For a very brief moment, I considered getting him to agree to a weekend getaway. I knew I could have gotten it, in that moment, but fuck it, he was right, I had changed, and it was for the worse.
So I said, “So long as I can hold you, there is nothing more I want, Amory. You’ll never have to offer yourself to me in order to keep me, or whatever it is you’ve read you should do or be in a relationship. Do you understand that?”
He nodded.
“And accept it?”
He nodded again.
“Amory.”
“Yes. I do.” He smiled and finally fully rested against me. “No wonder I couldn’t find someone like you on the dating apps.”
“Fuck the dating apps. I simply know you’re mine. No need to put my cock in you every night so everyone and the house pawns can smell it.”
He gasped, but ended up laughing instead of being scandalized. Interesting.
“You always make these crass jokes. Is that an old people thing?”
“Careful. Or next time I chase you, needle and thread won’t be enough to fix that shirt.”
“Okay, fine. I was just kidding.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
Amory fell asleep like that, me holding him, my fingers spread above his steadily beating heart. I woke him after an hour, knowing he’d rather be in bed, but for that hour, I had the man I loved close and safe. For an hour, nothing in the world could touch or shake the peace between us, and the knowledge that had been growing in me settled in my bones.
After all these many years of wandering the world, I was home at last.