“Welcome ba—”
She groaned and collapsed onto the sofa. Handsome immortal visitors or not, Fi had every right to relax in her own home.
“I see.” Antal’s smirk teased a fang. He returned to his tinkering, giving Fi time to wrestle out of her coat and kick her boots off. Dressed down to a more comfortable sweater, she sprawled anew.
“How’s Yvette treating you?” she asked.
“They only joked about impaling me twice today. An improvement.”
“That’s nice.”
Exhausting work, but welcome progress. Fi had less kindthings to say about Boden’s tight scheduling, which made her miss lunch. She ought to eat something before—
Fi sniffed, noticing the warm, nutty aroma.
She rose, following the smell to her kitchen. A mug waited on the counter, still hot.
“What’s this?”
“Coffee,” Antal said, not looking up from his work.
Fi squinted at the offering. “Is it poisoned?”
A scoff. “I have far more direct means of ending you, Fionamara.”
“Salted, then?”
“Now, that’s just rude.”
Fi sipped the drink, annoyed to find it prepared immaculately, frothed and sugared exactly how she liked. Was it her glower that drew Antal’s chuckle? Or simply his game of constantly shifting the ground beneath her?
“Thank you,” she conceded quietly. A sigh through tired lips, tired hands too used to always taking care of herself.
Antal said nothing. His grin was more treacherous than claws. And the way his neck craned over his work, the easy slope of muscled shoulders…
Enough ofthat. Fi selected a record and set it on her gramophone. The song opened with a piano solo, filling the cottage with soulful keys. She settled on her sofa. Closed her eyes. The day’s tension fled as she tapped her fingers to the rhythm, the joining accompaniment of snare drums and bass stirring beats through her ribs. The brass joined next, quick and deep, lifting the song to a new height.
Then, a lowswish swishshe didn’t recognize.
Antal’s claws stilled on his work, the metal fixture settling against his knee. His eyes went half closed. Unfocused. His tail swished her sofa, moving in time to the music.
“You shouldn’t stare at a daeyari’s tail,” Antal said, clipped. “It’s rude.”
Fi stiffened, torn between defensive and embarrassed that he’d caught her looking. “Sorry! I just thought, your tail seems to change based on what you’re feeling, and…”
Antal gave her a dry look, his tail coiled defensively around one leg.
“Oh.” Now that Fi thought of it, she wouldn’t be keen on someone reading her emotions so openly, either.
“It’s a valuable skill,” Antal said, softer. “Noticing these things. Just do it more subtly.”
“Sure,” she agreed, because hehadmade her a nice cup of coffee. “You… like music?”
Antal’s tail uncurled—Fi noticed from the corner of her eye,notstaring. When the horn solo started, his gaze slipped soft again.
“This is Old River Infirmary,” he said. “A Spring Plane recording.”
He was spot on, the record picked up at a canal-side music house while Fi unwound after a successful barter of contraband copper. She’d seen that gramophone in his home, but never thought more of it.
