He goes quiet, glancing away like he can’t quite look at me. “What if I want to be more than that?”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.” I force myself to hold his gaze, to say this clearly so there’s no misunderstanding. “I’m leaving. I’ll be gone for a year minimum. And when I come back,if I come back, I will not be the same person. So whatever you think you want from me, whatever you’re hoping for, let it go. Please.”
The hurt flashes across his face before he schools it into something more neutral. He nods once, pushes off the counter. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You’re right. You’ve got enough to deal with.” He heads for the door, and I follow, feeling like an asshole, but knowing it’s necessary. Knowing that letting him get closer now would only make leaving harder. “For what it’s worth? I think you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You’ll survive this.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I almost mean it.
He pauses at the door, looks back. “If you need anything before you go, and I mean anything, you call me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He nods, then leaves. The door clicks shut behind him, and I’m alone again.
I lean my forehead against the door, close my eyes, and let myself feel it for just a moment, the loneliness, the fear, the weight of everything I’m about to face. Let it wash over me and through me and then, deliberately, I lock it down. Push it into the box where I keep all the things I can’t afford to feel.
I don’t have time.
I’ve got a day to tie up loose ends, to prepare, to become someone who can walk into the House of Gold and survive.
I can fall apart after.
I push off the door, head back to the kitchen. Pour myself a glass of water from the tap, drink it standing at the sink while I stare out the window at the alley below. Someone’s cat is prowling through the garbage. The streetlight flickers and buzzes.
Normal. Everything out there is so beautifully, devastatingly normal.
I’m draining the last of the water when I hear it.
Another knock at the door.
Three sharp raps this time. Confident. Impatient.
I set the glass down harder than necessary. “Ash, I swear to God, if you came back to?—”
I yank open the door.
It’s not Ash.
The man standing in my hallway is tall, maybe six-one, six-two, and dressed like he walked out of a magazine spread for expensive menswear. Charcoal suit, perfectly tailored, crisp white shirt with the top button undone, no tie. Dark hair swept back from a face that’s handsome in that too-perfect way that immediately makes you suspicious. Sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, amber eyes that catch the hallway’s fluorescent light and seem to glow faintly.
He looks like money. Old money. Money that comes with expectations and strings attached.
And he’s smiling at me like I’m exactly what he expected to find.
“You’re not Ash,” I say flatly.
“Evidently not.” His voice is smooth, cultured, with the faintest accent I can’t quite place. British maybe, but older than that. Like someone who learned English before it split into modern dialects. “Though I’m curious who Ash is and why you thought he’d be knocking on your door at this hour.”
I start to close the door. “Wrong apartment.”
His hand shoots out fast, faster than human, and catches the door before I can slam it. He doesn’t push. Doesn’t force his way in. Just holds it there with a casual strength which tells me forcing it closed would be useless.
“I don’t think it is,” he says pleasantly. “You are Raven Vesper, aren’t you? Sin eater.” He says sin eater with a bite to the word.
My blood freezes along with every instinct I have. “Who the fuck are you?”
