“Not quite.” Apparently fed up with her disregard for his ridiculously sized sandwich, he picked it up off the plate andforced her to take it. Raising his eyebrows, he made it clear that he wouldn’t be explaining more until she took a bite.
Petra rolled her eyes, mostly so he wouldn’t pay too much attention to the warm flush that overtook her when he took care of her like that. She was pretty sure it didn’t work, though. The smug look on his face only got more pronounced when she nibbled on the sandwich, then came back for a much bigger bite.
Grinning, Silas continued, “Obviously, there hasn’t been a lot of study into this. One reason is that demons don’t like to talk about it with outsiders, and another is that the scientific establishment lacks imagination.” His upper lip curled. Petra could only guess what kind of sciencehewould do with an unlimited budget and resources.
“I’ll remind you that the establishment didn’t even accept how elementals are made until relatively recently, despite eyewitness reports that go back thousands of years. The same is true with wraiths. Almost everyone I’ve ever met has a story about seeing something move in the shadows.”
“Brains see things that aren’t there all the time.” The gods knew she’d conjured her fair share of boogeymen when she slept in alleys. Darkness, exhaustion, paranoia — all of it played a part in seeing things. She still felt it sometimes when she was alone. There was something about the darkness that could so easily make one feelwatched.
“Or maybe that’s an easy explanation,” Silas countered. “I’m not saying every shape in the dark is a wraith, but I’m also not sayingnoneof them are. Most places I go, I find at least one.”
A cold feeling swept down her spine and turned the delicious sandwich to ash on her tongue. It wasn’t fear exactly, but the disconcerting, full-body realization that maybe her world wasn’t what she thought it was.
“What are you talking about? There are— There’s an entire population ofpeoplejust out of sight at any given time? You can’t be serious.”
“Yes and no.” Silas reached over her to snag the soda. Popping the tab with a claw, he took a long draw before passing it to her. “Most wraiths are sorta… unformed. Tal says it takes thousands of years for one to mature into real sentience. When I was a kid, he compared a demon’s shadows to a seed. When a demon dies, the seed is planted in the darkness and grows slowly over time until it’s something new.” He shrugged. “And some don’t grow at all.”
When Petra continued to stare at him, her limp hands barely holding onto her sandwich and the soda, Silas continued, “My working theory is that they have a lot in common with elementals and likely spawn at around the same rate. They start out as sparks of sentience in the atmosphere that come together, pooling magic, until there’s enough to make an m-storm. That blast of energy creates their bodies. Unlike elementals, though, wraiths never get that final explosive push. They’re conscious, they have wills, identities, desires, but no physical form. They’re stuck.”
She didn’t think Silas was lying to her, and she didn’t believe he was off his rocker — in this instance, at least — but that didn’t mean it was any easier to accept what he was saying. Because if that was true, then…
An entire population has been left to languish in the dark. Alone.
She didn’t want to believe that, but why would Silas lie aboutthisof all things? Her stomach turned. “So, Tal was… a person? Before he became a wraith, I mean.”
“He was. His memory of his life is better than most, apparently, but it’s spotty. There are key facts and things, someimpressions, but that’s it. Most of what he knows is from lurking in corners for thousands of years. He likes to watch people.”
Petra finally gave up and put what remained of her sandwich back on the plate. She really tried to remain calm, to not show how unsettled she was, but it was impossible when her voice came out so high. “And how did you two meet?”
“I liked to hide in dark spaces a lot as a kid,” Silas explained. “When I was three, I found out that one of those spaces was already occupied.”
“And this millennia old wraith became your friend?”
“At first I think he thought of himself as more of a babysitter, actually. I was a crybaby with no friends. He said he felt bad, so he stuck around.”
Crybaby?Petra could only imagine what childhood must have been like for a boy like him, someone so different from his peers. His family loved and supported him, but it had to have been hard, even for someone as emotionally stunted as Silas.
Heart aching for the little boy who liked to hide, she prompted, “Then…”
Silas tilted his head one way, then the other. “Then I think we both realized it was nice having someone around to talk to. My parents didn’t know what to make of him at first, but my matriarch said that we must be shadow-siblings. So everyone calls him my brother now.”
Oh, my poor demon.
He said it so simply, without bitterness or sorrow, but Petra knew what he wasn’t saying. She couldn’t imagine it was easy for Silas to grow up in a big, bustling clan full of normal people, no matter how much they loved him. Tal, whoever and whatever he was, became Silas’s friend because he had no one else.
Taking a deep breath, Petra tried to let go of whatever skepticism lingered inside. Whatever was going on, she felt inher bones that Silas was telling the truth. Maybe that truth wasn’t real. Maybe he was wrong. It didn’t matter.
What mattered was the fact that Silas believed it, and that belief was strong enough that he’d been willing to do just about anything to fulfill a promise he’d made to his only friend — including binding himself to a woman he didn’t even know.
“So…” She summoned a small smile. “When do I get to meet him?”
Silas’s dark brows arched. “Technically speaking, you already have.”
“What? When?”
“He kept an eye on you when I went up to Seattle.” A dark look descended on his features. It was all storm clouds and narrowed eyes when he growled, “And he was in charge of keeping you safe while I took care of Vanderpoel.”
Comprehension dawned. So did outrage. “Thecloset!”
