Your mother died, and you didn’t even grieve her, and you waited, patient and pathetic, for your world to come to an end.
“What’s in Eritrea?” he asked. She’d only try again if he didn’t.
“No extradition policies.”
Everil laughed, though he shouldn’t encourage her. It made the ceiling spin faster. “Where did you hear that?”
“Oh. Around.”
“Don’t play with the humans. Please. It’s cruel.”
Talia sulked on the chair beside him, nestling down into her hoodie. “I was only watching. Not whispering in anyone’s ear.”
“Just–”
The sound of knuckles on wood cut Everil off. He sat up too fast, making his stomach twist and the world go white. It was too early. They were meant to have until midnight. It wasn’t like Nimai to breach Protocol.
Be grateful, he told himself. Less time spent starved and suffering. It was a mercy, of a sort. Nimai liked it when Everil was grateful.
“I’ve got it,” Talia said, bouncing to her feet before Everil could catch her arm. “They’re early. I’ll tell them to fuck off until it’s time.” She looked back at him, worrying her lip. “I can give you that much.”
“Talia, none of this is your fault.”
Too late. She was already striding toward the door, intent on making her first words to Nimai’s proxy an argument. Everil had to intervene. He pushed himself to his feet, reaching the entry of the parlor as Talia pulled the door open.
Everil was braced to face Suire or whomever Nimai had chosen. Prepared to send them away lest his nine days of fading be put to waste. Well, he thought he was, at least. Few things could have prepared him to discover a human on his doorstep.
But this was, quite definitively, a human. Tall enough that Everil could see him over diminutive Talia and wrapped up for the late autumn chill. Even with all the layers, Everil could tell the stranger was solidly built, with that human roughness about him that fae always lacked. He held a mechanical, vaguely familiar device loose at his side.
The man looked past Talia and spotted Everil, those tired blue sizing him up in silence. Vanilla and fresh citrus flooded Everil’s senses. Orange sweet and lemon sharp, soothing and tempting all at once. Everil locked his knees, grabbing the doorframe to keep from falling.
“Oh,” Talia said. “I hope you’re not a present.”
The man opened his mouth, as if to speak, but Everil didn’t give him the chance.
“He isn’t. Go upstairs.”
Both human and Gate watched him. Talia’s eyes were wide and worried, the human’s narrowed with suspicion. As ifhewere the one who had the rights to this place, and Everil the intruder. This was Everil’s fault. He’d been too weak to maintain the wards that usually kept the curious at bay.
“Everil,” Talia said, rocking back on her heels.
“Please.” He didn’t have an argument in him. Not now.
Blessedly, it didn’t come. Talia turned with a final worried look before disappearing up the stairs.
The man, unfortunately, stayed put. He was leaning against the doorframe now, watching Everil from just beyond the threshold.
“You look like shit,” the tired-eyed human said, his voice a middling tenor, pleasant and untrained. “You okay, man?”
Was he? All Everil could think of was the man’s aura. A sweeter, darker note beneath the orange and vanilla. Honey. The man’s aura surely shouldn’t taste of honey. Everil shouldn’t have been able to taste it at all. But his soul yearned for the stranger, like he was a river waiting for Everil to dive in.
The call of a bond. The eager need of his tattered soul, waking at the promise of a union.
It didn’t make sense. It wasn’tpossible. Nimai had been his only potential bond in over a century of looking. A scruffy, rude human invading his home couldn’t possibly be a prospect. Still, Everil tightened his grip on the doorframe, not daring to move closer. Depleted as he was, if he touched the man, he wouldn’t be able to stop the bond from forming.
He had to get rid of him. Quickly.
“Don’t concern yourself with me,” he managed. “Please, you must be lost. We don’t offer tours.”
