He rolled his eyes and scoffed, flashing me with a clear view of sharp, white fangs. “Let’s just get this over with. I have no intention of being in your world,” he spat the words as if they tasted rancid.Rotten,“any longer than I need to be. Tell me why you summoned me?”
I grimaced. That was a difficult question to answer. One I hadn’t quite rationalised out for myself. This was one of those “improbable moments” I’d never thought would happen, so I had never truly prepared for it. I mean, for all intents and purposes, this whole thing had been a last-ditch effort to see if I could save my grandmother’s life. But the last thing I was going to do wasspill my depressing life story to a demon who couldn’t give less of a shit about me or my problems.
“Just to see if it would work.”
“‘Just to see if it would work,’”he repeated, disbelief audible in his voice. “You humans are so fucking entitled.”
In that moment, I wanted to take back everything I’d said before. Thallor might not have looked like a demon, but he had the presence of one. He was scary. Terrifying. And probably could have killed without so much as a second glance. And I was scared. Petrified. He took a step closer to me, and I reared back, almost knocking myself off the chair. I instinctively grabbed out for something to steady me, once again finding my hands on his body.
I let go almost instantly. The heat of his skin was so hot, I could feel the lingering brand of pain at the pads of my fingers and the palm of my hand. For a moment, he just stared down at the point on his forearm that I’d grabbed, whilst I stared down at my hand. Then he settled me with a look, more angered, more furious than before, as if I had burnt him and not the other way around.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” I started, not really knowing where I was going with it, “I didn’t know any of this would work. I thought this would be like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. You know, like folklore? A cool book to have and mess around with, but utterly futile in execution.” My explanation seemed to fall on deaf ears.
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“It’s a nervous habit. Not sure when it started, sometime in the last twenty-two years.”
He simply rolled his eyes.
“How old are you?”
“473.”
Okay, so this guy wasold—really old.He made my grandpa’s grandfather look young.Do not ask him what his skin care routine is,Quincey,I warned myself before I could embarrass myself with another unnecessary comment, simultaneously swallowing down the nervous laugh that was bubbling up from the base of my throat.
“Well, you don’t look a day over twenty-eight,” I mused with a tentative smile. In the short space of time that we had been in each other’s company, I’d learn two things about Thallor. One: he didn’t like me very much; it was quite clear that first impressions were important to him and the one I’d made was abysmally bad. Two: He wasn’t a fan of jokes orflattery.
“The Malphas Treaty grants the incantation user three wishes,” he began, choosing to ignore my previous comment. “You will tell me your wishes now. I will grant said wishes and we will be done.”
Okay, slow down. I had questions. I had a lot of questions. As a child, I’d watched Aladdin on a perpetual cycle, and I knew that genies came with rules. I didn’t know that demons came with wishes, but I would hazard a guess as to say that Thallor’s wishes probably came with the odd stipulation, too. Stipulations that I needed to understand to the best of my ability before making any requests. This wasn’t a kid’s film; this was my fucking life. And the lives of the people around me. I couldn’t risk their safety over a string of misused words.
A problem I often had when speaking to other people.
There was also the question ofmy soul.I had considered this in depth and was more than happy to offer up my immortal happiness, but a little heads up on what I could expect in the dark, fiery depths of hell would be nice.
“Do your wishes have rules?”
“No.”
I gave him a quizzical look. “So I can wish for anything I want? Say, could I bring someone back from the dead?”
“You could. Their soul would not belong here, though, andwould likely be unwilling to return to this plane of existence, but yes, in theory, you could bring somebodyback from the dead.” Thallor said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and I was the moronic human he was growing tired of conversing with.
I wanted to amend my previous conclusion. I’d learntthreethings about Thallor. The third being that just like every other devastatingly handsome man, for what he had in looks, he lacked in personality. And I mean it, this man had none.
“That kind of sounds like a loophole to the wish thought, doesn’t it?” I smirked at him. “Can I wish for more wishes?”
“You can, but I will not grant them.”
“Why not?”
“I have no interest in spending more time with you than is necessary.” This man held no fucking punches.
“Fucking hell, you’ve got a terrible bedside manner,” I choked out, trying not to let his last comment get to me. “Do you treat everyone like this, or is it just me?” He watched me, a pained expression etched across his face. “What about love? Can you make someone fall in love with me?”
“Is there someone you want to make fall in love with you?” he said slowly, his voice for the first time coming out less aggressively than it had before. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining things or simply just enthralled by his good looks, but I felt like he was watching me more closely for the answer. One that I didn’t have. All I knew at that time was thatDisney was right.There are always fucking rules.
“No,” I shrugged, “but it’s good to have the information in case my situation changes.”
