“I have never heard it described in such a way. As I said, little witch, you have a rare talent. A dangerous one, in the wrong hands.”
Harper twisted again. “What doesthatmean?”
Azathé shrugged, a shifting of the shadows around her, rising and falling gently, like a pile of soot. “It means precisely what your feline friend indicated. There have been those in existence who are able to bind the shadows to their will. It is advanced witchcraft, but one cannot do so if they don’t naturally possess the skill to see the shadows in the first place.”
Harper was quiet, chewing over their words and her lip in the process. She felt an uncomfortable twist within her, the sense that she had unfairly coerced them rising in her throat like bile.
“Is-is that why so many of you stay hidden?”
“That is part of it, yes,” they admitted.
She swallowed hard, feeling wretchedly guilty over her insistence that they assume a physical form to exist in the world beside her.What if something happens to them because of you?
“I can tell what’s going through your head, sweetling, and I assure you, my reticence has nothing to do with a fear of being lassoed by some dark wizard, as if I were no more than a sheep. My kind are watchers. That is what we do. We watch the world around us, much in the same manner as the trees do. Don’t ever be fooled into thinking a tree does not have its own consciousness, little one. The trees stand tall in the world and watch over it silently, and we watch silently from the darkness. We stay hidden for much the same reason that the fair folk remain on the other side of the veil. It is hard to know you, for to know you is to love you, and parting is sorrowful, no matter your species.”
Another twist within, the sea rocking, a poke to her bruise.
“It hardly seems fair,” she murmured, pressing herself into the shadow at her back. Harper could feel their wavering solidity, slipping through them one moment, being buffeted against them in the next. “It doesn’t make any sense for us all to have such different lifespans. Hours and days and weeks mean nothing to you immortals, and those of us who have to count every second have so few of them.”
“Immortality doesn’t exist, dear one. All things end. Even me. My sort were not born into existence, we simplyexist. Once there was a great void of darkness, and on to it the light shone, from which sprung all life. Shadows cannot exist without light. The construct of immortality is predicated upon a short span of time, but I assure you, all things have their natural ending. The shadow folk, the fair folk, even the sea. Someday there will be a darkness that swallows us all. The only difference is so many of you will not be present to see it.”
“Why did you open the tea shop?” She pushed her toes through the sheets, feeling the unwinding darkness curling around her legs. “If you don’t want to co-mingle with those of us with short lifespans?”
“Ah, I did not say that. I am fascinated by your kind, and the others like you. Topsiders, as you said, must count every second of their existence, and youliveit so fully. It is not something my sort can ever truly understand, but I do love watching it.”
It felt horribly selfish to admit, but she was relieved that she would shuffle off this mortal coil long before them, saving her the heartache of saying goodbye to someone she loved a second time.
“I have a very early delivery being made later this week,” they whispered against her neck, threading long fingers through hers. “It’s terribly exciting, an addition to my collection. If you would like to be there, perhaps to greet the driver, so that you may see the new acquisition before anyone else . . .”
She chuckled, and the shadows rustled. “I am happy to be your human face so that the delivery driver isn’t scared away. You can just say it.”
Harper had learned much about the running of the tea shop. They had a limited, set number of seats, and owned a place setting for each seat in triplicate. The delicate pastries came fresh from a local baker every morning, and the ingredients for the savories were from a local farm. The deliveries were made to the back door three times a week, left in the alcove until the truck pulled away and Azathé retrieved them, no signature required.
They hummed, mollified.
“I would be indebted if you would be willing to do so, sweet one. The rest of our deliveries are set up as automatic drops, but the seller for this item is quite insistent on a signature releasing them from responsibility.”
“You don’t have to be indebted,” she laughed into her pillow. “Doing favors for people you care about isn’t a hardship. It’s hardly a favor, I just need to come to the shop in the morning and sign a clipboard. And if you’re going to be indebted to me for that, well, I’m indebted to you for quite a bit more.”
Another hum against her neck. Their form had slipped, she could tell. They retained solidity, but the shadows had become malleable and changing. When a tentacle-like tendril around her ankle began to drag up her bare leg, Harper squirmed.
She still wasn’t sure how comfortable she was with this arrangement. Despite the fact that she did not form attraction in the same way as most of the people she knew, she was still a sexual being anddesiredsex. But if Azathé derived no pleasure from it . . . despite their assurance that they were not under any sort of supernatural thrall from her latent shadowmancing abilities, she did not want this element of their relationship to be coercive in any way.
“You don’t have to do that,” she murmured, stiffening slightly when the movement abruptly ceased.
“My apologies, my sweet one. I did not realize the action would be unwelcome.”
At that, Harper craned her neck back. “It’s not unwelcome. It’sverywelcome. Honestly, the way I’ve been feeling lately, I would welcome it morning, noon, and night. Twice on Sundays. Don’t forget brunch and afternoon snack. But — but I don’t want you to feel forced into doing something that’s unnatural for you. If it’s not pleasurable for you, you shouldn’t have to —”
“If giving you pleasure is pleasurable for me, how is it not the same thing, little witch?”
An appendage pushed through her legs, stretching her thighs open until it rested snugly between them, tickling at the front of the panties she still wore, doing exactly what she had fantasized weeks and weeks earlier, that afternoon at the tea shop.
“I seem to remember someone telling me, not all that long ago, that it was pleasurable for them to be used, for their body to be used to give pleasure to another, in any way the other party desired. If I desire you to use me for your pleasure, my Harper, is that not the same? If you pleasure yourself using my form, does some of that pleasure not belong to me?”
The front of the tentacle stroked with more precision than she thought should have been possible for something that hadn’t existed only moments earlier. Back and forth, against the dampening gusset, bumping into her clit on every pass. Her shoulders hitched each time it did so, and her hips bucked against the pressure, wantingmore. Instantly, cold, ghost-like hands fastened around her elbows, holding her in place.
“Sweetling, I do believe you mentioned just earlier the importance of slowing down and not . . . rushing . . . through things.”
