“What, no chocolate?” I joked, wondering what sort of magic this was.
Not looking at me, Gavriel smiled and reached back into the box. He opened his palm toward me, revealing a handfulof chocolate truffles. “Do you really think I would forget the chocolate, Feather?”
“I-I don’t know,” I stammered. I felt like we were in a snow globe, and all my expectations and assumptions had been turned on their heads. Who was this gentle, thoughtful Gavriel? “I don’t really know you, do I?”
I didn’t mean to hurt him, but he flinched. “No. And that’s my fault.” He grabbed one of the juice goblets and moved to Rumple, breaking what looked like a clear seal and pressing it to Rumple’s lips. “Drink, my brother. It will heal you.”
“Little one… first,” Rumple whispered, as juice spilled down his face.
I rushed to his side and took the cup from Gavriel. “I’ll drink if you do, Rumple.”
For a long while, we did just that, me feeding sips of juice into his mouth and then my own. When we ran out, Gavriel would hand me another goblet. He ate at the same time, and fed a few pieces of cheese and chocolate between my lips.
Him feeding me felt incredibly intimate. Not sexual, but there was some of the same sort of vulnerability in the air as he offered, and I took what he gave me. My focus was mainly on Rumple. He was still breathing, so that was good. But nothing else about him was remotely okay.
In the Abyss, I’d felt his skin. He’d been warm and well-muscled, not rough-scaled and covered with thick, hardened smut like this. In the void, he had felt soft to the touch, though textured. His wings had been almost transparent. Now he was a terrifying, enormous gargoyle. I let my eyes take in all of his frightening parts: the horns, the ruined, batlike wings, the tail. When he drank, I saw the tip of a dark gray, forked tongue. He had said he was a monster, and he was one, by almost any measure.
He’d just finished another juice when he lapsed into sleep. I was sitting next to him, more or less perched on the arm of the sofa, since Rumple was massive and took up what should have fit two. I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair, frowning when I realized it was blood soaked. Before I could ask, Gavriel was handing me a wet cloth to clean him. I thanked him and began wiping the blood away. But I couldn’t remove any of the hardened coating, not even with my tears. It wasn’t like the smut I’d worn; this was some sort of armor.
“He wasn’t like this in the Abyss,” I whispered, when Gavriel settled on the other sofa, wiping at his own wounds. “His skin had a normal texture, and his wings were almost transparent.”
“He had crystal feathers, once,” Gavriel said softly. “Fringed with gold on the trailing edges. They were so beautiful, unique among all our kind.”
Rumple’s wings now were so clumped with thick smut, I wasn’t sure if any feathers underneath would remain intact. “I don’t know how to get rid of this… shell. But I can tell it’s not good for him. It’s weighing him down.” No matter how hard I pressed the cloth, all I could do was wipe the surface blood away. He had to have deeper wounds that were affecting him, but I couldn’t get to them. “Maybe this protected him?” I voiced my hope out loud.
Gavriel nodded. “He told me he wrapped it around himself so the edges of the rift he made to get inside Sanctuary wouldn’t cut him. He thinks the shadow creature watched him do that, and learned. They’re really all individual souls, but they’re drawn together by?—”
“Their hunger,” I finished for him, moving toward the box. My own energy was flagging again, and I had to think what else I could do for Rumple. Some other method of cleaning. I was good at cleaning.
But first, food. I reached inside the box, thinking of custard, and pulled out… “Yogurt? Ugh.”
Gavriel smiled. “I wove a few rules into the box, since I thought Precious might abuse it, once she knew she could get whatever she needed from it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “She makes her own marshmallows, Gav. They’re literally all she eats. She’s not a real baby.”
He shrugged. “We don’t know if that will last. I have a theory that she’s creating them out of the smut she’s collected. If she’s kept away from Earth and the people she’s drawn to, um…”
“Murder?”
“Yeah, that. She might eventually be purified.” He looked around the room. “I thought others might choose to stay here with her as well, in this safe space, while we prepared the rest of Sanctuary to accept her presence.”
“Well, we don’t have that problem anymore,” I said, sticking a finger into the yogurt. It actually tasted good, nothing like the Tibetan stuff I’d eaten long ago. Yak yogurt had a smell that was unforgettable, and had put me off the whole food sub-group completely. I stuck a finger into the small pot and licked the glob off, then repeated the motion. It really wasn’t half bad.
Gav let out a soft groan.
I sucked my finger clean. “What? Oh crud, I forgot your back is messed up. Let me clean your wounds while Rumple sleeps.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said quietly. “Do you have any wounds?”
“No. And I do have to help you, right? We’re apparently soulmates. Neat.” I grinned weakly, and gave him a yogurt-covered thumbs up.
He lifted one eyebrow in that superior way that he had, and for the first time, I was happy to see it. If he could do silent snark, he would be all right.
I jumped up, grabbing a clean cloth. “Wait, is this a diaper?”
Gav blushed. “Possibly.”
“Why? You know she doesn’t need diapers.”
