There’s no malice between the two of them, the argument bouncing easily back and forth like it’s one they’ve had a dozen times.
“How’d the two of you meet, anyway?”
Callum shoots Finn a warning look that the other demon absolutely does not heed.
“I paid off the owner of a tavern to keep him from getting arrested.”
“What?”
“It’s not how it sounds,” Callum protests.
“It’s exactly how it sounds,” Finn says. “This drunken fool got himself into a scuffle with a couple of bounty hunters who had, what? Stolen a job from you or—”
Callum rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “First of all, I was not drunk. I’d only had three, and you know well I can hold my ale better than that.”
“He really can’t,” Finn stage-whispers to me.
“And second of all—” Callum pretends like he doesn’t hear him. “—the other two hunters nearly got all three of us killed when they barged in on a job I was doing in the frost realm. A job they had absolutely no business being involved with.”
“So you had to knock some sense into their thick skulls?” I ask, and Callum looks at me a little abashed.
“We had a conversation about hunter etiquette and stepping down from battles you’re not equipped to fight.”
“And I’m sure they learned a lesson they’ll never forget. Now, what about this tavern owner?”
“None too happy about the picture window that, uh, didn’t exactly survive the elf who got thrown through it.” Finn shoots Callum another look.
“I didn’tthrowanyone,” Callum clarifies. “He threw the first punch, and when I pushed him away he just happened to fall in that direction. Gravity did the rest.”
“Anyway,” Finn said cheerfully, “I’d been drinking with him all night—never a stranger in a tavern, you know—and I thought he was interesting. So I paid for the window and he’s been repaying that kindness ever since by tolerating my friendship.”
It’s a wild, unlikely story, almost as unlikely as the friendship between the two of them seems, given how different they are. But it’s clear there’s a long history between them, and I like to see this side of Callum.
I want to know more about this side of Callum.
We take a couple more turns before we arrive at a door that stands out from the others we’ve passed in the corridors. Tall and grand, extending all the way to the stone roof above, it’s carved with a beautiful celestial design. Unfamiliar constellations and swirling stars, framed at the bottom by dark pines.
“My father’s suite of rooms,” Finn explains. “He really leaned into the motif of our family name when he had these designed.”
“What’s your family name, again?” I ask, still studying the carvings. “Sorry, I didn’t catch it earlier.”
“Nighfall. The end of the day, the coming of the dark, all of that. You should see the atrocious black tile he chose for all the bathrooms in our family home.”
I chuckle, but it turns into a gasp when he swings the door open.
The chamber on the other side is magnificent.
High-ceilinged and spacious, the room we step into glows with candlelight and is filled with laughter and conversation. There must be at least two dozen demons at this little party of Finn’s, scattered about the room or sitting at the handful of small tables in the space.
It’s a hall, more than anything. Like something out of a medieval court.
Which… I guess it kind of is.
Sconces line the wall, burning with firelight, and a chandelier above glows with what looks like a hundred candles. All around the space, guests are eating and drinking, and there, in the back corner…
“Seren?”
“Emilia?”
