“Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice low. “It is. And he had a few things to say about Faerie and a wielder who might have ended up there.”
I give Joan the rundown on that conversation, too, and when I’m finished she hums thoughtfully.
“It’s a good place to start, but Boston’s a big city.”
I sigh, already resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to reach back out to Mira and finally get Gavin’s contact information, that his comment about the wielder probably is as important as I think it is. “Yeah, it is. Better than nothing, though.”
“Better than nothing,” Joan agrees, then nods toward the living room. “Come on, we’ve left those two alone long enough.”
We join Rhett and Callum where they’re still talking in the living room. Although Joan’s place isn’t overly small, with two demons crammed together in a single room, it feels positively tiny.
They have similar builds, and of course share all the same demon characteristics—horns, tails, wings, crimson eyes. Rhett is visibly younger than Callum, though I’m still not a hundred percent sure how demon lifespans shake out.
I’ll have to ask Callum about it sometime.
Where Rhett still has a bit of youthfulness about him, Callum exudes the sort of even, implacable calm that only comes with age. Add to that his thick beard, the faint hints of grey at his temples, and he’s very much giving off demon daddy energy.
I never really knew I had a thing for it.
But apparently there’s still time to discover hidden kinks.
The conversation drifts from trade in the demon realm, which the pair of them had been discussing before Joan and I came and sat down, to Joan’s tea shop and the life she and Rhett are building here in Beech Bay. Rhett wears a glamour when he’s here, splits his time between working with Joan and trade business the court sends him on, and the two of them seem happy with the arrangement.
I’m just happy they get to live their lives together at all.
Things got way, way too dicey a few months back when Esme Hawthorn basically extorted Joan into working with Rhett to solve a string of crystal thefts that were straining relations between demons and witches.
Long story short, they found the culprit, made it out alive, and discovered they were mates in the process, but it’s just one more thing on my very long shitlist when it comes to the High Priestess.
Joan could have died. Rhett, too, for that matter. They both went through hell, and neither of them deserved to be dragged into it.
But they were, and they survived it, despite Esme’s meddling.
And now they’re here, happy, together.
As much as I don’t want it to, sitting here and basking in their radiant little couples’ glow, seeing the unlikely path they’ve forged for themselves, makes my chest ache.
It gives me ideas I shouldn’t entertain, makes little hearts and stars float around my head like I’m a cartoon character.
Nothing has changed.
I’m still not built to be content or settled down. I’m not built to be someone’s wife or mate or partner or whatever.
Besides, I don’t have any idea whether any of that is something Callum would even want. He’s been so damn cagey about his past that I’ve got no way of knowing whether his thoughts are wandering down the same path, whether he looks at Rhett and Joan and sees something similar to a life he might want one day.
I could talk to him about it, I suppose, but that seems… presumptuous.
And stressful.
And way too emotionally fraught to want to deal with.
Maybe after we find the heart and get our prize, we can talk about it.
For now, though, I’m alright just being here.
I’m okay taking this day by day, appreciating the time I get with my friends, and waiting to deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow.
But tomorrow, unfortunately, is coming way too soon.
