A harbinger, Asher called him. A sign of things to come.
“Go pack your things,” he tells the watchdog. “We move while it’s dark.”
•••
He finds Shea in her room, solemnly considering an old stuffed rabbit. He stands in the open door until she notices him, his hood up and his hair in his eyes—hoping against hope that his horns aren’t visible. He’s shorn them down twice already, filing them to studs until the sink was full of pale white shavings.
“I tried on the dress,” she says when she spots him. “It looks fantastic on me.”
His gut gives a violent kick. “Let me see.”
She fixes him in a cold stare, as though she can’t believe he had the gall to ask. And maybe she’s right.
“You’ll have to wait for our date.”
He doesn’t tell her that he can’t stand the thought of her getting anywhere near the revel. Not after what happened with Tristan. Not with Sullivan’s blood on his hands. Not now that Paris Keeling knows her name. He doesn’t tell her he shouldn’t be in here, or that he’s not quite sure how to make himself stay away. He crosses, instead, to where she stands, plucking the rabbit off the bed for a closer examination.
“Hey! Give him back.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s Bugs. And he’s mine.”
He lifts the rabbit out of her reach. “Hello, Bugs.”
“Don’ttalkto him,” she says, horrified.
“But I like him.” He raises the rabbit higher, turning it this way and that. “He reminds me of a book I read once. Everyone went walking around with their soul outside their body, right there next to them for anyone to see.”
She drops back onto her heels, scowling up at him. “I can’t picture you reading.”
“I amveryliterate,” he assures her, and hands the rabbit back to her. “And this is what your soul would look like.”
“A rabbit,” she guesses, shoving it deep into her bag.
“Threadbare.”
She pulls the drawstring shut with a snap. “Did you come up here just to antagonize me?”
“No. I brought you candy.” He reaches into his pocket and digs out a handful of anise drops, each of them twisted in red cellophane. “It’s for the drop. I know the sugar helps.”
She looks surprised, then touched, then endearingly disgruntled.
“No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.”
He slips all but one back into his pocket. That one, he tucks into his cheek. There’s the briefest twinge of licorice, earthy-sweet, before the taste turns to ash on his tongue.
He thinks that maybe he is cursed to forever grasp at scraps. Scraps of daylight. Scraps of flavor. Scraps of boyhood, sucked from the veins of a girl who will only ever give him scraps of her affection. When he pockets the wrapper, she’s watching him sideways.
“What would yours be?”
The candy cracks between his molars. “What, my soul?”
“Yeah. If you took it out and looked at it.”
If, if, if. Ifhe gave in to his impulses and kissed her right this moment, he wonders if she’d taste the licorice at his lips. He feels like King Midas, doomed to defile everything with his touch.
