A moment later, he calls. “Dorian Gray. How’s my favorite immortal? Happy?”
“‘Hopeful’ might be a better word.”
“So the little artist is coming around?”
I put him on speaker and uncork a glass bottle, pouring two fingers of whiskey for myself. Sibyl and Vane are out with Noel and Cherith, which means I have the penthouse to myself. Might as well speak freely. “I made some introductions on her behalf, and in a matter of hours, she has gone from a minor influencer in a niche market to a popular creator with money flowing in and dozens of orders to fill. She’s ecstatic, and I’m her savior.”
“She thinks she has it made.” Lloyd chuckles softly. “Does she realize you can take this away from her as swiftly as you made it happen? All it takes is one video, one post, and she’s done. You maywant to remind her of that.”
As I sip my drink, I imagine how that conversation would go. I picture the eager light dimming in Baz’s eyes, gratitude replaced with disillusionment. The image hurts me. Actually hurts.
“Dorian.” Lloyd’s voice is firm, insistent. “She knows the deal. She understands that you’re offering a bargain, not a gift. Remember what’s at stake.”
“I know.” I rub my forehead and lie down on the couch, careful to keep my whiskey glass level. “I’m touched you care so deeply about my survival.”
“You’re one of my oldest friends.”
“You haven’t stayed in touch, though.”
“Did I have to? When lives are as long as ours, there are bound to be periods of silence between us. That doesn’t mean I care about you any less. I consider myself your older brother, and as such, Dorian, I have to warn you—you’re going too far with this one. You were supposed to charm her, not collapse at her feet with yearning.”
His sardonic tone annoys me. “I’m not collapsing or yearning.”
“Then you have a plan for taking her down if she doesn’t cooperate? Surely Sibyl has something you could use, fodder for the social media mill. Even something harmless, when twisted and portrayed in just the right way—”
“I know how it works. I’ve done it before.”
“Good boy. Stay focused on the goal. What have I taught you about personal entanglements, romantic commitments?”
“Enough lectures, Lloyd.” Remaining still suddenly seems unbearable, so I lunge off the sofa and stalk the room, taking another swallow of the whiskey.
“Relationships are chains that will keep you from being your truest self. Society has fenced in every type of relationship with amyriad of laws designed to prevent people from indulging their passions. Have a few friends, by all means, but keep them at arm’s length, and be ready to drop them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.”
“Is that what you’ll do with me?”
“You and I are different. We’re in a class by ourselves. Our affinity isn’t a bond so much as a pleasant mutual existence, intersecting paths, occasional support, and an exchange of ideas. We move beyond the sphere of the average human relationship.”
He’s soothing me. I know it, and yet I can’t help yielding, being mollified by his assertion that I’m different. Special.
All my years of life, and I still have this stupid fucking need to be special to someone.
Lloyd is still talking. “This artist…she’ll drag you down to her level if you’re not careful. Commitment ropes you into a life of self-denial, of repression, of rules, Dorian. That’s the path toward guilt, toward the tedium of existing at someone else’s pleasure. It comes with the gnawing sense of failure if you don’t always behave exactly as your significant other wishes you to.”
My fingers tighten around the whiskey glass. “I know your perspective on relationships, Lloyd.”
“And you’ve always agreed with me. What’s different now? And don’t tell me she isn’t like all the others, because you and I both know that humans are all the same.”
“She isn’t strictly human,” I point out.
“She’s descended from a muse, yes, and she has a useful gift, one she has refused to explore. That makes her either naive or cowardly.”
“You don’t know everything about her. What she’s done, what she’s been through…”
Lloyd cuts me off again. “What she has been through? So she told you a sad tale and turned the attention on herself, did she?Gaslighting at its finest. She’s playing you, Dorian. Manipulating you so that when she denies your request, you’ll be too smitten to follow through with the necessary repercussions.”
My pulse quickens, emotions swirling in my heart like pieces of a shipwreck lifted with the tide. They’re unfamiliar feelings, jagged and sharp. Defensive anger, confusion, loneliness, the ache of unsatisfied desire. “This isn’t manipulation. I believe she’s sincere. She’s been honest with me since the night of the skriken attack.”
“Honesty is the death knell of any relationship,” Lloyd responds. “Like an Instagram photo, honesty needs a filter. No one wants all the raw, fetid, lumpy truth lying naked between them. Listen, it comes down to this: you need her to save your life. Most people who think themselves good would save a life without blinking, and yet she refuses. She leads you through this dance instead. So before you let yourself slide helplessly into lovesickness, take a moment to think about that. You want to fuck her? Fine. Fuck her backward and forward and upside down. Get it out of your system. And then come back to your senses, because this isn’t you.”
