Hex, who can apparently hear both sides of this conversation perfectly well because he is a supernatural being with whatever senses that entails, looks insufferably pleased by this description. I give him a look that tells him not to get comfortable.
“He’s doing his best,” I say.
“Good.” Felix’s voice has shifted. Lighter now, the practicality reasserting itself. “Right. I need to go and talk to someone about getting my deposit and rent money back, and also possibly locate some clothes that aren’t pyjamas. I’ll be round later.”
“I’ll make up the sofa.”
“Make sure the shadow prince doesn’t reorganise it.”
Hex, entirely unrepentant, picks up his toast.
I hang up and set my phone on the table. The morning carries on around us. A pigeon lands on the windowsill, eyes my crystals with interest, and leaves again. Someone in the flat above is having a shower.
“Felix is coming to stay,” I tell Hex.
“I know. I heard.”
“He’s going to need the sofa. Which means you’ll need to be…” I wave a hand, not quite sure how to finish that sentence. More discreet. Less present. Not so shamelessly sexy and inappropriate. Generally more manageable for a person who hasn’t signed up for the full shadow prince experience.
Hex looks at me with calm red eyes. “I will be the embodiment of good behaviour.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s met you. He won’t be fooled.”
A pause. “He called me insufferably attractive.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
I almost smile. I manage not to. I pull my mug towards me and look at it instead of at him, at the small chip on the rim that hasbeen there since I dropped it in February and that I keep meaning to replace and haven’t.
“Hex,” I say.
“Adam.”
“Last night.” I stop. Start again. “What Wraith was doing. When he reached for my face.” I think about the cold. The wrong cold. The emptiness of it. “What would have happened if you hadn’t come back?”
Hex is quiet for a moment. He sets down his toast. “He would have taken you to Dis.”
“Alive?”
“You would be useful as leverage. It would also be useful if you were gone, and I couldn’t feed.”
He says it matter-of-factly but there is something underneath it that isn’t matter-of-fact at all. Something that has been sitting in him since last night, since he came back to the flat and found Wraith in the hallway and did what he did.
“Right,” I say.
“Adam…”
“I know.” I look up at him. “I know. It’s okay. You came back.”
“I was nearly too late.” The same words as last night, the same weight behind them. “I was with Felix, I had him, and then I felt it through the bond. What was happening here. And I…” He stops.
“You came back,” I say again, simply.
He holds my gaze, and something in him settles, very slightly, like a knot loosening by one degree.
“Did I scare you, My Love?” he asks softly.
