I cleared my throat. “I guess. Before life got in the way. Work. Family expectations. All that. I was never very good.”
We both stood there another few minutes, the silence stretching awkwardly, and my gaze was drawn back to the painting. “Should I take it to storage?”
Xavier huffed, and I turned to meet his eyes, flinching at the restrained rage behind them. Had I done something wrong? “You like it, don’t you?”
I blinked at him, then glanced at the painting and back to him. “Uh, it’s beautiful. Sort of haunting. But the mastery of the strokes is something I’ve never seen outside of an art history book before.”
He gave an absent nod, then turned away, heading back to his seat at his desk. “Take it home with you.”
“What?”
“You like it. Take it home with you.”
“Won’t the fae get mad?”
“I don’t share their visions, and they aren’t allowed to take back gifts.”
I bent to pick up the painting, surprised by the weight of it. “It won’t attack me in my sleep or something, right? Drown my family or curse me with boils?”
“As if I’d give you something like that.”
Alrighty then. With the painting tucked under my arm, I made my way out of his office, planning to drop the painting off at home as I ran errands for him.
“Never question the prerogative of gods,” Keanan muttered as I passed him.
In the kitchen, Sylas crunched a cookie with deliberate loudness and laughed. Assholes. Both of them.
2
The storm hitlike a divine afterthought with the snow swallowing the city in one white gasp. By the time I’d wrestled the grocery bags through the apartment door, the weather alerts blaring on my phone had upgraded from winter advisory to historic blizzard. Across the Veil, the roads would be last on the plow list. If they were plowed at all.
My phone rang.
I knew who it was before I answered thanks to his ringtone: “Zombies” by the Cranberries. “Xavier.”
“Are you home?”
“Yes. Roads are bad. I thought I’d wait it out until everything is cleared.”
“Stay there.”
I stared at my overloaded kitchen counter, bags of Xavier’s preferred smoked salmon, filet mignon, and imported chocolates crowding my sad bachelor groceries. “But I have all your stuff for this weekend.”
“Eat it.”
“Sir, won’t you need this stuff?”
“Luca.” That particular sigh meantmust I explain everything? “It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow.”
Was it? I glanced at the calendar on the wall. Okay, my bad.
“Even we across the Veil observe bureaucratic holidays.” He paused. “You have food, yes?”
“Obviously.”
A derisive snort. “Eat what you bought for me. Take the weekend. And call your family. Think of it as a vacation.” The line went dead.
I slumped against the counter. Three months since the variance. Three months since I’d last spoken to my parents. What exactly did one say?“Happy Thanksgiving, Mom! By the way, I’m a cat now.”
