“For good,” Demon echoed.
“No more running the floor?”
“No more running the floor.”
Davy’s eyes narrowed. “And what of Chef? What of the boxes for the poor? You aim to just be a fancy man, too good for any of the rest of us what’s been down in the dirt with you all this time?”
“I have no hopes of being a fancy man, and I most certainly do not consider myself better than any of you. As for the rest, Chef will continue to cook excellent food, and the boxes will continue to be distributed. Tiny Tom is going to be taking charge, and he is a good man.”
“What if ’e makes me empty chamber pots? What then?”
“He is not going to make you do anything, lad,” Demon said gently, resting a hand on the scamp’s thin shoulder. “Not if you do not wish it.”
Davy’s eyes narrowed more. “What’s that opposed to mean, yournabs?”
“Supposed,” he corrected, “and we have already talked about yournabs. I’ll never be a lord, Davy.”
“You’re acting like one,” the lad grumbled, eyes cast to the floor.
But Demon spied the sheen in them and recognized it all too well. Tears.
“But I am not one. Instead, I am…” His words trailed off as a fit of emotion seized him, for he had been about to sayI am the man who wants to be a father to you. “Hell, lad. I care about you. I care about what happens to you. I cannot leave you here when I move on. We are quite similar, you and I, and I see so much of myself in you when I was of an age. Know this, lad, I do not wish to take the place of your father, and neither would Mira take your mother’s place. She and I have spoken, and we have decided together that we would be happy for you to join our family.”
The lad was silent, simply staring at Demon as if he had sprouted a second head. Until at long last, he broke the silence.
“I filch,” Davy said. “I steal whatever I can, and I am right good at it, sir.”
The lad was an unparalleled pickpocket, and he knew it. He seemed to possess a rare, incredible talent for distracting someone whilst quietly robbing them of their belongings.
“You are a pickpocket because you like the attention it brings you,” Demon said. “Your thievery was borne out of necessity, but that is no longer the case. You now have a roof over your head, plenty of bread in your belly, and a warm place to sleep. I ain’t a fool, lad. Nor am I so different from you. I know what you did and why, because I’ve done it all myself.”
Davy’s wheaten brows rose. “You have?”
“I have,” he confirmed grimly, for he did not prefer to speak of his past. But when the rare occasion merited a retelling, he would allow it, even as it crushed him to recall those painful years. “But all that is immaterial, lad. You need a family and a home, a true home. We can give you that. Wewantto do so. All you have to do is sayaye.”
“I’ll not be a servant at ’er fancy ’ouse,” Davy said with a scowl.
Demon’s heart squeezed. He patted the lad’s shoulders. “I said family, scamp. You’ll be no servant. You will be our…hell, if you will permit it, you will be our son.”
There.He had said the word.Son.It seemed to hover in the air, an invitation he was not altogether sure he should have extended. Not because he regretted it, and not because it was not what he wished, but because he did not want to pressure Davy into making a decision he did not want to make.
“You need not think of yourself as such,” he hastened to say. “Not if it isn’t what you want.”
“Son?” Davy tucked his chin and stared at his feet, shuffling them.
“Only if you wish it,” Demon reiterated. “We will not force you into making any decisions you may regret. All we want you to know is that we are more than happy for you to make your home with us, for you to join our family as our son.”
“I do.”
The lad spoke the two words so swiftly and quietly that Demon was certain he had misheard. He leaned forward. “I beg your pardon, scamp?”
Davy smiled. “I want to be your son.”
If Demon’s heart had been swelled and overflowing before, it was now a cursed waterfall. An endless flow of emotion.
He patted Davy on his thick shock of blond hair. “You already are, lad. I suspect you have been so for quite some time.”
Davy did something entirely unexpected then. He threw his arms around Demon and held him tight.
