Behind the counter, a cheap metal rack leans against the wall, stacked full of brochures and leaflets.
“Why ask?” Her broken English is as harsh as the winter we trudged through.
I pull myself up onto the desk, then fling my legs around the other side before landing on my boots with a faint thud.
“I know they’re both different to the rest,” I say. “I just wondered why—andhow.”
I throw her a lame look over my shoulder.
Mika steps closer, slinking, and her icy eyes glint against her sickly white complexion. It might be because she had to fight for her life against the poison, but she looks sort of washed out.
I turn my back on her.
“Not they,” she says, and her gravelled accent is closer now, right behind me with the desk between us. “Not Arwyn. You ask for Samick.”
I frown at the glare of brochures.
The light hasn’t settled against the filmy paper and ink, my eyes haven’t adjusted, and in a fleeting moment, I’m snagged on what she said—
I’m not asking how or whytheyare different.
I’m asking how and whySamickis different.
My mouth slants.
“Your smell is Samick.”
I eye the brochures.
If I don’t turn to look at her, then she can’t see the heat on my face.
I smell like him…
The letterings on the brochures are just scribbles to me. Can’t exactly read while Mika throws me into a pot of shame.
“I tell you.” Her voice softens into a breath, lighter than a sigh. “Males are…”
Her words fade.
I don’t know if she can’t find the ones she searches for, or she doesn’t quite know what to say to me, because she already said it.
“Bad,” I finish for her.
I turn to face her, a frown on my brow.
Mika is draped over the desk.
I didn’t hear her get up on there, but she did, ass planted, legs stretched out, and her back leaning against the wooden post.
Her gaze is fixed on the staircase. “I tell you evate.”
My mind churns for a short moment. “The mates?”
Her hum is faint. “Dokkalves have evate. Litalves have mate.”
“That’s the light fae?”
She turns a stark look on me.
