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My gaze drops of its own accord as she works, tracing the cracked, dry skin of her lips, before sliding lower, along the pale, vulnerable column of her throat. It would take nothing to reach out. One fingertip, a slow line drawn from jaw to collarbone. A little pressure. Just enough to feel her breath catch —

“I think...” She steps back, wiping a smudge of beige from her own thumb. “I think that’ll do... maybe.”

She bravely grabs my shoulder and hauls me toward the full-length mirror on the back of the door.

NO. FUCK. NO.

The thing staring back at me is not a disguise so much as an insult. My face—my bones, my angles, the clean severity of my true form—has been smeared into something dull and politely mortal.

From the neck down, I am still a marvel—a stunning, lethal, symphony of power. But from the neck up? I am a tragedy. I am a generic, doughy-faced disappointment. I look like the kind of man who has a favorite brand of lawnmower and an opinion on tax brackets.

It is, quite frankly, fucking vile.

“I look ridiculous,” I grit out, the vertical slits of my eyes pulsing hard with barely-contained irritation. “You’ve committed a crime against perfection, Eden.”

“You look safe,” she counters. “Safe is the only way we don’t end up in a government lab by midnight. But…” Her gaze travels down my body and I follow it.

I’d managed to dry my slacks and shirt over a radiator when I cleaned the apartment, and shimmied back into them when she conjured the grand-master plan of disguising me as one of them. But the rest needs fixing, fast.

“Wait here,” she says as she crosses to the wardrobe and wrenches it open, fingers skimming along a row of hanging fabric and grabbing a piece of clothing.

It’s pale blue.

Great.

“Put it on,” she says, holding it out to me. “It’s the biggest one I have.”

It fights me the whole way—the fabric complaining as I force my arms through, seams creaking in protest, and when it finally settles, the hem hovers dangerously high on my hips. I look down at myself, and bite back the impulse to peel it off and throw it right back in her face.

She doesn’t give me the chance. A drawer rattles open and a second later, she produces a thick knit beanie.

“Sit,” she demands. “I have to do the horns.”

I drop onto the edge of the bed and she shuffles closer on uncertain feet until she’s standing between my knees.

She’s frowning in a fit of adorable concentration, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she tries to bully the fabric into submission. She smooths it, adjusting the knit, angling it with a desperate kind of hope—as if a bit of cheap acrylic could actually hide the fact that I’m a predator in her bedroom. She’s trying to convince the world that I just have a catastrophically disfigured skull, and not two very beautiful horns protruding from it.

It would be so, so easy to reach up, hook a thumb against her chin again, and free that abused lip from her plain, mortal bite.

“There,” she whispers, stepping back.

“This is seriously degrading, you know,” I mutter, pushing up to my full height.

She hums in response and rises onto her tiptoes. Pale blue fabric tunnels my vision as she yanks the hood up over my beanie. I can practically feel the silhouette of my head expanding, transforming me into a very depressed-looking blueberry.

“Hold still,” she murmurs and turns to rummage through her nightstand, tossing aside stray receipts and hair ties until she finds what she’s looking for: a pair of oversized sunglasses. Black lenses, frames thick enough to hide a multitude of sins. She studies my muddied, angular face for a second, then slides them onto the bridge of my nose with the careful precision of a Sixth Circle curator deciding where to display a new relic.

I strike a pose, doing a slow, mocking twirl. “Well? Give it to me straight, little summoner. Do I look human? A human-demon hybrid? A very expensive clown?”

She doesn’t even blink; she just adjusts the frames one last time, her fingers lingering a second too long near my temple.

“You look like a guy who’s had a very long weekend,” she retorts flatly.

Her hand drops away, and she stares down the hall toward the front door as if she’s looking at a firing squad. I, however, am starting to feel a strange, buzzing electricity in my fingertips.

I’ve spent an eternity in the suffocating heat of the Ninth. But out there? Out there is the stuff. The real, tangible, loud-as-hell mortal world. I want to see the things that make the noises and see the sinners that will eventually end up under my hands.

I chuckle at the thought, the sound vibrating with a genuine, dark giddiness as I stride down the hall and grab the deadbolt—ready to fix Eden’s festering arm, and finally see the circus.