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I looked into the wine, glossed with candlelight. “Yes, I’m willing.”
“You know why the gaslighting works so well?”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“It’s very simple. It builds a cage out of your own doubts and lets you lock yourself inside it. You’ll never find the exit as long as they’ve convinced you that the door is just a shadow on the wall.”
I hung on every word. They felt older than he did. And then I pictured a bird in a cage, and I glanced at the tattoo inside his forearm.
He followed my gaze. At first he didn’t speak. “Her name was Wren. She was a mom. She just wanted to be loved. I couldn’t save her.”
I went still. “When?”
“A year ago. I can’t forgive myself. I tried to save her, but I couldn’t even save myself.”
“She’s the one you—”
“Yeah,” he said. “The one I told you about yesterday.”
I felt the burden he carried like a phantom weight on my shoulders. I put down my wine glass.
“And the nails?” I said, now looking at the inside of his other forearm.
“For every one I tried to save before her.”
“And the rowan?”
“Protection and safety. It wards off harm. It’s a memorial I wear on my skin. My apology.”
We didn’t speak for a moment. The dry rasp of grapes sat on my tongue.
“I don’t want to be a nail,” I said.
“And I’m not going to let you be.”
I thought of Callie. I wondered if Kai was with her now, gently coercing her. “You never told me exactly what the thing is, the thing that feeds on us.”
Damian glanced at the bartender again. Still busy. “I’m not going to put you off your meal with the details tonight. My grandmother can explain it if you really want her to. I’ll just say this. It’s a thing that’s very old, and the coven has been using him for hundreds of years. They used to just summon him for their own benefit, then they realized, around a hundred and forty years ago, that they could sell what he left for them.”
I felt a little lightheaded. The fog was a salty cloud on my tongue. I could taste my own dread, like copper on the inside of my mouth.
He set his wine down.
“Tell me about you,” he said.
“Me?”
“I’ve told you most of who I am tonight. I don’t know who you are.”
“Except for everything on your phone.”
“Except that.”
“I’m a personal assistant who lives in a cramped apartment with a stained couch.”
He almost smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay,” I said. “What do you want to know?”
