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“No, not really,” she answered honestly, averting her gaze to the side. “I joined the eastern sector of the Demonslayers.”

His head shot back in surprise. “What the shit? You became a Demonslayer?” He let out a deep laugh. “Emerie... you’d get scared when there was a rodent in our house. How the hell did you manage to become a Demonslayer?”

She stepped away and threw her hands up. “I don’t know, okay?! I wasn’t a very good one, if I’m being honest with you. The only thing I had going for me was my smarts.”

“Pfft! You? Smart?!” His laughter got louder. “You’re the biggest goofball I know. You’re the kind of person who couldn’t even be bothered to attend school because it was boring.”

“Well, that changes when your brother decides to fuck off to the afterlife.”

He sobered from his humour. “I always pictured you running off into the sunset with some man, not going to the Demonslayer guild.” His sight drifted to the Duskwalkers. “Is that how you met him?”

“Yeah. I freed him because I couldn’t handle what they were doing to him.”

Gideon’s eyelids crinkled knowingly. “Of course you freed him. Still as soft-hearted as ever.”

Emerie turned her shoulders inward in bashful awkwardness. “Do... you want to meet him?”

She’d asked Ingram to give her a few moments with Gideon so she could reassure him and have some free, non-Duskwalker-weirdness time with him.

“Absolutely, I do.” He lifted his chin and firmed his expression. Then he tossed her a smile while bending his arm in the air. He patted his flexed biceps. “Have to give him the ol’ ‘hurt my sister and I’ll break your legs’ chat.”

“Gideon... I’m not sure how to tell you this, but... he’d destroy you.” She patted his shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look. “You just aren’t strong enough, no matter how much you think so.”

“Fuck, that was rude,” he exclaimed.

They both burst into a quiet fit of laughter.

As she laughed, feeling lighter than she had in a long time, she swept her gaze over to Ingram and Aleron. Their backs were semi-turned to them, and it appeared as though they were having a very important and hushed conversation.

“I just have to know one thing before I meet him,” Gideon started, his voice warm but also serious. “Is he nice to you? Does he make you feel... safe?”

“Of course he does,” Emerie defensively muttered, her attention lost to Ingram and Aleron.

Well, it was lost in trying to figure out the hand gestures Ingram was making. Especially since Aleron had cupped his hand over his fanged mouth in thought. He was nodding, as though he was listening very intently while Ingram explained something.

“I’m just making sure, considering he’s a monster. It’s hard to accept.”

“He’s not a monster...” Emerie trailed off, and her eyes widened.

Her heart almost leapt to her throat, just as her face heated in deep-seated embarrassment.

“Ingram, no!” she squealed, running towards him.

Both Aleron and Ingram turned their skulls towards her, just as Ingram put his forefinger through a ring he’d made with his other hand.

Oh shit, he was explaining to Aleron what sex was!

She shouldn’t have left him alone. Now he was telling his twin about his –their– sex life!

“What is the matter, Emerie?”Ingram asked, tilting his head without removing his finger from the circle, like he saw nothing wrong with what he’d been doing.

Even though Aleron was right next to him, she waved her hands through Ingram’s ghostly ones, wishing to flap it away. He remained, unfortunately, until he turned around to face her.

“Don-don’t just tell people stuff like that about us.”

“Why not?”

“Yes, why not?”Aleron asked, tilting his head in the opposite direction to Ingram.“He has been teaching me all about these things I did not know. He said you feel very nice inside. I wonder if, when I also obtain a bride, I can use my d–”