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And importantly, hedidwant to know where Paimon had snuck off to.

He opened his mouth to tell her to stay put.

She cut him off. “What did he say about you sleeping through the century?”

“What of it?”

She frowned. “Why sleep through a century?”

“Why not? There is not much to do around here. If a soul shows up, I will sense it and guide it out.” Slate’s tail swished uncomfortably. He didn’t encounter these questions often. He didn’t encounteranyquestions lately—he was too busy sleeping.

He smoothed his loincloth. “Stay here. I must attend to something.”

“Wait!” She moved like she was going to step in front of him, then faltered. “Why am I here? I-I thought?—”

“You thought I would eat you,” he finished.

She nodded faintly. She was still flushed with prey-animal fear, her skin shimmering with sweat. She had been convinced he would eat her. And she still came.

Slate was rarely impressed by mortals. He was surprised to find himself impressed now. Not fully—he felt very few emotions fully nowadays—but a hint of it.

He turned to her, watching her pulse thrum against her delicate throat. “I thought of it. But something stopped me.”

She swallowed. “What?”

He stepped closer. “Do you know what renewing Paimon’s protection ward entails?”

“No,” she admitted.

“It requires an old and powerful magic. A mating ritual.”

“Oh.” Her eyelids fluttered, and Slate thought, for some reason, of the spiderwebs in his forest, sloughing shadows from their threads.

“Mating,” she whispered. “You mean… lying together?”

He nodded. He waited for the screaming to start or for her to say she would rather leave her town to die and start anew somewhere else. Mortals despised Skullstalkers, after all. Especially the ones they feared so much they gave special names—the Bygone.The last time he was in the mortal realm, they had no name for him at all.

The witch lifted her chin to meet his eyes again.

“If that’s what it takes,” she said softly. “When do we start?”

Slate hesitated. Something was stirring in his gut. He was surprised when he realized it was desire. He had spent so long slumbering the years away and half-heartedly ruling his void to feel much of anything, let alone desire for another creature. He had not expected it to happen because of the witch in front of him, all dark hair and flushed skin, chest heaving under her plain mortal dress.

“Soon,” he promised. “I must search for Paimon. Perhaps he is lost or trapped.”

“Did you…” She squinted up at him. “Knowhim?”

For an odd moment, Slate considered telling her the whole story. Then he was reminded how useless it was to tell anything to a mortal and stopped.

“I do,” he said instead.

He turned for the door.

“Wait,” she repeated. This time, she really did step in front of him, black leaves crunching under her boots. “That other Skullstalker called you ‘Slate.’ Is that your name? Your real one?”

Slate hadn’t realized humans had forgotten. It must have been a very long time since he visited the mortal realm.

“It is,” he allowed.