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And with the way I’d left him behind, I had more urgent things to worry about.

‘Creon?’ My voice echoed in the midnight silence, and I couldn’t be bothered to keep it down, to guiltily close the door behind me before I started speaking. ‘Creon, are you—'

I interrupted myself, two steps into the room.

He wasn’t there.

He must have been around since our return to the Underground: his boots were standing next to the old desk, wet and sandy from the Cobalt Court beach. His favourite knives lay next to the books on his nightstand, too, and his travel bag had been flung into the farthest corner. But the chairs and bed were empty, and the bathroom was dark behind the half-opened door; the Silent Death himself was nowhere to be seen.

I blinked, too tired to instantly make sense of the observations. Where else could he be? My bedroom? But wenevermet in my bedroom, and—

‘Looking for something?’ an unknown voice said behind me.

I shrieked and whipped around.

And there he was, leaning against the doorframe with a steaming earthen mug in his hand and that most mischievous of smiles on his face – shirt half-buttoned, dark hair spilling loose over his shoulders, looking so astoundingly like he’d always done that it took my drained mind a full three heartbeats to figure out what had just happened. A stranger’s voice. Coming from behind me. Coming, more specifically, from the exact spot where he was standing …

Oh.

Oh.

‘Creon?’ I said again, breathless now.

‘Tea helped,’ he dryly added, nodding at the mug he was holding – full lips moving in perfect synchronicity with the words I heard, andstillit barely seemed real, that rich, hoarse baritone emerging from his mouth. ‘And a whole lot of blue magic. It’s still not exactly where it used to be, but all things considered …’

Some sort of sound fell over my lips.

His smile grew into a devilish smirk as he took a sip of tea. ‘Anything wrong, cactus?’

‘No.’ It came out frantic. ‘No – absolutely nothing wrong. Keep talking. Are you alright?’

‘Bit of a sore throat,’ he said and shrugged, stepping into the room and inching the door shut behind him. I didn’t seem capable of moving – as if even my feet were too busy listening, soaking up every drop of that husky drawl through whatever means available. ‘Which I’m sure will heal itself soon enough, and even if it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter. It seems a rather decent price to pay.’

He spoke more slowly than I’d expected from the speed of his signing – not an air of slow-mindedness but rather of thoroughness, or perhaps the languid confidence of a male whose audience would generally be wise enough not to wander off or interrupt him. His Faerie accent was just a little more pronounced than I’d anticipated, too, lending a melodious lilt to my human language. For the very first time, I found myself wondering whether the Mother may have taken his voice as a sensible precaution, rather than for the sake of petty revenge – because this velvety timbre, this mesmerising cadence …

Gods help me, this was the sort of voice that could make peopledothings.

‘It … yes.’ I wasn’t even fully sure what I was saying anymore. Who in hell cared about my words whenhewas talking – those lips I’d kissed so many times, bringing forth those breathtaking sounds? ‘Very … very decent.’

He put his tea on the desk, set himself on the edge of the wooden tabletop, and cocked his head at me with eyes that twinkled alarmingly. ‘Glad you agree. Why is there blood on your arms, if I may ask?’

‘What? Oh.’ I glanced down, blinking at the finger-shaped smudges on my lower arms. ‘I had a chat with Tared.’

‘A … chat,’ that husky voice repeated.

It was unnerving, to hear him speak without seeing his expression. I realised in that moment I had no idea how to interpret the emotion behind those unhurried tones, not without the facial clues to help me out – was this what his suspicion sounded like? His incredulousness? His amusement?

I looked up and found him studying me with lips pressed tight – straining against what I knew must be a grin about to break through. Amusement, then.

‘You know,’ I said weakly. ‘Alves.’

‘Did you …’ He faltered, a delicious little hiccup that must be the sound of laughter about to overcome him. ‘Em, did youfighthim?’

I grimaced. ‘I might have?’

He burst out laughing.

Zera help me, hislaughter– it rolled over me like magic, a melodious sound so rich and full of life that I could do nothing but stand there and drown in it, soaking it in like warm sunlight on the first day of spring. He laughed like a male set free. Like all the weight in the world had been lifted from his shoulders for the first time in centuries and he could finally breathe again, the music of it resonating not just in the air between us, but in my very soul.