SIX

When I woke up the next morning, he was beside me. He looked content and warm, loose-limbed, his scales dark against the white sheets. The top sheet twisted over one leg, but otherwise, he was bare. I could see most of the places I’d found scales the night before—along the curve of his thighs, across the muscles at the base of his back, around his kneecaps, down his ankles. And now I knew there were other places too—scales splashed across his chest, along the tops of his hips. In the light, I could see where the blue scales on his face and neck deepened to greens and browns on his hands. I could see how the scales got smaller, becoming minute specks, as they got closer to his fingers and toes. How they were like large chips of glass at the top of his legs. And the fins, visible now that he’d dropped his glamour, opaque and folded to his skin. They ran down his calves to his ankles, down his forearms from his elbows, ending just before his wrists. I’d expected there to be one down the middle of his spine, but there wasn’t. Aside from the scales, his back was smooth. His toes were webbed, though.

I didn’t know how we’d ended up in my bed. I remembered all of it, I just wasn’t sure what had happened, what I’d said or done right, to bring us together. We’d left the club and come here, and he’d been in my arms. We’d kissed, and I’d found his scales and his fins, and he’d touched my knuckles and the bones in my ankles and my shoulder blades and the flat of my stomach and everywhere else he could fit his hands. And after, a long time after, he’d fallen asleep so close to me I’d felt him breathing on me, and now he was still that close. His hair spilled across the sheets, an inky mess. I twisted my fingers in it. It was like I was holding water, liquid and cool.

Kin’s eyes flickered open. He reached out and splayed his fingers against my chest, dark on the paleness of my skin, the little fin on his wrist just brushing me. It was soft.

“You’re not human.”

He laughed and shook his head against the pillow. His arm wrapped around my shoulder and tugged me down next to him, so our eyes were level. I smiled back, but I hadn’t meant it as some kind of bawdy joke. His face softened, and he shook his head, serious this time. “I’m not.”

The way he’d touched me last night had seemed human. He hadn’t touched me like he was superior. He hadn’t acted like he was doing me a favor. He’d looked at me like I mattered. Like I wasn’t an oddity. Like I wasn’t only half of what I should be.

“You don’t act fey.”

He moved his hand and wiped at his eyes, clearing them. The gesture was sleepy, intimate in how awkward it was. He pulled his hair into a knot and brushed with his palms to smooth the stray pieces. His head flopped back against the pillow and he blinked, still not fully awake. “You know strange fey.” His fingers brushed against my cheekbone. “And I told you. We’re not all like that. My mothers never wanted me to be mired in the old ways. They wanted me to be able to survive in a human world.” He smiled, like he was pleased with himself, and his eyes slid shut. “Make me breakfast?”

I agreed, but instead of sleeping for a while more and waiting for me to come back with breakfast, he got up. He went for the shower, and I thought maybe he needed the water, since he had told me he was a water fey, of a sort. I asked him if the chlorine in the tap supply would bother him, but he shook his head.

I stayed in bed and watched him walk to the bathroom. We had only been together one night, and I was still self-conscious. He, however, walked around the bed without holding the sheet against himself. He walked like he had nothing to be embarrassed about, like he wanted me to see him—the same way he’d held his arms, covered in those green and brown scales, over his head while we danced the night before. When the bathroom door closed behind him, I let my head slip back on the pillow. I ran my hands through my hair and wondered what the hell I had been thinking when I’d rushed to the club to find him, and then brought him home.

I couldn’t make myself unhappy that I’d done it, though.

I got up and made waffles, and when Kin came out of the shower, we ate them together at the table. We poured the maple syrup into a dish between us and tore off pieces to dip into it. Our fingers got sticky. I watched Kin lick his clean like he was a cat. My mind wandered, and he laughed when he saw me watching, and I laughed too. I poured him more tea, and orange juice for myself. It was weirdly normal to have him sitting there, dripping syrup on the cracked plastic surface of my table.

“What do you have to do today?” I popped my thumb in my mouth and sucked at the skin, tasting sugar.

Kin shook his head. “I don’t have anyone coming around. Nowhere to go.”

“I need to work,” I told him. “But you can kill your time with me today, if you want.” It was odd, asking him. This probably should have been the part of the morning where he left and we were both a bit relieved to get a little time to ourselves. But I didn’t want to let go of him just yet. I was afraid that if he left my sight, he might disappear, and I’d go back to a quiet house and a slow wait, with none of Kin’s brightness in it.

“I do,” he said, and the answer came without any thought or hesitation.

While Kin got a last glass of water, I dug two iron tablets out of the box I kept on the table. They were bright red, like little spots of blood in my hand. I barely glanced at them. I slammed them into my mouth and swallowed them with the last pulpy sips of orange juice in my glass. I must have been having a good day—I thought they started working almost as soon as I took them, shearing the edge off whatever fey thing it was that was eating at me, subduing it the tiniest bit. I had no real proof that the iron stopped the fey parts of me from eating away the healthy parts, or that it wasn’t doing more damage, in some other way, than good. When I took it, though, the knot in my chest loosened the smallest fraction. The ache in my bones, the cramping in my stomach if I was having that kind of day, the tiredness in me, all faded, just the slightest bit. It was so slight I might have been imaging it. But it was real enough that I kept doing it.

I glanced up and found Kin watching me. I felt a little guilty, knowing I was using something he hadn’t given me to treat symptoms. But he just smiled at me and asked if I was ready to go.

We didn’t talk much on the drive over to Saben’s apartment, but it wasn’t awkward. Not quite. Maybe a bit, in that way silences can be when you don’t really know someone, but not much. Like we were already learning each other enough to be quiet together.

When we were sitting in the apartment building’s parking lot, though, I did start to feel uncomfortable. Nervous, maybe. I turned the car off, but then I just sat there. Kin saw that I wasn’t moving and settled into his seat. His hand had been reaching for the door handle, but now he piled his fingers into his lap. They laced neatly together, the sharp knuckles delicate instead of strange. Last night, he had seemed to flicker sometimes, like he was going in and out of spaces too quickly. His hands had always been on me, though. I could remember those fingers everywhere.

“I need to get my messages, to see who needs a job done.” I stared straight ahead, through the windshield. It was late enough that most people were at work, and the apartment complex was mostly empty.

“Okay.” I was already starting to realize that Kin wasn’t the kind of person who’d think it was strange that we were sitting in front of this worn, dirty building while I talked in circles. “Where do you get them?”

“They get dropped off with my sister.”

Kin switched his hands, so his fingers were laced in a different order. “The fey sister, I’m guessing.”

“Right. Saben. She’s my only sibling.”

“Saben?”

I nodded. “The sidhe like pretty sounds.”

He smiled at me, lazy and sweet. “That’s true.”

“She’s very fey.” I met his eyes and made a vague hand motion. I didn’t know how to explain what Saben was.

“Luca. I’ve dealt with your fey before.”

“Saben’s different.”

“You’re making her sound terrifying.”

“No, I don’t mean it like that.” I didn’t know what I meant. I only wanted him to know what he was walking into, but I couldn’t explain what a force Saben was, how she ran over people with her words and her gestures. How she didn’t even seem to notice when she’d gone too far, when she hurt someone.

Kin sighed. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Come over here and kiss me.” His hand reached for my hip and pulled me closer, across the tiny space between the seats. We kissed, his mouth soft and open on mine, like he was offering himself, offering whatever I wanted from him. We hadn’t kissed since last night. I’d been nervous about it, because sometimes it wasn’t the same, the morning after. It was with Kin, though. He was warm and solid, and he tasted like him and me and the waffles, and something sweet and cool underneath. His hand on my hip held me like I was fragile. Like he wanted to span my whole body with those fingers.

“All right,” he said when we broke apart, and his words were matter-of-fact, but his eyes looked a little lost. He touched a finger to his lip absently, as if unaware he was doing it. “I like you so much.” He seemed far away, and his words were a bit faint, like was surprised by the kiss as much as I was. Then his eyes focused on me. “Let me meet your sister.”

He smiled, slowly, the slight embarrassment in his eyes acknowledging whatever had just happened between us, and I smiled back. I couldn’t help it.

Saben wasn’t exactly as enthused to meet Kin as Kin was to meet her. She eyed him, and then said, her tone flat, “Yokai.”

“Hai, hai,” Kin replied. Then he laughed at himself, a quiet, derisive sound.

“Invite him in, Saben,” I said, softly. I could hear that parent tone in my voice. I forgot sometimes that she wasn’t six anymore, and I acted like she was still my responsibility. Acted like she was someone whose behavior reflected on me. Like it was still my job to teach her manners and etiquette and that it wasn’t polite to spit on guests her brother brought to visit.

She stepped backward. I took advantage of the little gap between her and the doorframe and stepped inside, gesturing for Kin to follow me. He stood close to me. Not so close that we crowded each other, but close enough that it was almost like he was protecting me, or I was protecting him. Like we were a unit and Saben was the piece opposite us. It was strange. I didn’t often feel like a unit with Saben, but until now, I’d always been on her side, even when she wasn’t on mine. It was a habit I’d never been able to break, had never seriously tried to get rid of. She eyed Kin, letting her gaze go up and down him. She wasn’t embarrassed by her rudeness, didn’t think anything of it. Kin didn’t seem to either. He flexed his hands, making it obvious that they were empty.

She turned her stare on me. “You reek of iron.”

I hesitated, then shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

“And you reek of him,” she said, softer, her head jerking toward Kin.

I bit my lip. “That’s none of your business.”

My tone hadn’t been harsh, but she ducked her head a fraction, like I’d actually managed to chastise her. Beside me, Kin shifted his weight from one foot to the other. I thought it was possible that I’d never been quite so uncomfortable. I sighed. “I need my messages.”

Saben turned her head like she was pondering something. I knew the gesture. It meant she was flustered or embarrassed. I waited it out, another ingrained habit.

“Will you have tea?” she finally asked, her voice stiff, the words coming out like she was forcing them. I knew she didn’t feel obligated, though. If she didn’t want to make us tea, she wouldn’t be asking at all.