I glanced at Kin, and he nodded, his head tilting forward into something that was almost a shallow bow of acceptance. It wasn’t a mocking gesture, and Saben seemed to see that. She glanced at me and I nodded, and she walked into the kitchen.

I turned, the movement alone bringing us from the doorway to the main room, and gestured for Kin to take a seat. The living room was made out to look like a normal home. Two love seats sat kitty-corner to each other, taking up most of the space, with a coffee table in the middle. The white plush of the couches, the slightly worn wicker that supported the glass top of the table, the cheapness and oldness of the pieces of furniture, made it seem like they belonged in the apartment. Any human could have bought them to decorate with. There was nothing unique or even very interesting about them.

Saben had strewn silk cloths over everything, though, to make the space hers, and the colors of the fabric were too rich—dark reds and royal purples, greens that seemed deep enough to jump into—the embroidery far too fine, for anything not made with magic. The room smelled like fresh apples, and I couldn’t tell where the scent was coming from. On one wall, a huge painting of a lake hung, surrounded by a silver frame. On the coffee table, a beautiful, plain white pitcher and a white clay bowl sat, the bowl just under the pitcher’s mouth. Every few moments, a trickle of clear water would pour from the pitcher into the bowl, where it would turn into blue and green and purple swirls before fading. There were no lights in the bowl, no reservoir of water in the pitcher, or a pump to make it work. It was just Saben, having fun.

Kin sat against the silk-covered cushions of the far couch. He ran his fingers over the fabric of the cloths, nodding his head in appreciation, but he didn’t seem surprised. He’d seen it all before. He watched the pitcher dribble out its water and smiled when he saw it hit the bowl.

Saben came back with a small silver tray full of slices of fruits, but no tea. I peeked into the kitchen and saw her ugly kettle on the stove.

“Are you actually boiling water?” Then I looked again. “I thought you had the stove taken out?”

She sat next to me, just resting on the edge of the cushion, and flicked her eyes at me. “I decided to keep it.”

I laughed. “What for?”

Her eyes narrowed. “To boil water, for one.”

I sat back and stared at her. Saben could ask water to boil, and it would. The skills of the fey, the magics they have in them, are not all powerful. Usually, they’re not even that practical. But they can be useful in the hands of someone skilled, and Saben was that.

She angled her face away from me. “I’m careful not to touch the iron. I put a cloth over it when I’m not using it, to keep the iron from leaking out into the air.” She thought about it for a second. “To keep it from leaking so much,” she amended.

“You don’t put the cloth on when it’s still hot,” I said, not asking.

She glared at me. “Do I look like such a fool?”

On the couch opposite me, Kin’s shoulders tensed. I realized how awkward it was to have this conversation in front of someone. I realized I’d never properly introduced them.

The fey I’ve known don’t really go in for introductions. It can take months for me to learn someone’s name, to give mine. Sometimes it never happens at all. Not because they don’t consider names important, but because they’re considered so important they shouldn’t be trivialized. Kin and Saben would never notice if I didn’t introduce them. But growing up human, taught manners by a human mother, made me feel like I had to do it. And I thought it might help to move the conversation, if abruptly.

I cleared my throat. “Kin,” I said, “this is Saben.” I glanced at Saben. “This is Kin.” I gestured toward him, a quick tightening and loosening of my fingers in his direction.

Saben turned to face him, her body swiveling on the cushion. Her chin was lifted up, like she was royalty. She thought she was. There were two spots of pale pink, the deepest blush her skin could manufacture, high on her cheeks. “I’m learning to boil water,” she informed him.

He inclined his head to her, the gesture solemn, honestly respectful. His lips tilted at one corner. “That will be a wonderful thing for you to know.”

The rest of the visit went a bit smoother than it had started. Not smooth, really, because the fact was, despite the tangled relationships we were starting to weave around each other, none of us really knew the others well. It was all still awkward. Just not unpleasantly so.

“Well,” I said when we got back in my car, not asking, but wanting to know what Kin thought. I shifted forward and stuffed the messages Saben had given me into my back pocket.

Kin nodded. “She’s something.” He turned to me. “She would be formidable if she wasn’t in your presence.”

I’d had the key near the ignition, but now I dropped my hand. “She’d . . . what?”

“She’s beautiful and strong. It’s obvious how frightening she could be, or overbearing, or powerful. But you diminish her fierceness.”

I didn’t understand, not at all. I shook my head, asking him mutely for more of an explanation.

Kin’s fingers flicked through the air. “I think there’s part of her that wants to be a child around you, and I could see it. It made her less intimidating.”

My eyebrows pinched together. Then I laughed. “I think she actually liked you. I really do.”

He shook his head, and a rueful smile spread over his face. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Truly. The way she turned to you to talk to you. She wanted your attention.”

“She was just siding with me over you because you were badgering her.” He tilted his head, and the earrings, the sleek shine of his hair, caught the light. My breath hitched a little. I could see, in my mind’s eye, those same flashes of light, muted and private and lovely, in my bedroom when he’d leaned over me, when he’d came close enough to brush his lips over my collarbone, my neck, my mouth.

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

Kin turned toward me. His left knee bent and rested on the seat cushion, his hands on either side of it. “Were you close, when she was young?”

I shifted my hands in my lap. I stared at them, at the keys twisted around my fingers. So ordinary, sitting here, ready to drive, with him beside me. “I don’t know.”

He didn’t push, just waited.

“I don’t know if I was more her brother, or her friend, or her parent.” I looked up at Kin and shrugged. “I thought we were. I thought we were close.”

“But not anymore.” It wasn’t really a question.

I answered it anyway. “No.”

“What happened?”

“I went away.” Another uncomfortable shrug. “My father and his friend sent me away to try to find a cure. Or maybe . . . maybe they sent me so I wouldn’t be so visible. So in the way. I went. I searched. For years. And I . . .” I shook my head. “I didn’t think I was going to come back, Kin. So I tried to keep everyone away. I didn’t keep in contact, not any more than I absolutely had to. I wanted them to forget me. I was wrong. But I’d already done it. And Saben and I lost each other. When I came back, we weren’t the same.”

Kin nodded. He was so calm, so steady, so ready to accept whatever I told him. But I could see his fingers tightening on the edge of the seat, his nails digging into the fabric, like he was containing himself. Holding something back.

“Did you like it? The . . . traveling? The being away?”

“Yeah. I liked it.” I’d loved it, for a while. I’d loved how separate I’d been, how far away from everything I’d ever known. I’d seen some places I was pretty sure most people never did. Back alleys and dusty markets, rivers that meandered through steep mountains and windy plains, and huge cities and tiny towns. I’d met interesting people and let myself disappear into a few of them, for a handful of nights at a time. I’d pretended I was someone else, someone whole and well and not an accident that was slowly proving how much it should never have existed. I’d liked it.

“Why did you come back here, then?” Kin asked, gently.

Maybe it was the way he asked it. Like he really wanted to know. Like it mattered. Or like he already knew why and he just wanted me to tell him. But my throat closed, went tight and scratchy, and I felt, suddenly, ridiculously, like I might cry, right there, sitting in my car in front of my sister’s apartment.

“No one could help me,” I told him. I looked up, looked him right in the eye, and he glanced away. “There isn’t a cure. And I don’t have the stamina to move place to place anymore. I had . . . I came home because I was afraid and I didn’t know where else to go.”

Kin stared down at his lap, his hands twisting and turning over each other. “Have you given up?” he asked me after a long minute.

I didn’t want to say those words. I didn’t ever want to give up. But hope was hard. “There isn’t anything that will work.”

“If there was,” Kin said, slowly, “if there was, would you do it?”

“Yes,” I said, without hesitation. I tried to make myself smile. The expression was brittle on my face. “I want to get better, Kin. I don’t want . . . It hasn’t . . . It hasn’t been long enough, you know?”

He nodded, but he didn’t say anything more. He just smiled back at me and leaned forward to kiss my cheek, soft, lingering, so I could feel his breath against my skin. Then he sat back in his seat, buckled his seat belt. I stuck the key in the ignition, more than ready to get out of there.