And once he understood, he had recreated it here, in their home, mimicking everything down to the minerals and heat. It had taken a long time to perfect; it wasn’t easy to make water from shadow, but he had managed it, as he always did, because Erevos was, quite simply, a very intelligent demon.
“Is the water too hot?” he asked his little songbird, noting the way she now shielded her chest with her arms, and that was when he realized that the white gown she wore had turned sheer where the fabric touched the water.
Erevos hummed thoughtfully.
“No, the water . . . is fine. Thank you. Just . . . ” Lyssena mumbled, voice small and tight, and Erevos, wanting her to feel more confident, decided to do what had comforted her before. He placed her on his lap just like he had when she’d eaten, holding her thigh gently, exactly as he had done then. Perhaps familiarity would soothe her.
Well, it didnot.
The moment he had a full view of her, now pressed lightly against him and lit by the dim light above the pool, Lyssena shrieked.
Perhaps his human was still uncertain, and of course, she would be. How foolish of Erevos to think Lyssena could feel entirely comfortable without even having a proper conversation first. She had spent her time here afraid, or asleep, or eating, barely getting to know him at all.
Conversation was important.
He wanted to understand her, but he also wanted tobeunderstood, and more than anything, he wanted to hear the questions she still hadn’t asked.
So he began with one of his own.
“You wanted to ask me, Lyssena,” he said, his gaze shifting slowly between her eyes.
Erevos did not fully understand what the wordbeautifulmeant. He had heard humans use it to describe flowers, sunsets, even one another. But he did understand the idea of abeautiful soul, and Lyssena’s was just that. Perhaps, if her soul was beautiful, thenshewas beautiful too. “What was your question before?”
Lyssena went still.
“Oh,” she breathed, the sound soft and uncertain as her gaze flicked upward, first toward the cave ceiling, then toward the dim gray orb that floated above them. “You’ve called me a songbird,” she said slowly. “Why?”
Erevos reached with his free hand to take hers, small and damp from the water, as she sat on his thigh, no longer as tense as before.
“A songbird in your world,” he began, feeling the gentle heat that spread from the base of his palm where their skin touched, “is a creature caged . . . yet taken care of, Lyssena.”
His claws traced lightly over her fingers, making her heart flutter wildly inside her chest.
Erevos did not have eyes like hers—no irises, no pupils, no colors—but the dark expanse of purple where his gaze lived was locked onto her heartbeat, watching how it thumped in her chest, how it pulsed in her throat, how it flickered against the wrist he now held so delicately in his large, shadow-dark hand, his black skin seeming to swallow hers whole.
“Am I . . . in a cage now too?” she asked, and her words made Erevos pause.
Was she?
Had he simply exchanged one prison for another, even if this one was wrapped in comfort and shadows and care? How different was her life now, truly, now that she was with him?
She was being fed—she was never hungry then. She had a space of her own—again, she had one in there as well. It hadn’t even been a full day yet, and Erevos had so much planned for his little songbird, so many ideas and spaces and comforts he wanted to build for her.
But how could he ever claim she wasfreeif she could not do as she pleased?
In the human world, she had been able to step outside, and that particular truth concerned him deeply. Here, in The Void, there was no oxygen, no air for her lungs to draw in, no atmosphere in which she could survive.
And that was a very big problem if Erevos wanted Lyssena totrulybe as she wished. To thrive, not merely survive. He would need to find a solution.
And then he did.
Oh, what a glorious solution he had in mind. So clever, so perfect, that it made his mouth curl into a slow, widening grin.
Chapter Sixteen
The Pool of Ink and Echoes
Lyssena
