He watched her in silence, waiting as she thought through his question, and he knew, without a doubt, that whatever she wished for, he would give her all of it.
If she wanted more dresses, he would shape them from shadow and silk, would craft her every design her imagination could conjure.
If she desired more spices, he would find a dozen more Rolams, scour the corners of the human realm, and bring backevery box and jar, every powder and seed that could make her food sing.
He would go back to the human world, again and again, if it meant placing a smile on her lips.
But more than anything, Erevos wished that Lyssena would never want to leave him.
Because if she did, he would not be able to let her go. He simply couldn’t.
His little songbird was too precious, too lovely, too kind, too beautifully human to belong anywhere but here . . . wrapped in his arms, safe and kept, where he could protect her and hold her and never again let her be hurt.
And right now, with her lying so near, he felt that familiar desire to pull her close, to feel the weight of her body against his, to breathe in the sweet scent now radiating from her skin.
“What is it that you wish for?” he asked again as he lifted the arm he had been resting on and brought it above her, caging her beneath him.
“Tell me, Lyssena,” he whispered, his face close to hers, his breath a caress of warmth. “What is it that you want?”
Her sweet scent deepened, and Erevos lowered his head to hers, his mouth barely an inch from her temple, and inhaled deeply.
Lyssena’s lips twitched, as if she were about to say something but lost the thought at the very edge of her tongue.
Erevos knew she hadn’t truly forgotten, so perhaps she had changed her mind; perhaps she was shifting through all the possibilities, weighing want against need, sorting the tangled threads of want and caution like he often did himself.
“I wish for you to answer two of my questions,” she whispered at last, and Erevos went still.
He had been certain she would ask for an object—perhaps silk, or sugar, or another soft comfort—or ask him to dosomething for her, to build her something, or bring her something, or promise her something with his power.
But his songbird wanted answers.
And he would give her those, too.
“I promise not to joke this time,” he said, his mouth stretching into that impossibly wide grin.
At that, Lyssena giggled. A sound light and fluttering, like the brush of wings across a mirror’s surface, and it made his gaze drift over her face, tracing every shifting muscle, every twitch of her lips, the way her nose scrunched just slightly, the way her eyes shone with thought.
“Are you a man?”
A man meant a human male.
Erevos knew the term well enough. His body was shaped in a similar fashion, two arms, two legs, a head, a mouth, all the familiar signs of humanoid form, but that was where the similarity ended.
“I am not a human, Lyssena,” he answered.
“I know that!” she said with a soft smile, and Erevos noticed that her green eyes were slowly being swallowed by the black dots in their centers.
“Are there gods that are wome—female?” she asked next, tilting her head on the pillow.
“I am no god,” Erevos replied, “and there are no females of my kind.”
Demons did not reproduce; there was no cycle, no mating, no need for such things in The Void. Erevos had never cared to question it, had never felt the need to, until Lyssena’s soft, curious voice drew the thought from him.
He paused.
That demon he had erased . . .
He remembered it now. The grotesque mimicry, the blood, the stroking. He had seen human males rub themselves inthe same manner, though only now did he understand the significance, the perversion of what had been done.
