Dante didn’t argue. Didn’t comfort. Just sat with him in the darkness while the truth settled between them.
“You’re not a bad person,” Dante said finally. “You’re just so convinced you have to be perfect that you can’t admit when you’re wrong.”
“That doesn’t help her.”
“No. But it means you can change. If you stop trying to control everything long enough to actually change.”
“How do I start?” he asked.
“You ask for help. Which you have literally never done in your life, so.” Dante shrugged. “Start there. See how it feels. Then do it again tomorrow.”
“We have four days.”
“Then you’d better start now.”
Dante left as the first grey light crept through the windows. Alessandro got up and started working.
He moved through the damaged apartment, cleaning what he could, assessing the damage. The bakery kitchen was gutted. The storage room was destroyed. Marina’s pelt was gone.
He was halfway through inventory when Malachar appeared.
Not at the door. Simply present, suddenly, in the middle of the ruined kitchen like he’d been there all along. The demon smiled, and Alessandro felt his control begin to slip.
“Tragic,” Malachar said, surveying the damage. “Such a charming little establishment. Though I suppose it had… outlived its usefulness.”
“Get out.”
“So hostile.” Malachar picked up a smoke-stained mixing bowl with exaggerated delicacy. “I just wanted to check in. See how you were coping with your losses.”
“My losses.”
“The bakery. The relationship. The selkie’s trust.” He set down the bowl with a click. “She was never going to stay, you know. They never do. Selkies always return to the sea.”
“I said get out.”
“Do you know what her pelt feels like?” Malachar leaned closer. “So soft. So warm. You can practically feel her soul in it. All that ancient magic, contained in something so fragile.”
The dragon in Alessandro’s blood roared.
“If you touch her?—”
“Touch her? I already have her. The most vulnerable part of her, anyway.” Malachar smiled. “Did you know that if you destroy a selkie’s pelt, they die? Not immediately, of course. It’s a slow process. The magic drains away, and they wither. But you can hurry it along if you know what you’re doing.”
Alessandro shifted.
He didn’t decide to. Didn’t plan it. One moment he was standing in the kitchen, rage burning in his chest; and the next he was dragon.
The apartment couldn’t contain him. He burst through the wall, talons shredding plaster and wood, and launched himself at Malachar. The demon was fast, impossibly fast, darting through the destroyed kitchen and out onto the street.
Alessandro pursued.
Fire poured from his mouth in concentrated streams, scorching the cobblestones where Malachar had stood a moment before. The demon laughed, a cold, hollow sound, and vanished.
Reappeared behind him.
Vanished again.
Alessandro destroyed a streetlight. A parked car. Half of a garden fence. He couldn’t think, couldn’t strategize, could only hunt and burn and rage.
