I can hear the walkie-talkie Vero is still carrying crackle to life, telling me he heard it but has chosen not to respond. Mickey’s not concerned. He just looks over at Tommy. “Let’s spoon.”
Tommy stares at Mickey before shrugging. “As long as I don’t have to be the little spoon ever again. I will only ever be my wife’s little spoon.”
“You’re so difficult! We need to find you a new woman so you stop being so fussy. I tried reviving Joy for you, but you’re both so picky!” They wander off, leaving me alone with Riley and Quill, who is so happy to see Riley safe that he’s taken to eating his hair.
“Why do you always want to consume me? You secretly want to get rid of me, don’t you?” Riley asks Quill.
“He loves you,” I say. “I also want to eat the one I love.” I gently bite his neck and it makes him squirm. “Tell me… if Tommy has a wife…”
“He does, but she’d remarried years before Mickey brought Tommy back. The three of them had a talk and Tommy assured her that he still loved her, but he was aware he couldn’t be who she needed. So he backed off and instead simply visits his daughter and granddaughter here and there.”
“Mickey’s necromancy skills really are unmatched, aren’t they? Necromancy is rare as it is, and I’ve only met a few who did it. Most could raise one or two undead, and only in the current state of decomposition the body was in. But Mickey… if you didn’t have the magic to tell, I feel like you’d have no idea they were even dead.”
“Right? And he never has to stop, either,” Riley says. “He’s left them out foryears. Yeah, some of them he’ll dismiss only to reanimate, like he did to sneak them into the theme park, but they’ll only be gone minutes at most. Other necromancers drain themselves and return the undead, but I think this is the first time Mickey ever had to resummon Joy or Tommy after a long period since he brought them back.”
“Fascinating.” I kiss the side of Riley’s head. “Let’s soak in the hot spring and let the water heal your magic. You feel quite… out of control.”
“I feel like a mess. Do I look like a mess?” he asks as I stand up and pull him to his feet.
I eye his blood-splattered face, his dirty clothes, and his windblown hair. “You look beautiful.”
His eyes immediately narrow like I could have possibly said something wrong. “Why did you grimace when you said that?”
“I wouldnever. I think Kit needs to get her eyes checked. Maybe she needs glasses, huh, Kit?”
The familiar makes a happy noise and jumps to me, ditching her owner who is trying to glare at me while I try to ignore it.
“Well, now all I can see is a very up-close view of your face, so you have to lead me,” Riley mutters.
“Happily.” I clasp his hand in mine and pull him after me while Kit leaps off me and onto Quill.
“Now all I can see is Quill.”
“Which is the second-best thing to look at. My body is the first.”
Riley snorts and I gasp, looking over at him. “Excuse me? Did you just diss what I said?”
“I would never,” he says as I lead him to the bathing room. We get the blood and dirt off him before I pull him into the hot spring that’s imbued with magic to help heal wounds and recover from magical exhaustion. Riley just flips onto his back and floats there.
“I’m enjoying the view,” I comment since his naked front is very much on display.
He flips over and practically drowns himself so all I have to see is his ass.
“I’m enjoying this view even more.” I catch him and draw him over to me, then pull him down into the water so he can lean against me with his back to my front.
“I don’t even know Conquest, but it hurts,” he says.
“It’s okay to mourn someone you didn’t know.”
“Yeah. This means he’ll be reborn, right? We need to find him before Aemon does. The real question is how the hell do we find him?”
“Maybe you’ll be drawn to him?” I’m trying to sound hopeful. “It’s not like you’ll be able to ask him, with him being an infant and all…”
Riley sits on my lap in silence for a minute before slowly turning his head toward me. “We’re too young to be fathers,” he says as he looks at me in horror.
I stare back at him. “Do you realize we’d actually be some of the oldest fathers in existence? Hell, you’re older than me if you really think about it. No way the bringer of the apocalypse is younger than a thousand-year-old god.”
Riley looks appalled for some reason. “Let’s just worry about this later. Like… he’ll have a mom, right? His new mom can raise him.”
