Page 88 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

It’s like a cat’s, and as he comes closer, I realize it’s not the only thing. His eyes are a bright, beautiful green, and there’s a reflective quality to them. He has vertically elongated pupils, giving him an unnerving stare. It’s as enrapturing as the rest of him.

Luke holds up his backpack. “I have roughly three hundred soul jars in here. I presume that’s enough to cover two outfits for a soiree?”

Chryser rolls his obscure eyes. “You always were overly focused on the business aspect of interactions. Perhaps I just want to do a favor for an old friend. It’s been a while.”

His grin is as catlike as the rest of him. Charming and disarming.

Luke narrows his eyes, immune. “No favors. I prefer to pay.”

Chryser makes a whatever gesture. “If you insist. What look are we going for? Something showstopping? Revealing? Memorable? Groundbreaking?”

As he speaks, he circles us like a saucy shark. I press closer to Luke. “Something moveable?” I offer. “That we can run in?”

Luke shoots me a look as if to say I’m blowing our cover. I clear my throat and try again. “Nothing too tight,” I amend. “Something breathable.”

Chryser snaps his fingers. His nails come to curved points—claws, like the woman selling train tickets. “That I can work with. If only that big hunk beside you was half as good at using his words.”

Chryser makes a motion with his hands—hands, not paws, at least—and several racks screech across the cracked concrete underfoot. They come to a grinding halt before me. “Shall we start here?”

He thumbs through the nearest rack at lightning speed. Halfway down, he pulls a peachy gown. Before I can make a face at it, he puts it back onto the rack and continues his assault, muttering, “Terrible color for her skin tone.” Once he reaches the end of the rack, he raises an annoyed eyebrow at us. “Well? Are you just going to stand there or can you make yourselves useful and start looking?”

“Oh, uh, sorry.” I hurry to the nearest rack to rifle through its wares. It’s double-sided, so Luke takes the one opposite from me. For a few long stretches, the only sound is the scraping of metal on metal as the hangers drag from left to right.

“So…” Luke starts, keeping his voice low to suggest a conversation just for the two of us. I glance at Chryser, who’s already perusing a new rack across the warehouse. “Are you surprised?”

“That your ex is part feline? A bit,” I admit. I pause to admire a deep blue dress that reminds me of the sea. But the neckline plunges down to the belly button, so I keep searching.

“He’s a minor demon,” Luke explains. “They often acquire animal traits as part of their form.”

“Minor demons, vampires…any other ex variants I should know about?”

Luke thinks about it. “I had relations with a siren once until she tried to drown me.”

“You were probably asking for it.”

“I probably was,” he agrees with a light laugh.

I hide my smile by knocking our rummaging out of sync so I can no longer see him through the center of the racks. “But that’s not what you were actually asking me, was it?”

“It wasn’t,” Luke says. “When I arrived in the overworld, there was much to be surprised about. My brother and I spent our childhoods dreaming of going, and we’d heard murmurings about it, but it was difficult to know what was real and what was exaggerated. Unfortunately, the way some in the overworld view sexuality was…not exaggerated. Nobody cares about that here.”

“As I’m sure you’ve discovered about the overworld, people in power sometimes care too much about things that don’t affect them. Almost makes things in the underworld seem not too bad.”

“It has its flaws.”

Flaws, indeed. My eyes drift to Luke’s backpack, which he set down toward the center of the room, and the soul jars within. Hundreds of people who will never find peace.

“To answer your real question…” I stall my movements, letting Luke catch up. We lock eyes between walls of glittering sequins and detailed embroidery. “Knowing you have an ex that’s a man doesn’t surprise me in a way that’s different from the rest of this. I didn’t know anything about you two weeks ago. So, yes, I’m surprised. But not because it’s particularly surprising, or something I mind. Not at all. It’s just another thing about you I didn’t know.”

“You mean, along with the whole growing up in hell thing?” His mouth quirks at the corner.

I smile at him. “Among others. But I’m happy to know it all now.”

My eyes stray to Chryser, as an ugly green flower blooms in my chest, making my smile fall. Like Tatianna, he’s captivating, effortlessly so between his tailored monochromatic outfit and piercing gaze. Neither of them is pretty, per se, but they’re confident and cutting in a way that feels irreplicable. I imagine the same could be said for the siren, whoever she is. Luke clearly has a type—immortal and gorgeous and potentially prone to maiming him, if Chryser’s claws and Tatianna’s teeth are any indication. I bet he likes the thrill of it.

“What’s wrong?” Luke analyzes my expression.

I wrench my gaze away, continuing to scan the garments. Colors fly by, in fabrics so stiff they scratch my fingers or so soft I barely feel them at all, with little in between. Shades of rubies and emeralds and sapphires, as if every dress were destined to have a corresponding gem.