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I know he’s only saying the words for my benefit, and I try to cling to them, but the unsettling feeling in my stomach remains.
“How soon do you think that’ll happen?”
“It could be today,” Elio interrupts, taking a seat across the table from us. “It could be three months from now. We don’t know for sure. But we do know that it’s coming.”
He takes a bite of his slop, making my stomach turn, and kisses the tips of his fingers. “Perfection. I definitely outdid myself this time.”
“Are you part Italian by chance?” I ask, made curious by his accent and the hand gesture.
He shakes his head. “No, not at all. But I would like to go there someday. I was born on the opposite side of the realm in a place called Theev. Think of it like another country.”
“Wow.” I nod, my mind spinning with this new information.
There are multiple countries and countless cities that make up the monster realm, yet the only glimpses I’ve seen of it are the abandoned buildings where the portal dumped me out, and the inside of this mansion. I still haven’t ventured outside because I’m terrified of leading Malevs or monsters—or both—straight to Rafe’s front door.
“I feel like I need a whole history lesson to catch up.”
“It’s not that different from Earth,” Elio assures me between bites. “Different races inhabit this realm: monsters, Malevs, demons, warlocks, and lots of hybrids in between. We’ve experienced war, famine, and plagues. The main difference is that here, most of the time, you know who the bad guys are.”
“The Malevs and the demons are the bad guys,” I guess. “Right?”
“Right,” Azarius says and nudges my leg gently with his knee.
“Then what are the—” I don’t finish my sentence because the door behind us opens suddenly, and panic floods me. There’s only one person absent from the table, and unless someone broke in, I know who’s behind me.
“Azarius,” Rafe’s voice fills the room and gives me chill bumps.
Az stands beside me and turns on his heel, his tail falling into my lap.
“Yes sir.”
“Come with me. I need you to run an errand, and we don’t have much time.”
“Yes, boss.”
His gaze meets mine and he offers me a half-smile before following Rafe out of the dining room. The door settles closed behind me, and I stare awkwardly across the table at Elio, who’s finishing his plate.
“Things would be way easier here with cell phones, don’t you think?” I ask, trying to drum up conversation.
Normally, Elio would offer a short answer and leave me alone at the table, but this time he doesn’t. Something—or someone—must have put him in a good mood last night, because he was not this friendly at dinner.
“Definitely,” he agrees. “Convenience is one thing I’ll say I miss about Earth. You have everything you need right at your fingertips. Here, you’re hours or even days away.”
A long moment of pause stretches between us, and the sound of the fireplace crackling is the only thing breaking up the silence of the room. I’m tempted to take my food back to my room so I can try to eat it later, but Elio speaks before I can move.
“What were you going to say?”
I tilt my head to the side. I’ve already forgotten what we were talking about.
“When?”
“When Rafe came in. You said ‘then what are the’ and then you stopped.”
I rack my brain, backpedaling through our conversation. “I asked if the Malevs and demons are the bad guys.” And then my memory is jogged. “Oh yeah. Then what are the hybrids?”
“A hybrid is any entity that contains mixed blood from two or more of the four races. Malevs are technically hybrids, but there are so many of them that we classify them as their own race,” he explains, his accent playing in my ears like a song.
If he wasn’t so short with me all the time, I might ask him to talk all day just so I could listen.
