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“Something on your mind?” he asked. “Let me guess. You’re conflicted about selling sketches of me.” He rolled his eyes and turned back to the fire. “It’s no wonder Fortune keeps missing you, Cole Matheson. You shun her at every turn.”
“Fortune didn’t miss me today, thanks to you.”
I told him about Mr. Coffman and the London Art Faire.
“Thus, beginning your epic rise to fame and untold riches,” Ambri said.
“I don’t know about that, but it’s more action than I’ve seen since graduation.”
“So naturally, you feel guilty about it.”
“It’s not guilt, really.” I smiled. “Well, maybe a little.”
“Why? I revealed my form to you so that you might use it to make your name. My human portrait is for me.”
I studied my hands, smudged with charcoal. “I know. It’s just a lot and I’m grateful—”
“Then say thank you and be done with it.”
His bad mood was like a storm cloud filling the flat; the air felt tight and electric. I took a seat on the couch. “Is everything all right?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You tell me.” I noticed his hair wasn’t its usual coiffed perfection but was tousled. As if someone—more than one someone? —had been running their fingers through it. “Long night?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Does that offend your delicate sensibilities?”
I shrugged, rested my elbows on my knees. “I don’t know. I don’t like it, but I’ve been wrapped up—”
“In what I could do for you?” He scoffed. “How very human of you.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “I don’t even know what you do, exactly. Create sex addicts? Or make people cheat on people they love? Or—”
“I don’tmakepeople do anything. No demon does. We only stoke that which already exists in you. It’s up to you to resist us. To fight back with your power that far exceeds ours if you only believed it.”
I frowned. “I just don’t understand. Thousands—probably millions—of people have sexual hang ups. Are you responsible for all of it?”
“Yes,” Ambri said snidely. “I’m a lusty Father Christmas who visits every bedroom in one night, delivering goodies to all the naughty little boys and girls.”
“Maybe you do. I don’t know how it all works.”
“I have legions of servitors,” Ambri said. “Lesser demons who do the same work. They—like most demons—operate from the Other Side of the Veil, whispering and enticing. I happen to prefer the personal touch. But if you’re trying to exercise your moral outrage while still keeping your commission, rest assured. If I ceased to exist tonight, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. Another demon would come along to take my place.” He gave me a look. “Feel better?”
“I don’t know how to feel.”
“Hmph. I don’t recall you complaining the other night when you were benefitting from my particular skill set.”
My face heated. “I thought I was dreaming. It won’t happen again.”
“You don’t sound very convincing.”
“It’s all surreal,” I admitted with a sigh. “Like there are two of you. The version that I want to paint until my eyeballs fall out of my head and then there’s the version that I wish…”
I cut off my words with a cough. I didn’t even know what I’d been about to say except that it was something I couldn’t take back.
“There isn’t one version of me without the other,” Ambri said quietly. “Don’t forget that.”
A short silence fell and then I ventured slowly, “Do you miss being human?”
