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“I’ll be back presently,” Emory replied, putting his hand on the door handle.
“He really is back, you know.” Terje’s voice was heavy with warning. Jesse’s blood ran cold.
“Of course I know.” Emory’s face might have been carved from marble. “As I said, I’ll return shortly.”
The other haemophiles said nothing, but Jesse sensed their eyes on him as the baron took him from the room. He still hadn’t unstuck his tongue by the time they’d reached the front door, where they found Greenway waiting.
“What was that about?” Jesse asked.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Magnusson replied.
“Sorry,” Jesse fumbled. “I didn’t handle that well, did I?”
“You did better than most.”
“Does, uh…?” Jesse glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Does Terje Kristiansen stop by often?”
“Sometimes. Terje does a lot of work for the rights of registered independents—those that choose to live outside a commune, like myself.”
“I hadn’t heard much about him in the last couple of years.”
“He’s a very private individual.”
“He lives with a human, right?”
“Lord Aviemore. That’s correct.”
“Still?”
Magnusson studied him for a moment. “Why do you ask?”
Jesse shrugged, warmth spreading through his face. “He’s not here.”
“Alec is even more private than Terje. I have met him…but infrequently. He is not the social sort. Any more questions?”
Jesse blushed and looked away.
“It’s okay,” Magnusson said softly. “I want you to ask me questions, Jesse. Knowledge is our greatest weapon against fear. So long as it doesn’t endanger anyone, I will always endeavor to answer. Trust works both ways, after all.”
Jesse absorbed the expression on his handsome face for a long moment. “Okay then, I will.”
“Good. Now Greenway will take you home. Tomorrow we will send people to collect you and your things.”
Jesse nodded dumbly, staring around the marble hall and trying to make himself believe what was happening.
* * * *
He still wasn’t quite able to believe it, even when a team of movers arrived at his building the next day with a van and enough men to move his pitiful amount of stuff ten times over.
Jesse escaped to the cafe on the corner to get a coffee, unable to decide how he was feeling. Soon he stood on the threshold of the stripped flat, shivering in the chill and wondering why he was sorry to leave it. Then he spotted the pencil marks on the wall where they’d measured Oliver’s growth, and his chest tightened.
He drew his phone out to call Anton, like he had a dozen times between that moment and the night before, but he still couldn’t think how to explain. He put his phone away, shut and locked the door and left, dropping his key through the landlord’s letterbox as he passed.
Tom was waiting for him when the moving van arrived at Oswald House. He shook Jesse’s hand with another of those spine-tingling smiles then hustled him away to start work on the firewall while the movers took his stuff upstairs.
“I heard you met the others last night,” Tom said.
“Huh?” Jesse said, distracted by his workstation powering up. “Oh, the other haemophiles.” He shook his head. “Yeah, that’s something I won’t forget in a hurry. How often do those charmers call around?”
