I drop down next to Shepard on the sofa. I’m only half kidding about summoning the demon; maybe she’d be open to negotiation. I elbow him.
“Worried she’ll get clingy?”
“Penelope…” He lets his arms fall. “You can keep making fun of me…”
“I shall.”
“And insulting me.”
“That’s the plan.”
He turns his head towards me. If I had to describe his face and general mood right now, I’d go with unhappy-go-unlucky. “But please,” he says, “don’t make jokes like that.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t call her my girlfriend.”
“Is ‘fiancée’ better?”
“Don’t, Penelope. It’s not funny.”
“It’s funny to me, I have a lot of jokes lined up.”
Shepard frowns at me. It’s somehow even more effective than his smiles —more potent for its rarity. “If I were a woman being forced to marry a demon,” he says, “would it be funny?”
I don’t know, would it? I fold my arms. Shepard’s not a woman. He’s a big, goofy man—who got himself into this situation and then hid it from me.
“Clearly I understand that this is serious, Shepard—I am trying to help you fix it.”
“And I appreciate it! Thank you! Just … don’t tease me. About that part.
Don’t call her my fiancée.”
“Fine,” I say and wish I didn’t sound so sulky about it.
“It’s not a real engagement,” he says, rubbing the stripes in his trousers.
He’s said it before.
“I get that.”
He glances at me, not quite meeting my eyes. “Do you?”
“Yes. I do.” （I mean … I mostly do.） “Mages used to have arranged marriages,” I say, looking back up at my lists. “It made sense from a practical standpoint: We like to marry each other, and powerful mages like to marry other powerful mages—it keeps the bloodlines robust.”
Shepard has turned more fully towards me, listening. Of course he’s listening, these are state secrets. I keep going anyway: “There are lots of stories about people trapped in marriage contracts. Beautiful maidens, usually, promised to powerful old men.”
He looks down at his lap, embarrassed again.
“Hey…” I say, thinking. “That vampire couldn’t kill you. Back in the desert. In Nevada.”
“I suspect he could have killed me,” Shepard says, “but he couldn’t Turn me—that’s where the curse interfered.”
“Because if you were immortal,” I say, “your soul wouldn’t show up for the wedding.”
He sighs. “That’s my assumption.”
I bring my legs up onto the couch to cross them, then push my skirt down in the middle. （Baz is always on me to be more ladylike in skirts.） “Has that come into play before?”
“Once,” Shepard says. “I tried to go home with a fairy, but I couldn’t get through the mist.”
“Why were you going home with a fairy?”
He looks back at his knees, clearing his throat.
“With a fairy?” I say. If I sound scandalized, it’s because I am.
He peeks up at me, smiling. “Why not with a fairy?”
“I can’t even believe you found a proper fairy—but, Shepard, they’re evil!”
He smiles at his lap. “She didn’t seem evil.”
“Morgana below, is this part of your whole … thing?”
He lifts his chin up and looks at me like I’m the one being strange. “Is what part of my whole thing? Going home with girls?”
“Going home with creatures. Are you some sort of collector?”
“No!” He’s laughing at me. “No. Not, like, intentionally.”
I fall back against the arm of the sofa, covering my eyes. “I can’t.”
I can still hear him laughing.
“You’re lucky the curse saved you from disappearing into the fairy realm,” I say.
“Didn’t feel lucky at the time.”
I shake my head hard, really not wanting to imagine what else Shepard has followed home over the years. Then I haul myself back up, smoothing my skirt, and trying to sort out the relevant implications … “So you’re not allowed to be with anyone else? Romantically? We should write that down.”
“Oh no,” he says. “That’s not the problem. The curse doesn’t keep me from hooking up. I don’t think the demon cares what I do before I die.”