“How do you know that?”
“Because I know,” said Callum simply. “Someone who has seen another person waste away is easy to spot. They are haunted differently.” He paused, and then added, “And she is also requesting books on human degeneration, which the library is currently denying her.”
“And that you know because of…？”
“Coincidence. We do live in the same house.”
“Ah.” Tristan cleared his throat. “How do I know you’re being honest with me?”
“What reason would I have to lie?”
“Well, it’s not as if it doesn’t benefit you. Having someone.”
“Having someone, or having you?”
“You tell me.” Tristan slid him a glance, and Callum sighed.
“You are not accustomed to being desired, are you?” Callum prompted, and before Tristan could manage his surely uncomfortable reply, Callum clarified, “As a friend, I mean. As a person.” A pause. “As anything.”
“Please don’t psychoanalyze me today,” Tristan said.
“Fine, fine.” Callum’s smile quirked. “Daddy issues.”
Tristan glared at him, and Callum laughed.
“Well, the whisky’s good, and so is the company,” said Callum. “Astoundingly, that is the primary extent of your worth to me, Tristan. Ample conversation, at the very least.”
“I don’t know about ample.”
“That,” Callum said, “is the best part. The silences are particularly engaging.”
Aptly, they sat in silence for a moment, saturating themselves in the relief of conflict resolution.
After a few minutes of quiet coexistence, Callum glanced at the clock.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose I’m for bed, then.” He rose to his feet, setting his empty glass on the table. “Are you staying up?”
“For a bit,” Tristan said, and Callum nodded.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, clapping a hand on Tristan’s shoulder, “the parts of you that you seem to loathe are hardly abhorrent at all.”
“Thanks,” said Tristan pithily, and Callum let out another hearty laugh. He strode through the doors and disappeared, the warmth of his magic swallowed up by the dark and gone with him.
Tristan, left alone in the light of the painted room’s fireplace, set his glass on the table, reaching into his pocket. He removed the note he’d scrawled to himself earlier, unfurling it to read the script written inside.
A glass of wine. Vintage. Old World.
Tristan looked up at the sweat on his glass of whisky, watching it fall to the table below.
“Fuck,” he swore aloud, crumpling the piece of paper in his hands.
LIBBY
“MISS RHODES,” SAID ATLAS PLEASANTLY, “what a surprise.”
She paused in the doorway, frowning.
“It’s not actually a surprise, though,” she determined aloud, “is it?”
Atlas glanced up, half-smiling. “What gave it away?”
A lack of disturbance, mostly. There was no magic to that, aside from observation.
“Just a hunch,” she said, and Atlas beckoned for her to take a seat.
“How did you know I was here?”
Surveillance wards. “I heard Dalton mention it.”
“Mm,” said Atlas. “I take it you have further questions about initiation?”
If you could call them questions.
“Yes,” said Libby, “several.”
So many, in fact, that she hardly knew where to start.
Libby had been doing a variety of things over the past couple of days. Research, as always. Following her visit from the Forum, she had been looking primarily for anything to do with Kitty, to no particular results. All the library would give her—or, in any case, all the library was programmed by someone else to give her—were subjects pertinent to their task at hand: degenerative curses, longevity and its opposites. The decay that was a process of natural entropy was currently off limits unless it had something to do with the study of intentional corruption.
Libby had just begun to wonder who was actually keeping them from the contents of the library when Nico had pulled her aside for another conversation entirely, looking unusually distressed.
“I have to tell you something,” he said. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Apropos of nothing? I assume not.” Libby had never liked anything Nico had to say to her uninvited and certainly wasn’t expecting to start now. She opened her mouth to tell him she had other things on her mind, but hastily he stopped her.