Chapter Sixteen

“So . . .” Orion began, a little hesitantly, the frost-white silks draped diagonally across his bare chest fluttering with every rise and fall of breath. Harry watched, entranced, as Orion blew on his tea. The air around them fogged with rose-tinted steam, carrying the heady scent of sweet jasmine, honeysuckle, and a bit of illisantheum, a fragrant spice commonly found in the Shadow Kingdom. Eoin made a hobby of collecting loose-leaf variants from around the Immortal Realm. He kept them pressed in bricks and hanging from the ceiling of the tearoom in colorful nets. “You’re quite the nectar fanatic, I see.”

Harry blinked. “Pardon?”

Orion’s lips twitched, and he gestured to Harry’s cup. “Nectar.”

Harry swore and jerked the little pitcher away, but it was already too late—he was so preoccupied with staring at Orion’s face after spending so many nights just dreaming of it, his cup had long overflowed.

Eoin clucked and waved a hand. The King of Shadow wore his favorite ensemble—all black. A charcoal dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar and a waistcoat, paired with tight-fitting slacks. A stylish jacket hung from his broad shoulders. “Honestly, Harry. You’re embarrassing me.” There came a flutter of wings, and the three glittering black butterflies perched atop the god’s crown fetched a satin napkin and mopped up the mess.

Harry pasted on a smile and bent a spoon in his fist beneath the table. Keep it together, he ordered himself. Or face the consequences. “Apologies, my king.”

Eoin’s nostrils flared ever so slightly. He snapped a cookie in half and dipped it into his tea before holding it to Orion’s lips, which parted obediently. The god’s half-lidded gaze lingered on the pale column of Orion’s throat as he swallowed.

Jealousy ripped through Harry. The tablecloth disintegrated to dust beneath his trembling fingers.

Eoin turned to him, that ancient gaze filled with a vicious darkness that Harry had prayed he’d never witness again.

The king dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin and discarded it on the floor. “Orion, darling, I’ll just be a moment,” he said softly. “Come along, Harry. You seem like you have something to tell me.”

The God of Shadow swept out of the tearoom and picked his way toward one of the glass arboretums scattered throughout the gardens, leaving Harry to stumble after him. Rows and rows of nectar flowers bloomed within, their opalescent petals glimmering like mother-of-pearl even without the sun’s touch.

As soon as the door closed, Eoin seized Harry by the throat with one hand and shoved him against the wall. The king jerked him up into the air, his iron grip tightening around Harry’s neck.

“Holte,” Eoin snarled.

Time itself ceased to exist.

Actions that should have taken at least a moment, no matter how short, transpired instantaneously and infinitely, all at once. The nectar flowers bloomed and shriveled around them, their life cycle accelerating exponentially until they simply vanished, until everything vanished, until the only thing that kept Harry tethered to this realm was Eoin’s bruising grip.

“We’re in private now, Harry,” the god whispered, enunciating each syllable so languidly, as if he were rolling a sweet around on his tongue. “You can tell me whatever is on your mind. I’ll keep it a secret, I promise.”

Unbridled terror coursed through Harry’s veins even as he tamped it down. The threat of inexistence buzzed and reverberated along his every cell. He didn’t bother struggling, didn’t dare open his mouth for fear of the words that might spill out, knowing that the king could very well drop him into the wild white void. Perhaps the only way to kill him was to sever his wings with Eoin’s sword, Nöctklavan, but was there any difference between dying and ceasing to be?

I won’t speak, he thought desperately, his eyes darting between Eoin’s face and the void.

The god’s gaze swallowed him, almost disappointed. “Zäär.”

The command rattled Harry’s bones. His spine jolted ramrod straight as the god’s power shuddered through him. His body began to shift to his demon form of its own accord, but it hurt. His claws shredded his skin, his skull throbbed from the force of his ears punching out of his scalp. His fangs pierced his tongue clean through when he tried to bite down on a scream as the air filled with the sound of his shoulder muscles tearing, the only warning before his wings exploded from his back and the agony folded him in two.

I won’t tell him. I won’t tell him. I won’t tell him.

When it was finally over, Harry could only lie panting and limp in Eoin’s arms. “Shall we go back and do that all over again?” the king purred. “Can you take it?”

No, Harry pleaded in his mind.

A second later, he was screaming again, his body betraying him at a single murmured spell.

Back in his human form, Harry curled into a ball, saliva dribbling down his chin and silvery blood weeping from cuts even as they closed, only to reopen moments later. Scraps of fabric fluttered to the floor, his tattered clothes ravaged by the force-shifting. With his skin exposed and crawling beneath the god’s gaze, he let loose a shudder of disgust. At Eoin. At himself. His suffering seemed to appease the white void, subduing it to a soothed gray.

When Harry failed to speak yet again, Eoin traced a finger down his cheek with a crestfallen frown. “What is it, exactly, that you’re so desperate to hide from your king? Hmm?”

Harry clenched his jaw. “N-not,” he stammered out, his voice pathetically hoarse. His breath hitched when Eoin’s hand brushed the ridges of his shoulder blades, where his wings grew. “Not hiding. Anything. My . . . king.”

A chuckle rumbled forth deep from Eoin’s chest. “King, master, god. Call me any name you desire, little anygné. You are still mine.” Those eyes had emptied of all light, revealing the hollow eternity beyond. “Orion must be wondering where we’ve gone off to by now. Shall I invite him over? Give him a little taste?”

The gray void recoiled when a snarl ripped from Harry’s lips, blue ice and gold wrath crackling across his vision. “Don’t.” He shook, from pain and exhaustion and utter fury. “Touch.”

As if his nerves had simply switched off, the pain stopped abruptly.

Eoin’s silky whisper caressed his ear. “I see.”

Harry blinked and the glass house slowly reformed, floating around him and slotting neatly back into place, piece by piece. Nectar flowers died in reverse, their petals winking at him like crushed jewels through the gloom. He lay on the floor with his head thrown to the side. It was all he could do to remind himself to breathe, to grit his teeth and ride out the excruciating ache in his bones. His eyes darted up past the glass to find the bruised sky stretching out above him, and a sudden, intense longing for the sunshine of the Mortal Realm nearly overwhelmed him.

The god straightened from his crouch, brushing away the smears of Harry’s blood staining his jacket. It flecked off like peeling paint. “It’s all right, darling, I understand now.” His shoes clicked toward the exit, neat and crisp, but the door opened too early. Harry could only manage to tilt his chin sideways, just enough to catch a glimpse of Orion’s reflection in the floor tiles.

“Eo?” Orion called. “Is everything alright?”

“Of course,” came Eoin’s easy reply. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Harry wanted to scream. He imagined the god slipping an arm around Orion’s waist, resting a protective hand on his hip, snaking his slender fingers into those golden curls.

“Where did Harry go?”

“Oh, he’s fine, he’s just—”

Leather soles scuffed across the floor, dancing away from the god. “Harry? What are you doing down there?”

Before Harry knew what was happening, a pair of warm, strong arms wrapped around him, one hand sliding around his torso and the other bracing his lower back. Orion’s scent washed over him, filling his chest with aching longing. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. And then exhaled, so he could breathe deeper still.

“Immortals, Eo, what in hell did you do to him?”

Harry could hear the pout in Eoin’s words. “Nothing he couldn’t handle.”

That warm, comforting grip tightened. “Nothing he couldn’t . . .” Orion scoffed angrily. “Are you out of your mind? Look at him!”

Harry’s panic spiked when Eoin sauntered—no, prowled over, a ruthless glint in his eyes. Shadows pooled around the god’s ankles like ocean fog, writhing up his legs and clinging to his every step. His shoe lifted out of the murk, his heel coming to rest on Harry’s chest, right atop his heart.

Harry let out a sharp wheeze as Eoin put his weight forward, digging the heel into his ribs.

“Stop that,” Orion scolded. “Or else.”

And to Harry’s shock, the king did.

“You’re no fun,” Eoin complained.

“Oh?” Orion cocked his head to the side, his brow furrowed. “Hold on . . . do you hear that?”

The god’s brow rose in mystification as Harry, too, strained to catch anything unusual. Or, in fact, anything at all. “Hear what?”

“The sound of all the damns I give.”

Eoin burst into laughter. Genuine laughter, unlike anything that Harry had ever heard him produce. It was almost . . . human. “Oh, Orion, you impudent wretch.”

“Thank you,” said Orion. He tipped his chin toward the exit. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to have a word with Harry about inciting your tantrums.”

The god threw a hand upon his heart in mock hurt. “Tan­trums! How you wound me. But do as you wish.” He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and ambled out the door—but not without throwing a last smirk over his shoulder. “Not too long, though . . . or I’ll get awfully jealous.”

They watched through the glass walls as the god disappeared around a hedge and out of sight.

Then Orion was scrambling to Harry’s front, his fingers searching along what little clothed skin remained. “Are you hurt? Are you hurt?” he demanded twice, and then once more until Harry managed to shake his head. His immortal body had already healed itself, with no trace of violence to be found.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry whispered, staring at the little crinkle between Orion’s brows and the concern brimming in his ice-blue eyes.

Orion stopped short. “What for?”

“This is all my fault,” Harry rasped. “You were stuck here, all on your own, and I couldn’t find you. I promised I would find you, and so many days passed and I thought that you were gone, Orion, and—”

“Harry.”

“—I said I’d be back, damnit!” Harry grabbed two fistfuls of silk and dragged Orion’s face to his, their foreheads bashing together. Without releasing his hold, he closed his eyes to hide his anguish. “Why in hell couldn’t you have just listened to me for once? Why did you follow me into the portal?” Harry gave him a haggard shake. Orion breathed a soft ow every time their foreheads knocked together. “Do you have any idea how stupid that was? You could have died!”

“Well, I didn’t,” Orion said weakly.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Harry whispered. You nearly broke me. Asterin, too, and everyone else you left behind. “Promise?”

“Harry . . .” Orion trailed off. He was smiling a little, but it was a stiff, stilted smile that made Harry’s stomach clench. “I—I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

Harry cursed. He had been clinging onto the hope—a fool’s hope, he saw now—that Orion’s memory loss would wear off with time, or that mentioning the portal might spark some remembrance. “How much do you remember?” he asked instead, forcing down his frustration. Not frustration at Orion, of course, but at himself. This was and would always be his fault.

That half smile faltered slightly. “Not much. My name. That I fell and hit my head. How to charm handsome men.”

A choked laugh escaped Harry. “Where would we be if you had forgotten that?”

Orion grinned in a way that brought down a deluge of nostalgia upon Harry, but even then . . . there was something missing, a sharp, reckless edge that the alleged fall—or rather, the landing—had dulled, like a blade reforged into something mellower, more pliant.

Harry swallowed. “So . . . I take it you don’t remember Asterin, then?”

“No. Is she a friend?”

The blithe question punched the air out of Harry’s lungs. He couldn’t even begin to imagine Asterin’s devastation. “Much more than a friend.”

Orion reeled back. “A l-lover?”

He snorted at that. “Immortals, no.”

“Your lover?” Orion tried, to which Harry began laughing so hard that he nearly choked. Orion glowered at him, though without any fire. “I’ll take that as a no. Is it because she’s . . . well, a she?”

Harry hesitated. “I told you this once, but I’ve been around for a while. Long enough to figure myself out. My heart cares not for the confines of a body. Immortal, mortal, male, female, both or neither . . . I am blind to all but my devotion.”

“Ah.” Orion seemed taken aback. “I just like men, I think.”

Harry laughed again. “You said the exact same thing back then, too.”

Orion bit his lip. “Were we ever . . . you know? Together?”

Harry’s voice softened to something a little bittersweet. “We ran out of time before we could answer that question. But I’ve always liked you, Orion,” he confessed, his gaze drifting over Orion’s face. Tracing, lingering, memorizing. Their eyes met. Dare to feel. “Far too much for my own good.”

Orion looked away, a rosy flush spreading across his face. “I’m sorry.” It was the response Harry had dreaded most, and it must have shown in his expression, because Orion hurried to explain. “Eoin saved my life. Without him, I might have been lost forever.” He sighed, running a hand down his neck. “It’s just that . . . I’m not the person you knew anymore, Harry. And I don’t think I’ll ever be. I’m here with Eo now, and—”

“No,” Harry blurted. The world blurred, a lake’s mirror surface disturbed by a sudden and violent rainstorm. “You don’t understand. You don’t belong here. You have to leave.”

Orion drew back with a frown. “Leave? Why in hell would I leave?”

“Eoin is a god. The Ruler of Darkness. He existed before time itself, Orion. The life of a mortal is less than nothing to him.” To think that the hardest part of bringing Orion home wouldn’t be finding him, but convincing him to return . . . somehow, that made it worse, because Orion didn’t know, and he would never know until it was much too late. “Even if you spent your entire life rotting down here and never saw the light of day again . . .” Immortals, could he even remember the sun? “No matter how much you please him, all you will ever be to him is yesterday’s souvenir.”

Orion’s expression closed off, unreadable save for the glacial fury blazing in his eyes. He shoved himself away from Harry and staggered to his feet. “Get away from me.”

Harry cursed himself as Orion stormed for the door. “Please. I’m only telling you this because I—I experienced it firsthand.” He bowed his head. “I was deceived. I was blinded. And I can’t bear to let the same happen to you.”

Orion halted in his tracks and glared over his shoulder. “What do you want?”

“For you to return to the Mortal Realm,” he whispered. “To the people you love and who love you. To go home . . . to Axaria.”

For the barest moment, Harry could have sworn he saw a flicker of doubt soothe the flame in Orion’s eyes, Axaria passing briefly over his lips. But then he was turning away, shaking his head, nothing but a mixture of certainty and derision fueling his steps as he abandoned a broken Harry and his forsaken devotion on the floor.

“You’re wrong, Harry. This is home.”