Surprised he hadn’t taken the opportunity to hold on and make me squirm—his favorite pastime—I sidled over and sat on the bed beside him, enough space for a third person between us.

“I want to tell you something about me,” I declared, forcing my brain back on track. “But I don’t know what. What do you want to know?”

“Why does your—”

I shot him a glare. “Not that.”

He snorted in annoyance, then tipped his head back, squinting thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Tell me about your mother.”

“My mother? You don’t want to know about me?”

“Our mothers create us. Knowing her is knowing you.”

An odd flutter rippled through my center. Such a simple concept, yet from the lips of a demon, astonishingly profound. I wondered what he’d make of a philosophy class.

“My mother …” I fought a wave of grief as I was swamped with memories. “She was more optimistic than me. Always cheerful and smiling. Her job was restoring old books and grimoires, and she loved it. She said people put their souls in their books, and she was repairing their souls as much as the pages and bindings and covers.”

His brow furrowed in confusion.

“It’s just a thing she liked to say,” I clarified before he ripped any books apart in search of hidden souls. “She meant that books could be very precious to people.”

“A book is not useful. Why is it valuable?”

“Some books are useful, like grimoires.” My eyes hooded as memories of her face swam across my vision. “She would’ve told you that objects can be part of you and losing them feels like losing a limb.”

He frowned dubiously and I laughed.

“She would’ve liked you, Zylas. I know she would’ve. She’d want to know what you thought of everything, from books with souls to our cities to every silly thing humans do.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Want to know what I think?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it, exhaling silently. “I do. I’d ask you questions all day and night if I could, but you always complain and tell me I’m too noisy.” I rubbed the heel of my hand over my cheek. “My mom would’ve pestered you until you told her everything, no matter how grumpy you got. She was braver than me.”

A light touch under my eye. I flinched as he wiped away a tear I’d missed.

“Does it hurt, vayanin?” he asked. Soft. Unsure.

My throat closed, tight and painful. “I miss her. I wish every day that she was still alive. I miss my dad too, but Mom … she was always there for me. So much has happened, and I wish … I just wish I could talk to her one more time so she could tell me what to do. I’ve been so—so lost since she died.”

A sob shook my chest, and I twisted away from Zylas. Scrubbing at my face, I gathered my composure as best I could. When I turned back, he was watching me, his expression a mystery but a small, almost invisible wrinkle between his dark eyebrows.

“What about you?” I sniffed, wishing I had a tissue. “Your mother? Did you know her?”

“I knew her.”

That surprised me. My impression of female demons so far wasn’t one of maternal love. “What was she like?”

“Young and zh’ūltis.”

I blinked.

He leaned back, bracing himself with one arm. “No female will choose Vh’alyir if she can raise the young of Dh’irath or Ash’amadē or Gh’ēlēis. Females want children who will be strong, not weak and small.” He sneered to himself, then shook his head. “My mother was young and knew little, but she knew how to be smart prey and she taught me better than other demons learned. She is the reason I am alive.”

Hands folded in my lap, I silently thanked his mother for teaching him those lessons so well. “What about your father?”

“Sires come for their young when their magic calls out. They take them to the lands of males to teach them how to fight.”

“The lands of males?” I interrupted. “You mean males and females live separately?”

He nodded. “Females live in groups. Males do not go near those places or the females will kill them.”

“How then do …” My cheeks flushed. “How does, uh, mating happen?”

“A male will approach the place of females with gifts. Usually food, na? It is a dangerous thing. He will bring gifts until a female chooses him or tries to kill him.”

That sounded terrifying. “So, did your father come to take you away?”

“Var. I went with him, and we traveled into places of sand, far from other demons, where he could teach me everything he knew—how to fight, how to win. It would take many years. I knew only the easiest vīsh and how to scratch with my claws and how to hide in the Ahlēvīsh.”

Before I could ask what that was, he continued.

“He taught me one thing—dh’ērrenith—then he made a zh’ūltis mistake and died.”

“He died? How?”

“A beast of my world … an animal.” He huffed angrily. “Not even a death in battle. Imadnul.”

I pressed my hands into my knees. “If you were so young and didn’t know how to fight … did you go back to your mother?”

“I could not go back. Females do not allow male young who have grown from child to not-child.”

“What did you do?”

He stared across the room, gaze distant, then pushed off the bed. Arching his back, he stretched his arms above his head. Muscles rippled across his bare torso, and his biceps and triceps bunched with strength.

I dragged my stare up, focusing on his face. “Zylas, after your father died, what did you do?”

Lowering his arms, he looked at me with eyes that had seen and lived nightmares.

“I survived.”

Chapter Eighteen

Humming quietly, I cradled the piping bag as I squeezed sweet vanilla buttercream onto the last pale gold cookie. Perfect.

I set aside the bag and surveyed my work. One tray of butter cookie tops with a layer of buttercream, and one tray of butter cookie bottoms with a thin layer of raspberry jam. Smiling in anticipation, I picked up a top and bottom, gently squished them together, and set the finished “buttercream whirl” on a plate.