Page 83 of Smoke & Ashes
Tara had been around a lot more than I’d expected. She was too posh to ever completely make sense in my flat but it was nice not to have to drag myself out to Safernoc every time I wanted to see her. I thought she’d eventually get used to the lack of servants.
I was making coffee with my arm in a cast and steadfastly refusing to let anybody help me because I liked the feeling of independence, when there was an unexpected knock at the front door. Unexpected partly because we had a buzzer, so anybody who knocked at our door had already bypassed at least one layer of security, but mostly because the only people who might have any reason to visit me were already there.
Except Ashriel.
I found him standing on the landing looking dashingly dishevelled as only an incubus who’s just come in from the rain can.
“Hi,” he said.
I very nearly slammed the door in his face, but since he’d formally walked out on Julian, holding him responsible for her screwing me over went from petty to downright dickish. “Hey.”
“So I heard that—that she was back?”
I nodded. “Elise. Demon for you.”
I’d never worked out what the hell had been going on between those two and it really wasn’t my place to ask. I took Tara through to the bedroom and gave them space to talk.
“I’m not sure I trust him,” Tara said as she laid down beside me doing her best not to look too disgusted with the terrible state of the bedlinen and poor quality of the mattress. “Whatever they may say, he’s a demon first and foremost.”
I shrugged. “He’s had my back more than once. And from what I’ve seen of Hell he pays a hefty price for cutting out the soul-sucking, so I figure he deserves at least a little bit of credit for that.”
“Grandmama would disapprove strongly. But thinking about it that might be a point in his favour.”
We cut the conversation after that. I’ve never been the most talkative sort and besides, there were far better things to do with a hot werewolf than lie around speculating about your friends’ personal lives.
When we were done, and we were sure as we could be thattheywere done, we made our way back out into the living room. Elise and Ashriel were standing that awkward distance apart that you stood from someone when you didn’t want to look like you were encroaching on their personal space or like you were entirely repulsed by them.
“Good chat?” I asked.
“Inconclusive,” Elise replied. Which was kind of her all over. “We have agreed that we would both like tosee more of one anotheras the saying has it. But we also agree that things should probably progress slowly due to the variety of factors at play.”
“Mostly, Elise was just telling me how you brought her back,” Ashriel explained. “Which—well—how did you?”
I flopped down onto the sofa. “Hephaestion gave me a copy of theBook of Living Fire, some professor got in touch and said she could translate it.”
“How serendipitous.” He didn’t seem to want to let this go.
“Yeah, but I’m a big believer in the gift-horse-mouth rule.”
Ashriel folded his arms rather more sternly than I’d expected. “Ask the Trojans how well that one worked out for them. Who was the professor?”
“Someone called Dr Bright. Does it matter?”
Ashriel’s eyes shifted fromcome-to-bedtooh-no-you-fucking-didn’t“Nicola Bright?Call me Nick? Always smoking in a way that looks far sexier than it should in the twenty-first century?”
He was going somewhere with this, but for my own sanity I was going to avoid thinking about it for as long as possible. “That’s the one.”
“Always has a light?”
He was definitely going somewhere with this. “Fuck.”
“Afraid so.” Ashriel looked surprisingly calm. “I wasn’t sure but I had word she was in town.”
I facepalmed. “Shit. Balls. Do you know why she’s interested in me, or in Elise?”
“I’m afraid not.” He gave me what I thought was an inappropriately cheeky smile. “Working out her game is, I’m told, legendarily difficult. There’s even a song about it.”
“The cigarettes should really have given it away.” I eyerolled at myself. “Fuck.”
