Page 5 of Caroled
“No. My wings.”
Charles’s back ached in empathy. “They’ll come back when you take off the ring.”
“I know.”
Yesterday Tenrael had slipped the ring on and off several times, and they’d both marveled to see his wings and horns disappear and his eyes turn from glowing red to a warm dark brown. At the time, Tenrael had seemed fascinated by his transformation and maybe even a little amused. But he’d only kept the ring on for a short time. Today he’d been wearing it for hours.
Now he rubbed his back against the car seat. “Did it take a long time for you to adjust when you lost yours?”
“I didn’t lose them—I had them chopped off.” By a disreputable surgeon who patched up gangsters or performed abortions if paid well enough. He’d wanted to keep the severed, bloody things, but Charles had taken them and burned them, not saving a single white feather.
“When youlostthem,” Tenrael insisted.
“Mine weren’t like yours. They were… stunted. Useless. I didn’t miss them.”
Tenrael snorted at this obvious lie. For a while he remained still, staring inland through his window. But then they passed through a grove of trees so thick that little light shone through, and when Tenrael saw his reflection in the glass, he rubbed his head where his horns should be.
“They’ll come back,” Charles repeated.
“What if they do not?”
“Then I would have a very serious discussion with Townsend, and he’d find a way to restore them.”
Tenrael turned and faced him. Charles kept his gaze on the road but saw in his peripheral vision the frown creasing Tenrael’s brow. “I mean,” Tenrael said quietly, with a rare note of hesitation, “what if I chose to remain like this. Ordinary.”
“You’d never be ordinary.”
“But I couldlookordinary. Look human. I could walk or drive as you do instead of flying.”
The conversation was making Charles uncomfortable, and he wished he could walk away from it. If they’d been at home, he would have gone to the beach and traversed the band of wet sand, carefully keeping his mind as gray and blank as the fog that rolled in at sunset. But he was trapped in the car, so he sighed instead.
“If you’d rather pass for human, then that’s what you should do.”
Charles used to dye his white hair dark and wear sunglasses to hide his odd green eyes, but even then, people had sensed something odd about him. Anyway, he’d abandoned those efforts when he left the Bureau. Let people think what they would.
“Do you want me to be human? Master?”
The last word made Charles realize that Tenrael was asking a very different sort of question than he’d originally thought. His heart twisted painfully. How could Tenrael—magnificent, powerful, eternal—renounce his own nature just to pleasehim?
“I want you to be yourself,” Charles replied quietly.
It was the truth, and it was also a good answer. Tenrael stopped squirming and instead settled one big hand just above Charles’s knee. Then he leaned back in his seat and smiled.
Here We Come A-wassailing
When Charles had beena Bureau agent, Stella had always treated him well, booking him first-class accommodations whenever she could. That was partly due to her unrequited slight crush on him and partly because he always treated her well too. Sometimes he brought her flowers or her favorite treats from Little Tokyo. Now, of course, Charles no longer worked for the Bureau, and Japanese Americans had been forced out of Little Tokyo and into grim camps. But apparently Stella still thought kindly of him, because she’d booked them a fancy room at the St. Francis Hotel. The room had only one large bed, which made Charles wonder if she knew about Tenrael and, if so, what her feelings were on the matter.
Tenrael was gazing out the windows toward Union Square, twelve floors beneath them, where some kind of construction project looked to be in progress. “It is almost like flying, being up this high.”
Charles, who would have preferred a lower room, began unpacking their suitcases. Having an apartment with a kitchen would have been nice, although he supposed he could order from room service if he wanted to. The Bureau was paying for it.
You’re here to work, he reminded himself.Not to enjoy yourself.
By the time Charles had put away their clothing and made a list of toiletries and other small items they’d need for the next few weeks, Tenrael was standing on a chair he had pulled close to the window, as if he wanted an even better view. There was something disarmingly childlike in his expression, and Charles felt a twinge of pride. It wasn’t entirely Charles’s doing, but he’d played a role in bringing delight and wonder to a creature who’d lived for millennia, some of it unhappily.
With a fond smile at Tenrael and a heartfelt wish that this were simply a vacation, Charles picked up the phone and asked the hotel operator to dial the number Townsend had given him. It rang six times before a slightly out-of-breath voice on the other end said, “Ferencz.”
“Charles Grimes. The Chief said—”
