I dripped rain and mud on the floor. The tavern had gone deathly quiet, every drink set upon its table, every pair of inhuman eyes trained on me. The patrons were all manner of creature: Elementals with volcanic skin or hair like evening fog, Subjugators with black-filled eyes and chains wrapped around their arms, Brutes with bulging muscles and heavy jaws, and daemons I had no names for, humanoid things with long limbs and spines and scales and long teeth. Exhausted, I struggled to keep my back straight, my chin high. I couldn’t show any fear here. Not when I might be surrounded by enemies. Strength was my only defence.

“Do not smile,” Andiya sent. “We are above them.”

Andiya moved us between the tables. Her consciousness seeped into my mind, surrounding my hearing, my vision. With her magic within me, I felt connected the power in this place, heard the whispers of shock and anger from the daemonic patrons. Their words were not ones I knew, but with Andiya’s magic, I understood their meaning.

A human? Who are they? What is a malikhari doing in the human lands?

A rainbow of eyes followed our path towards the bar. A wolfish daemon with sleek brown fur growled as we came too close. Andiya stopped.

“What was that?” she snarled in the daemon tongue. Her magic rose, filling the air with a pressure. Flames curled at her fingertips.

The daemon looked away.

“I thought so.”

At the bar was a daemon with pure black skin and hair, her ears long and pointed. She smiled. Her teeth and gums were black too, as if she ate shadows. I caught her eyes. Yellow, slit-pupils, like the ones outside.

“I welcome you, traveller,” she said in her sing-song voice. She grinned at Andiya. “And your pet.”

Andiya was deathly flat. “Where is our room?”

“My payment?”

“You live.”

“Oh, but I had that before I let you in here. And I will still have it when I throw you out.”

I heard shuffling behind. The daemons at the tables had all turned to face us. It was clear what awaited should we cause trouble.

“Very well,” Andiya growled. “Essa, was it?”

“Essael.”

Andiya pinched a lock of hair between her fingers and burned it off. She handed it to Essael, who went wide-eyed with desire. Essael snatched the hair away into the folds of her dress. The patrons followed the movement with intent.

“Attic,” Essael said quickly. “On the left. Come down when you’re hungry. I’ll have something prepared for you.”

So, pulled along by Andiya’s vice-grip, I went up the stairs. The attic was the ninth floor, perched atop a set of rickety steps that threatened to snap under my feet.

A pair of what looked like maids—two goblin daemons who were fluffing the pillows—scuttled away as we entered. Andiya slammed the door.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“You can talk. All the rooms are silenced with magic.”

“So where are we?”

“The Inn at the Edge of the World. One of many. They appear when daemons need them—if they want to. Essael was very curious about the HighH Order with a human in tow. I assume that’s the only reason she showed up. I’m not very popular otherwise.”

Andiya glanced at the hearth, and it burst to life. It washed the small, simple room with heat. It was all a uniform, grey-painted wood, a faded rug in the centre, a full bath pushed up against one wall and a single wide bed against the other. That meant I’d be sleeping by the fire on the floor, but it was miles better than in the mud.

Andiya plunged her hand in the bath, and the water shot to a boil. The small window fogged from the steam.

“Give me your clothes. Essael will have them washed.”

My face heated. “I don’t need them washed,” I protested weakly.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re filthy.”

“So are you.”

“You will give your disgusting clothes to Essael, you will bathe, and then you will go downstairs and eat what she has prepared for you. All of it.”

“I’ll do nothing, with that tone.”

Andiya took a deep inhale. I tried to feel along her mental barrier, but she batted me away. Her body was tense as a wire, ready to snap. I didn’t need to see her mind to know she was terrified.

“We are not in your world anymore, Rozin. We are in mine.”

“All I want is a please.”

Andiya forced her words through her teeth. “Please give me your clothes.”

“Turn around.”

With an absolutely scathing look, she did. She crossed her arms, fingers digging into her skin. Tension pulled her muscles taut. I stared at her a moment. I had seen Andiya angry, and I had seen her sad, but this was entirely new. I wanted to ask her why—and what I could do, if anything, to help.

I peeled off clothes cakes in mud. Everything was soaked through, sucked against my bloated, clammy skin. I was tempted to toss my boots into the fire. They were completely ruined. But I would need them to leave this place.

“Are you about done?” Andiya snapped.

I sank into the bath. Mud dissolved into the water and vanished, swallowed away by some magic. “You can turn around now.”

Andiya’s stern expression flinched as she took me in, her eyes travelling low. I curled my legs to my chest, the water up to my shoulders. She didn’t look away.

“What?” I asked too defensively.

“What happened to your collar?”

My hand instinctively went to the wide, pale scar that ran from my collarbone to my back.

“Bestial. Bit me.”

“And then you bound it?”

“I did.”

She nodded steadily. “Right.” Andiya reached to remove her shirt, and I looked away quickly. “I don’t care what you see,” she said.

“I do.”

The bath water splashed, and I stiffened. But I refused to say anything. Andiya was in a mood, and I doubted she would hear any protest of mine.

“Look at me.”

“I’m fine.”

“Damn it, Rozin, just do it.”

I slid my eyes over to her. Andiya sat mirroring me against the tub’s other side, the water just above her chest. She reached for a bar of soap, and I kept my gaze firmly on her face. “Here.”

Her hand brushed mine as I took it. I had to remind myself to breathe, to pretend nothing was amiss.

“Tell me about the scar.”

I ran my thumb along it. Andiya followed the movement closely.

“It was my third time out. We were near the eastern coast, just by those Creator ruins. I was placed with a senior bonder—Rigur, his name was—to learn from. I thought I was being babied. So when we found a daemon, I ran at it alone.”

Andiya focused on me so hard it was hard to remember my words.

“It happened how you’d expect. I missed the shot, and the Bestial pinned me. Got a good bite, too, before it took an arrow in the gut. Gave me opportunity to get a proper shot off and pass it to our recruit. Rigur wanted me killed for insolence.”

“As you clearly weren’t, you were punished some other way?”

“Jawahir talked my superiors down. I was flogged the moment I was well enough to survive it.”

Her lip curled. “Humans are savages.”

“But here you are, in one’s bathtub.” I said it as a question, a challenge. Andiya sat a little higher—higher than me.

“Would you prefer I left?”

“Yes, actually.”

The frown she’d worn since entering the inn curled into a twisted smirk. Fear could wait, when she found something to play with. “Lying. Always lying, Rozin.”

“And what if I am? Do my words being lies change what they are? Is a lie an invitation, to you?”

“Oh, not at all. I will wait for your invitation, dear Rozin. I will wait for you to beg me.”

“You’re never going to hear it.”

Her smirk widened, and heat rushed to my face. Because I wasn’t certain if that was the truth or a lie.

I untwisted the braid along the side of my head and began washing the mud away. I had to pretend Andiya wasn’t watching, wasn’t paying such close attention that I could hardly breathe.

“Why are you scared of this place?” I asked, to break the heated silence.

“I’d rather talk about something else.” I felt the small plea in those words. There was no game in them, no enticement for me to argue. Her tone asked me to just let it go, to distract her from her fear.

So I turned and showed her my shoulder blade. Another scar twisted and branched across it like a crack in stone. “From another Bestial. A nasty bird with claws the length of my hand. Got me when I shoved a soldier out of the way.”

“To save them. Because that’s what you do.”

I nodded, then extended my knee to show her where a scar ran along the top of the kneecap. “Elemental. Cut me with a big shard of ice. Nearly lost the leg.” With my arm over my chest, I lifted myself out of the water to show her a puckered patch of skin on my left ribcage. “Fire elemental, like you. Burned me so badly I was on bed rest for three weeks.”

Andiya shifted closer, and I stopped breathing. I slid back down, but her body was in the way. My legs brushed against her side, and I heard something that scattered my thoughts all across the room—her breathing had hitched. I waited, motionless, as her hand brushed along my old burn.

“How did it get you?” she murmured, eyes half-lidded, searching my body up and down.

“Yulia,” I managed to say, breathless. “It was our first day together on Shokarov’s squad. We were …” Her hand flattened against my scar, and I shivered. Andiya felt it all. “We were in the wastes to bond a daemon for her.”

Her hand paused mercifully. “Artem.”

“He put up a fight. Burned an archer alive. Blasted me, too, but I managed to collar him before he got Yulia. When I woke up, she was there, Artem behind. She stayed until I was better.”

“You protected her. Because you believed Artem was evil, and it was right.”

“Yes.”

“And is he evil, now? After you’ve changed him?”

I swallowed hard. She was so close, pressed against my bare side. It was a battle not to imagine, to return her gentle touch.

“He’s nothing now,” I whispered, “because I killed him.”

“You did,” Andiya murmured, the hand on my ribs moving down, sliding to my hip. She lifted herself half from the water, sliding her other hand over my knee, up my thigh. Without thinking, my legs parted, inviting her to me. She drew up, watching me from above, tipping my head back against the rim of the tub.

Her nail pulled my bottom lip, traced down the white scar that had come from a daemon rider. I felt her breath on my face, and my eyes closed.

“And this one?” she asked, her voice in that gentle purr.

I tensed, brow pulling. I slammed back to reality, to where I really was, who I was with. The ferocity of my memory was like a cold bucket of water over my head. I was a soldier, an Eon. I was in a den of daemons. I was entangled with a woman whose life I had stolen, destroyed. And I was enjoying it.

Andiya removed her hands.

“I’d rather talk about something else,” I said quietly.

Her mind probed, feeling the ache in my heart. I opened my mind to let her see it, let her feel the pain that scar caused me. Let her understand why my years before the military were locked away, drowned out by work and danger. Because if I thought too long, felt too deeply, I would crumble. I would fall back to the hollow place Jawahir had found me in.

Andiya pulled away, settling again on her side of the tub. “I am scared here,” she admitted. “But not for myself.”

“For me,” I whispered.

“I left my kind. I never wanted to end up in a place like this, let alone with someone so breakable at my side.” She sighed deeply. “Being here reminds me of who I was. What I left behind. I was a royal guard, Rozin. Was. Even with my rank, I was never well-liked. And now any respect I once had is gone. Every second I am here is a second any of these daemons could decide to pick a fight. A fight that ends with you torn to shreds, if I am not strong enough.”

“I’ll fight for you, too.”

Her eyes softened, and she looked truly drained. “I know you will,” she said gently. I saw her thinking, but her mind was still firmly shut. “We should head down. Essael is waiting.”

“All right.”

She stepped from the tub, and this time I just watched her. Not with any heat, any need, only for what she was. Andiya had shown me more of herself in those few seconds than I’d seen in weeks. And I was glad she had.

So I stepped from the bath, this time in full view. I began to towel my hair, and I caught Andiya watching. She handed me back my clothes, somehow clean and dry and folded. Magic.

“Be careful down there,” she said, her gaze flicking to my collar. “It’s not going to be just a scar, someday.”

The words hung between us, their meaning unsaid. Andiya cared. Not just for herself, but for me.

Where did that leave us?