And stare. He also continued to stare, as if Nicodemus had done or was about to do something incomprehensible.
Nicodemus had some of the broth from his fish dumpling soup and then a dumpling, then another, and perhaps a few more, before looking down to find the bowl empty. That was the second bowl. The plate next to him had also been picked clean of any remaining rice, ginger, or beef. He sighed.
Eyebrows high, Bel pushed a small egg custard tart toward him. Nicodemus took a moment to drink his tea, then, resigned to the teasing that was sure to come, picked up the tart and ate it. He flicked a look across the table to Bel, met those eyes, then dropped his gaze to his empty bowl, only to startle when the bowl and plate were removed and another plate, full of a new dish, was set in front of him.
Bel spoke quietly to the waiter while they were given more tea, handing over money and smiling at the bag of nuts he received in return. Nicodemus didn’t ask what Bel had ordered for him. It smelled good, and it was hot, and his stomach did not seem to be full yet.
“Thank you,” Nicodemus told the waiter, and then, when the man was gone, he said it again to Bel. “Thank you. Although, I would have been fine at home.”
“We all know you’re capable.” Bel leaned back in his seat but his expression was not relaxed. “Yet I wonder….”
“What?” Nicodemus did not use his chopsticks elegantly, but he managed to get most of the food in his mouth. “What is there to wonder? Other than”–he waved at his horns—“there is nothing to wonder about me.”
Bel put his hands flat on the table and leaned in once more. “I heard you,” he said, studying Nicodemus carefully.
Nicodemus slurped up a bit of cabbage and sauce. “Heard me?” he echoed faintly, wishing desperately that Bel had not come into the house during his last rut and heard him while Holt had been fucking him.
“I heard you,” Bel repeated. “I was tracking it. And, I suppose, I was also tracking what it was tracking, so I felt, well,you, Nicodemus.” Bel went quiet, leaving Nicodemus to squirm at the memory of what he’d been thinking in those moments before the Realm-dweller had whispered to him.
“What I was thinking?” he muttered, his gaze down, his appetite gone.
Bel shook his head once. “Your thoughts, as ever, are unknown to me.”
Nicodemus forced himself to take a sip of tea hot enough for the cup to sting his fingertips. “But my feelings...”
“I didn’t know it was you, then,” Bel offered, as if in appeasement. And yet he would not look away. “Until I heard you. You called me.”
“I was afraid,” Nicodemus admitted, although that was obvious.
“As any lamb should be when confronted with a wolf.” Bel exhaled, long and slow. “But you called me. And I heard.”
“Ah.” Nicodemus thought he understood what had disturbed Bel and sank back in relief and began to pick at his food again. “You mean you heard me in the Realm? Is that so unusual?”
“It should be impossible,” Bel answered bluntly. “But…there’s the Realm for you. It responds differently to different people, different desires. We should—you should—test that with Holt sometime. Though perhaps it was a matter of proximity or your level of fear.”
Nicodemus frowned a little. “Do you know you’ve told me more about the Realm tonight than anyone else ever has? Even when I asked. Holt just tells me not to worry about it. That he doesn’t want to scare me.”
“Maybe I keep hoping that the knowledgewillscare you, at least enough to get you back in the house.” Bel’s face was blank once more.
Nicodemus gestured with his awkwardly clutched chopsticks. “You brought me here,” he reminded Bel.
“I was worried you’d faint away from hunger,” Bel responded flatly, but pushed the last custard tart to him.
“Maybe,” Nicodemus accepted the tart and the blush on his face that had been there since Bel had led him into the restaurant and asked him what Chinese food he liked, as if Nicodemus ever left the house and had any sort of answer for that. “Maybe you heard me because you are better at being in the Realm than many of the others. Or more familiar with it. Or maybe, though I did call for you,” his cheeks were so hot, “it was not me you heard in the Realm; it was the creature. Maybe you can be lured, after all.” With the sound of Nicodemus’ voice…or more probably, with the sound of anyone from the manor in trouble. “Hearing someone in need and rushing to help…that’s very heroic of you, Bel.”
Bel did not quite flinch, but surprise broke through his mask. “Make no mistake, innocent, I am not a hero. I do what I do because I like it. But rescues from the Realm are not my line of work. If someone has gone into the Realm, there is a reason, and I leave them to it.”
“And rescues here?” Nicodemus wondered sharply, then pulled in a breath and looked down at yet another empty plate rather than see confusion or worse,understanding, slip through Bel’s polite exterior. “It’s warm in here, isn’t it?” he asked after several beats of silence.
Bel laid more money on the table. “When you’re ready, we can go.”
Nicodemus had eaten everything in front of him. He took his time finishing his tea and glanced around the room, wondering vaguely if this restaurant would deliver meals to the manor. He didn’t know if the restaurant owner or employees were frightened of peculiari; not everyone was, not in the same way. Rosa’s family thought she was marked by evil. Alistair said things were different the farther away from this land he’d sailed—different, but not always better.
At the thought of Alistair, Nicodemus abandoned his ponderings about future catering. He made his voice even. “Will we stop to get Alistair, or at least look for him?”
Bel sighed noisily. “We’ll get you off the streets first and then I will worry about that.”
Nicodemus turned to him. “No, you won’t,” he argued. “You leapt after that creature.” Eagerly. With glee or bloodlust or excitement making his gaze bright, almost glowing, like a beast’s in the dark of night.
