“You are capable, and smart, and giving,” Bel countered, sounding no less grumpy than before. “Some might even say adorable, but adorable or not, I am trying to save your life, which matters more than the cold you think I might get if I keep my coat on.”
Nicodemus lifted his head enough to give himself a proper view of Bel. Bel’s shirt and vest were now more visible, highlighting his chest and shoulders. Nicodemus gave a pained exhale. “Are we arguing?” He didn’t usually argue with anyone, so he wasn’t sure. It seemed an odd way to go about it. “Adorable?” he echoed.
“Or not,” Bel reminded him with a quiet huff of his own.
Nicodemus gave him another discreet study. “Bel…that was the Realm, that we were in?”
Bel went still. “Yes. A very small pocket of it.”
“Something—a creature, touched me.” Nicodemus tapped his arm where the hand, or paw, had been. “Only for a moment, but…is it truly that dangerous there for something to find me that quickly?”
Bel was silent for so long that Nicodemus finally raised his head and turned to look at him directly. “Bel?”
“If you end up in the Realm again, especially if I am not with you, remember who you are.” Bel’s stare made Nicodemus want to glance away, yet would not let him. “Your name and those that love you. That you are someone who provides warmth and safety and care. I doubt that anythingyoudesire could be sullied. But there are those in there who are not so good as you. So remember your name. Remember Holt and the others.”
Nicodemus nodded to show he had heard, even if he didn’t understand. “Is that what you do?”
Bel went back to staring at the fire. “I told you. I know what I want and I allow myself to have it, so the Realm does not master me.”
“Most,” Nicodemus amended Bel’s statement for him, watching Bel’s loosely bound hair fall forward over his shoulder, oddly mesmerized by how shiny the strands were in the firelight.
“What?” Bel turned to him again, startling Nicodemus into blinking several times.
“You said you allow yourself to havemostof what you want.” He pretended he had been looking at the fire, too.
“Is there a question in there?” Bel asked after a few stifling moments of silence. “I think there is.”
He did not answer the implied question, Nicodemus noticed, but since Nicodemus also had subjects he wanted to avoid, he moved on. “Youcould remember your name and those that love you when in the Realm.”
Bel scoffed. “Innocent, I can remember my name very well. I don’t need a reminder.”
Nicodemus wasinnocentonce more. Hewas, of course, but knowing that didn’t make him any less snippy. “And those that love you?”
It earned him a glance that was confused and even, possibly, fond. “If I tell you I know my friends care for me, will that please you into ceasing your worrying over me?”
Nicodemus considered and rejected several responses to that. In the end, he said, “No,” and, after Bel’s short, startled laugh, “If you don’t mind me asking, what did you learn about yourself when you were first there that has left you so sure of your place in the worlds?”
Bel’s amused smile hardened. “That I am a monster.”
He looked right at Nicodemus and Nicodemus, surprised, looked back. Bel had said that before and he did not boast or tell tales the way some did. Nicodemus peered into his eyes, and then, when Bel at last glanced away, to the lines at the corner of Bel’s mouth that disappeared as Bel arranged his face into something ordinary and uninterested.
How very odd he was, showing Nicodemus such a thing and then schooling his expression to hide it away again.
“You bring me to a small, private room out of public view and tell me you’re a monster,” Nicodemus observed, fascinated by the furtive, annoyed look Bel gave him. “Are you protecting yourself, or did you bring me here to hurt me? You could’ve done that outside, or at any time in the manor, and you have not. So…I think…if you are the monster you claim to be, you are still not like the one you’re chasing.”
“You,” Bel said accusingly, but then nothing else.
“Do you think I am too naïve—innocent—to see it?” Nicodemus wondered with a frown. “Or do you not want me to see all of it? It must be nice to be able to hide the monstrous part of you away. Or is it? The other peculiari are different too, uncivilized, you might say, but not like that.” Then he thought of Donovan, and Alistair, and even Elisa, and shook his head. “Not even Holt belongs in his parents’ drawing room. They are all different, they are just not likeyou.” Nicodemus sat in a chair in the sitting room, watching them all talk and bicker and play cards. So did Bel, who only rarely joined their soft chaos. “I’d think it would be lonely even being among them.”
“Nicodemus,” Bel grit out.
Nicodemus pushed up his spectacles, belatedly noticing the smudges on the lenses. “Itdraws me near, or tries to. You—”
“Nicodemus, I am not harmless,” Bel interrupted in a low, level voice. “Whatever you might be telling yourself.”
“I didn’t say you were.” With nerves and exhaustion and hot blood making him agitated, Nicodemus removed his glasses to try to clean them on his sleeve. “Every peculiari in the manor has done something they will not speak of. Some have fought in wars. Holt has taken a life before—at least one, that I know about. You’ve...” he paused, then slowly slid his glasses back into place. “You’ve had bloodstains on your clothing more than once. I…hope you had them laundered.”
“I threw them out.” Bel exhaled harshly. “I don’t kill for pleasure,” he added, focused intently on Nicodemus, “though I have taken pleasure in killing.”
