Heed this, Anastasia:

He is watching you.

The first time he calls you holy, you don't hear it. Neither does he. Worldess, soundless, he mouths the syllables like it's second nature, and he falls for holy.

he falls

for you.

The second time, he imagines you moaning gospel around his fingers. Between your teeth. Between your lips. And if you see deep inside him, through skin, through bones, through anything that takes form in this realm, you'd see that he's an angel



hiding his halo somewhere you can't see it.

is it on his back? on the ground, and he's stepping on it, grinding it against concrete with his bare feet? is it in his stomach, freshly digested, newly absorbed, heaven-engined nourishment and desire?

when you look at him just like you do now,

he imagines you clawing his back;

undress his softness

one feather at a time.

Death rode into Fallarbor on a mare paler than ash. It struck in the dead of night, a silent predator who found its prey in a young man with a head full of dreams. Fantasies that couldn't save him when the deathbird's bell tolled.

He slunk through Tungsten like a cat on its way to cause mischief, yet he was no feline and there was no mischief to be had.

"New experiences are like... fresh chapters in your story." She starts to say with a smile on her features and a twinkle in her eyes.