“Well, it’s not as if it doesn’t benefit you. Having someone.”
“Having someone, or having you?”
“You tell me.” Tristan slid him a glance, and Callum sighed.
“You are not accustomed to being desired, are you?” Callum prompted, and before Tristan could manage his surely uncomfortable reply, Callum clarified, “As a friend, I mean. As a person.” A pause. “As anything.”
“Please don’t psychoanalyze me today,” Tristan said.
“Fine, fine.” Callum’s smile quirked. “Daddy issues.”
Tristan glared at him, and Callum laughed.
“Well, the whisky’s good, and so is the company,” said Callum. “Astoundingly, that is the primary extent of your worth to me, Tristan. Ample conversation, at the very least.”
“I don’t know about ample.”
“That,” Callum said, “is the best part. The silences are particularly engaging.”
Aptly, they sat in silence for a moment, saturating themselves in the relief of conflict resolution.
After a few minutes of quiet coexistence, Callum glanced at the clock.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose I’m for bed, then.” He rose to his feet, setting his empty glass on the table. “Are you staying up?”
“For a bit,” Tristan said, and Callum nodded.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, clapping a hand on Tristan’s shoulder, “the parts of you that you seem to loathe are hardly abhorrent at all.”
“Thanks,” said Tristan pithily, and Callum let out another hearty laugh. He strode through the doors and disappeared, the warmth of his magic swallowed up by the dark and gone with him.
Tristan, left alone in the light of the painted room’s fireplace, set his glass on the table, reaching into his pocket. He removed the note he’d scrawled to himself earlier, unfurling it to read the script written inside.
A glass of wine. Vintage. Old World.
Tristan looked up at the sweat on his glass of whisky, watching it fall to the table below.
“Fuck,” he swore aloud, crumpling the piece of paper in his hands.
LIBBY
“Miss Rhodes,” said Atlas pleasantly, “what a surprise.”
She paused in the doorway, frowning.
“It’s not actually a surprise, though,” she determined aloud, “is it?”
Atlas glanced up, half-smiling. “What gave it away?”
A lack of disturbance, mostly. There was no magic to that, aside from observation.
“Just a hunch,” she said, and Atlas beckoned for her to take a seat.
“How did you know I was here?”
Surveillance wards. “I heard Dalton mention it.”
“Mm,” said Atlas. “I take it you have further questions about initiation?”