Chapter 4

Lilith

Unfolding and refolding my felted wool blanket for the fourth time didn't make it lay any nicer across the back of my threadbare, rented couch. No matter how I tried to fix it, it just didn't look nice. I knew I was fixating, but I was still kicking myself over the previous day's embarrassment of getting myself stuck in a tree. And why couldn't I have just lied when Alistair asked how my tree was doing? I'd told him the truth, like an absolute rube, and then stammered out some kind of acceptance when he'd offered to come look at it. So now he was coming here to my shabby rented apartment, and no amount of frantic homemaking would make it look homey or presentable.

But surely he wouldn't judge me if he lived in one of the furnished apartment rentals too? Maybe we had the same drab couch and rickety coffee tables. We could laugh together about the vintage radiators with so many coats of paint that it obscured the filigree underneath, and the cabinet doors that all hung a little crooked. I tried to comfort myself with thoughts of Alistair washing his dishes at a twin version of my beat-up sink, but I just couldn't picture the intimidating mothman doing such a domestic task.

It probably didn't help my nerves that I could swear the little mushrooms were glaring at me. I was almost surprised when I came home last night to find that the frog wasn't sitting in his normal spot waiting for me, because it had happened that way so many times lately. How does a four-inch-long frog beat you home from where you released it outside? I don't know!

And then this morning, still no frog. That was a great success in my book. I finally had a frog-free home. But somehow, somehow , I got the vibe that these little low-fae were unhappy about this development. Perturbed, even. I'd think they'd be glad to not have to share their tiny pot with another creature, so I didn't understand the odd sense of annoyance that was emanating in waves from the low-fae. I was probably imagining things again though.

A knock at the door jerked me out of my musings, and I glanced out the window to see that dusk had fallen across the fog-coated streets below. "I can come by tomorrow evening and take a look at your tree," the mothman had offered yesterday, before I'd listened in horror as my mouth accepted his offer without my brain's permission. I tiptoed to the door and looked out the peephole to find… a wall of indistinct gray. I took a deep breath, pasted on a smile, and jerked the door open, only to have to step back because he was right there. I practically had a face full of fluff because he was hunched over awkwardly in my doorway, looking bleary-eyed and rumpled. His antennae were going in wonky directions and his mane fuzz stuck out in clumps every which way. He gripped the door frame with one hand and his other three arms dangled limply at his sides.

"Did you get into a fight?" I asked him. His mussed appearance did nothing to take the edge off of the menacing aura his stature and build presented.

Alistair lifted a hand to one eye and rubbed at it with a slow smile, a soft chirp sounding in his chest. "I just woke up," he buzzed. "I didn't know what time you went to sleep, and I didn't want to be rude by making you wait." A big yawn stretched his jaw, revealing his teeny, tiny fangs and long, curled tongue. As he clicked his teeth shut, his antennae went haywire, jittering rapidly on his head and bouncing around until he was forced to slap his hands down on top of them, flattening the boisterous appendages against his skull. He hunched in place, looking as though the ceiling was raining down on top of him. "Sorry," he grumbled, his eyes squinting with annoyance.

"Sorry?" I wasn't sure exactly what he was apologizing for. His wayward antennae? Just waking up? His mussed appearance? My hands itched to smooth his fluff into place for him, and I wondered what it would feel like between my fingers. I blinked up at him and stepped back to allow him to come in if he wanted. "I'll be up for a while still, if you want to sleep for a little bit longer," I offered. "Have you had—" Breakfast? Dinner? What did nocturnal people call their first meal? I finally settled on, "—food?" I didn't even know what mothpeople ate. Perhaps I could offer him some… water?

He stepped through the door slowly, having to duck to fit his enormous height under the frame. Once he was through, he hesitantly lifted his hands from his head as if he expected his antennae to fritz out again immediately. They did not, instead laying plastered against his scalp in a mangled-looking mess of feathery fluff. He still kept two hands raised, just in case, while looking rather hunted. "Sorry," he repeated before relaxing and straightening to his full height. "No, I prefer not to ingest anything this early. Thank you very much, though. I'll have some fruit once I'm more awake." His gaze locked on my apple tree, and he made his way across the room, never glancing at my shabby couch or my throw blankets or even toward my kitchen. He only had eyes for my tree. "The others are not here?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"They're at the retail store," I explained.

He nodded absently and rumbled quietly, "I'd like to check it out sometime." A kindness, surely. But he turned to me, as if waiting for a response.

"Sure," I responded, not understanding what he wanted—did he feel as if he needed permission to visit my store?—but he nodded as if pleased. He then bent to inspect every leaf and limb, turning them up so he could see the undersides and then poking his fingers into the soil. It was fascinating to watch him move, the way the muscles in his shoulders bunched and the iridescent sheen on his wings as they caught the light.

"And what are you doing here?" he asked the mushrooms, clearly not expecting a reply. "Did you get tired of Miela's rough handling at the orchard? I've never understood how that child is exempt from your retaliations. Some warriors you are," he grumbled quietly.

My eyebrows crept upward. Warrior mushrooms?

"It needs more light," he said a bit louder, startling me out of my imaginings of tiny mushrooms holding even tinier wooden swords.

"This is the best window in the apartment!" I protested. I had a balcony at my condo in New Caelora, and I'd assumed the tree would be fine for the few months it took before I could move it back home. "And it's doing much better than it was before the mushrooms started growing."

Alistair turned to look at me, and his antennae perked up. "Is that so?"

I bit my lips—hard—to keep from smiling. His antennae were still a complete mess, bent in weird directions with the feathery tufts sticking out all higgledy-piggledy. I could feel my eyes shining with amusement though, and surely he could have spotted it from across the room.

"I would have you know that I'm refraining from shaking my coat out like a long-furred canine to spare your lovely apartment from a generous coating of ‘mothman glitter,' as one friend generously describes my wing scales," he said primly, gesturing at the wings on his back. "You may thank me for my self-restraint at any time."

I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so I said, "Thank you," although it sounded like a question as I said it.

"You're welcome," he said loftily, though I caught a hint of mirth that made me grin. How did he manage to be scary and cute at the same time? "You might consider moving your tree to my roof," he suggested quickly. "I would be happy to care for it along with my other plants, and you can come visit it or take it home whenever you like."

I blinked at him, trying to make sense of his suggestion. "Your… roof?"

He reached up to straighten one of his antennae and cleared his throat, almost as if he were nervous. "Yes. I keep all of my personal plants that need full sun on the roof here. The low-fae will have to relocate though; they don't do well in full sun." His other antenna needed a great deal more work, requiring three of his hands to untangle some of the wispy filaments.

"Oh, um, sure. I guess? You don't need the management's permission to go up there?" I started toward my tree, but he waved me away, hefting the cement pot easily with one arm in a way that made my cheeks feel hot for some reason. Even completely empty, I hadn't been able to lift that pot on my own—I'd rolled it to its place by the window.

"Come, I will show you," he declared. Tiny clouds of shimmering dust billowed off of him as he opened the door with his extra hands and snapped his wings together to pass through, grumbling at the mushrooms all the while as they hitched a ride. His wings looked curiously like a heavy cloak from behind.

I held back a bemused smile as he left a trail of his glitter down the hallway and up the back stairs, though why that amused me or why I even noticed, I couldn't say. I followed him into the fourth-floor hallway and—never having been to this floor before—was surprised to find it was a much shorter hallway with only two doors.

He opened one and held it for me like a gentleman, and I nearly gasped as I stepped inside.

His apartment was huge—a penthouse—with elaborate vintage molding around beautifully restored windows. The walls were a deep forest green with blue undertones, with the soft, subtle texture of hand-troweled clay pigments. Brass sconces cast a warm, amber glow that mingled with the muted, layered lighting of multiple lamps and strands of twinkle lights. An oversized, low-backed, tan leather couch sat behind a coffee table that looked to have been an antique wooden crate. It was moody, and masculine, and deliciously cozy. The subtle, musky scent of him was everywhere, and I inhaled deeply, trying to imprint it on my lungs.

"This is beautiful," I told him breathlessly as he brushed past me, carrying the tree toward the far wall where a large shelving system of iron pipes and stained wood was completely covered with trailing plants. "How did you convince the landlords to let you do all of this?"

Ancient looking wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, drawing my gaze across the large space to an open kitchen. I couldn't see much in the dim lamplight of the apartment, except for polished cement counter tops and some copper pots gleaming in the moonlight, which found its way in through several large skylights. It had so much character.

Alistair gave a low, buzzing laugh as he set my pot down near the shelves and turned to walk over to the kitchen. He pulled out a drawer and dug around before returning with a metal spatula. "I gave him a kiss and a wink and told him he was handsome." His fangs showed as his mouth pulled into a wide grin, and he gave a low chirp. "I'm teasing. I own this outright. The building was originally all condos, but an investor came in and bought up a bunch of the units to turn into student or apartment housing." He gave a small shrug and lifted a potted pothos off of his shelf.

I drifted toward the couch to watch what he was doing, reaching out unthinkingly to touch a soft, chunky-knit blanket that was piled on one end. The fibers were soft and dense, and my fingers came away covered in iridescent glitter.

The big mothman set the pothos next to my potted tree on the floor and tilted the tree toward it. He used the spatula to prod the low-fae out of their pot and into the pothos. "Oh, they're gonna be quite angry about this," he grumbled. "Ack! Oh, dear. So sorry!" he squawked as one of the littlest mushrooms tumbled out of the pot and onto the floor. "So very sorry!" Alistair repeated as he carefully slid his metal spatula under the mushroom and lifted it back to the pot, gently situating it in the new pot before addressing the rest of the fungal group. "Now, listen, you lot don't have to go home, but you can't stay here in this tree pot. It's going up on the roof and it'll be too sunny for you. You'll bake! But you're welcome to use this little pot in the meantime," he reassured them. After he got them moved, he handed me the pothos-mushroom pot—a ceramic pot with a pretty blue and bronze glaze. "This is yours now," he informed me. "Because you don't have any plants left in your apartment now, and every home needs a plant."

I took the pot, feeling strangely touched, and peered down at the little toadstools. They were all hunkered down in the soil now, with their faces hidden. Sure, I still had the plants at the store, but that wasn't the same as a plant in your house to make your heart happy for the sake of it.

"To the roof," Alistair instructed, easily hefting the tree pot again and leading the way to a metal door located in the wall behind the kitchen. He pushed it open and led me out into the night on a black metal stairwell connected to the side of the building, giving me a rueful grin that made my heart hammer in my chest as he paused to stick a doorstop under the door. "It locks when it closes, and then I'd have to fly you down, which I don't think you'd be too pleased about," he informed me with a chuckling buzz.

I felt my neck heat with both the embarrassing memory of being too scared to climb down from the tree yesterday and the unexpected image of how it might feel to be held tightly by all four of Alistair's muscular arms. What has gotten into me??

He was still chuckling to himself as we climbed the last of the stairs and stepped onto the rooftop. I stood, clutching my little pot of pothos vines, and stared. The entire space was covered in rows upon rows of potted sapling trees and flowering shrubs. There was an iron arbor supporting a stout vine covered in blooms that dripped with nectar. The scent that hung heavy in the air was intoxicating.

"Oh, Alistair," I breathed, completely at a loss for words. As I looked around, I realized nearly all the blossoms were white, the perfect shade to reflect the moonlight in what had to be a purposefully planned little moon garden. Long, silvery grasses rustled in the slight breeze, and I spotted a rare night-blooming sorenvine. Fireflies blinked their lights slowly in the distance.

Alistair gave a cheery buzz, his head pulling back slightly into his fluff but obviously pleased that I appreciated his little moon-lit sanctuary. This was clearly his happy place. "You like it?" he asked.

"I love it." I couldn't stop gazing at all the various elements.

The noise he made was very nearly a purr, and he practically hugged the apple tree pot to his chest. "I'm so glad. You're welcome to join me up here any time," he told me with a shy note to his voice. He stared at me for a short beat before seeming to shake himself free. "Come, let's put your tree over here where it will get the most light." He led me to a corner of the roof that was mostly dominated by glistening succulents and sun-loving wildflowers, where he tucked the pot next to the outer wall, chattering all the while about the sun's path of travel and proper airflow. After fussing with it for a moment and ultimately deciding he was satisfied with its placement, he drifted here and there to tell me about his favorite of the different details he'd incorporated—his favorite plants and the decorative elements he'd worked in.

Eventually, we sat in silence on a bench near the center of the space and simply breathed in the heady perfume of the surrounding flowers, content to watch the fireflies and the leaves that rustled in the breeze.

I was in heaven.