“Yes. So to speak. In the interest of honoring your request and getting you out of here fast, I’ll cut to the chase.”
“Good. Who’s being chased? You or me?”
Rosie smiled. “I’m beginning to understand what Shivaun sees in you. You’re entertaining.”
“I am entertaining,” he agreed. “But I’ve never entertained Shivaun. Not musically.”
That was interesting. “Well, now you have to tell me why.”
“In the interest of precise speech, let me assert that I do not have to tell you anything. But there’s no reason not to divulge my reason. As a music demon, I could persuade Shivaun to be my mate with a song, but singing a love song to a female interferes with free choice. I don’t want her to come to me because of compulsion. I want her to choose me.”
Rosie wasn’t expecting to hear anything of the sort. She cleared her throat. “That’s noble.”
Lyric chuckled. “There’s no call for insults. It’s simple logic. If I wanted an automaton instead of a mate, I understand there are very lifelike blowup dolls available from Japan. But what I want is Shivaun and everything that makes her real.”
“Why’d you pick her?”
“You know that’s none of your business.”
Nodding, Rosie grinned and said, “I do know that. I was just hoping you’d answer the question anyway. Call me a romantic.”
“I’ll call you a romantic if you want, but my relationship with Shivaun is not romance.”
“What is it?”
“A prelude to partnership.”
“You’re right. That’s not romantic at all. So moving on. I didn’t really ask for a meeting with you to discuss your love life.” Rosie held her hand up. “Correction. Your prelude to partnership. I want to talk about the tutelage you’re giving my student.”
“What about it?”
“Let’s just say it’s outside the planned curriculum.”
Lyric laughed. “So that’s what this is about? Your ego is dinged because she’s learning things from me that she’s not learning from you.”
Rosie had been working on controlling kneejerk reactions since her time with the Exiled. Intuitively she’d understood, long before the conversation with Kellareal, that she might have secrets that needed to be locked away in a firmly sealed container. So she considered what was said before responding.
“I hope that’s not true. I really do have her best interest at heart.”
Lyric walked a few steps in silence before saying, “So do I.”
“Well, I don’t know many demons, but I do know enough to say that’s atypical.”
With a deep sigh, the demon said in Shivaun’s accent. “Great Paddy. I have to concur. ‘Tis a fine fix when I do no’ know what I’m doin’.”
Rosie laughed out loud. “Well, music demon. I hadn’t expected to have my fears allayed by this chat, but I feel much better. So long as you’re pledging to not sing to her, I think all will work out however it should.”
“So I should tell her my suit has your blessing?”
“Let’s not get carried away. You can tell her I have no objection to her association with you so long as she isn’t hurt. Or lost. The time travel thing really is graduate level demonology, don’t you think?”
“Demonology.” He huffed out a breathy laugh. “Good one. Here’s the thing. You don’t know what kind of fire you’re playing with. And if you don’t figure it out soon, well… Watch out. You might get what you’re after.”
She studied him. “You’re quoting a lyric from ‘Burning Down the House’.”
Without confirming or denying the reference, he said, “Lyrics are the best place in the universe to embed messages. It’s not up to me to tell you what Black Swan has stumbled into. Ask your grandfather.”
“About what?”
Lyric stopped and faced her. “Female demons. Ask him if it’s a good idea to be churning them out like a widget factory.”
Rosie’s frown drew her eyebrows together. “Why don’t you just tell me?”
Lyric didn’t say goodbye. He simply vanished, having sensed that it was three o’clock.
Shivaun was as punctual as Big Ben. He knew she’d be waiting next to one of the stately Italian junipers near the front entrance of the Abbey. And she was.
Rosie stood in place for a time playing back everything that had been said. There was a standout takeaway worth its weight in gold. Black Swan needed to communicate with more natural-born demons.
Lyric was right. Great Paddy. They didn’t know what they were doing. At all.
“Lally.”
Kellareal appeared within seconds wearing a red silk caftan. “Yeah?”
Her first impulse was to ask what in gods’ names he was doing in a caftan that draped his body,