Page 118 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Fire

But lifting the little wooden box in shaking hands revealed a suspiciously well-behaved flame with no appetite for expensive carpet. In fact, the blue flame looked as if it was dying, but kept sputtering back to life like a trick birthday candle. The tip of the flame moved as I tilted the box, trying like hell to figure out where the source of the fuel was, but there was no wax, wick, or oil to be found. Closing and reopening the box didn’t appear to have any effect on the flame, and though it was warm to the touch, it didn’t burn my fingers when I hesitantly swiped them through it.

What the fuckwasthis? Had Mat given me some sort of weird magic trick? But optical illusions didn’t have temperature, and any kind of real flame would extinguish itself the moment the box was closed. The flame also put off light when I closed myself in the window-less downstairs bathroom, so ithadto be real fire.

After subjecting it to a few more tests that provided more questions than answers, I set the open box on the coffee table as I laid out on the couch, staring at it. I couldn’t make myself fall asleep, my anxiety insisting itwasa real, unquenchable flame and it’d burn the house down the moment my eyes were closed. After a tense hour of my brain helpfully outlining every possibility of my fiery death, I threw the afghan off with a growl of irritation, shoving my feet in my shoes, snapping the fire-box closed and dropping it in my coat pocket.

I didn’t know what the hell Mat had entrusted me with, but he was going to give me some answers, even if it was the middle of the night. I nestled the box between my legs again, and for some reason it was getting warmer the closer I got to Second Steep. It wasn’t enough to burn, but by the time I pulled into the parking lot, it felt like I’d cranked the car heater and pointed the vent at my thighs. I huffed as I pulled off my seatbelt, squinting through the dark at the stairs to the over-shop apartment Mat called home.

Had he been doing laundry? There was a winter coat dumped on the landing, a sleeve dangling down. Well that was sloppy. Maybe he’d tried to stretch it out on the railing and the wind knocked it down. But when I got close enough to see better, I screamed: it was abody. My fingers closed on nothing in my pocket, and I realized with horror I’d left my cell phone in my car across the lot. My hand clenched the railing halfway up the leaf-covered stairs: Mat didn’t use a cell phone, and I wasn’t sure there was one in his apartment, there was only the landline in the store and I didn’t have keys on me. A soft groan broke the silence and pulled me the rest of the way up the stairs, revealing what I was most afraid of finding.

Mat had been beaten to a pulp, bruises and blood smeared across a puffy face, his hair coarse and wiry, tangled around a set of oversized anime cat ears for some reason. Crushed under his body, a pair of dripping, matted fox tails drooped over the edges of the landing, soaking up the pool of blood around him like he was a murdered anime character. I gasped, dropping to my knees and sliding an arm under Mat’s neck to support him. “Oh my god, Mat! Mat, it’s Bailey, Jesus Christ! Hang on, hang on, I’m going to get help. Can you hear me?”

Mat turned his head aside, weakly spitting blood out of his mouth to speak. “B-Bailey. They…they came back. I need…I just need my box.Please.”

I pulled my arm inside my sleeve and gently wiped a rivulet of blood from his mouth, grabbing the box from my jacket pocket afterwards. Maybe he’d been beaten for it and wanted to see it was safe? I’d have rather called an ambulance, but for all I knew he was at death’s door and I wasn’t about to refuse his last wish. If seeing the weird fire box helped steady him, I’d give it to him andthencall for help.

The moment he saw it, his body visibly sagged against me in relief as I pressed it into his cut, bleeding hands. The lid popped open on its own, sending guilt flooding through me: he’d definitely know I fucked with it, now. The well-behaved flame got a lot stronger without warning, flaring up like a shot of lighter fluid over a BBQ grill, blue light bathing both of us and the concerning amount of blood on the landing, as well as piles of tiny dried leaves clumped everywhere.

Like watching a cremation in real time, the flames gently engulfed Mat, but he seemed to welcome them. Warmth seeped into the metal floor beneath us, but it never got hot enough to burn: instead, the fire seemed to behealinghim in some kind of opposite-day triage. I watched, wide-eyed, ready to flee but weighted down by Mat’s head and shoulders in my lap, swallowing another scream of terror.

Long minutes later, Mat’s hazel eyes opened, a look of pure exhaustion and pain pulling at my heart. “Bailey, I’m so sorry you had to find out this way, but if you help me inside, I’ll explain everything, at least as much as I can.” He tried to sit up and grimaced in pain as I supported him, both of us leaning heavily on the railing to get him to his feet.

I ducked under his arm, holding him up as we maneuvered through the doorway into a cozy, exquisitely-decorated apartment, far more upscale than the shop below had ever been. I helped him sit on the couch, staring in shock as the two fox-costume tailsmovedto either side in the process. I glanced at Mat and he held up a hand, cutting off my barrage of questions.

Mat

I countedmyself lucky Bailey hadn’t fled yet. I probably would have, were I human and put in this situation, but perhaps she was made of stronger stuff than I. Haltingly, and with a few breaks for water, then tea, I gave her the condensed version of “the talk.” The council would probably have my ears for doing things out of order—normally, I’d have to petition and be given permission before revealing the hidden world to a human—but it wasn’t like I had a choice.Ihadn’t broken the veil after all, the Unseelie had drawn first blood, and it just so happened to be mine. As I stumbled through a condensed version of conveyors, magic, and hidden beings, I carefully ignored the lingering, searing pain at my lower back, not yet ready to discover how badly the fae had mutilated me.

Bailey sat numbly in the armchair she’d pulled closer to the couch to face me, blinking at nothing. It was a lot, I granted, to spring on someone completely unaware of magic. There was an entire world tucked into and wrapped around her own, and she was already enmeshed in a brewing war, or at least a serious conflict.

“I just came to ask you what, you know, the hell that was.” she gestured at my firefox case, currently open and cradling a healing wisp of blue flame on the table beside me. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved I was here, but…this is insane, Mat. If I hadn’t seen you set fire to yourself and come outbetterI’d think I was tripping! I mean, are these guys going to come back? Are you in danger? AmI?”

Her timid glance at my locked door broke my heart: an inherent sense of protectiveness roared in indignation that one of my charges was afraid. She hadn’t even seen whatever carnage the Unseelie had wrought downstairs. I vaguely remembered them getting into the teahouse at some point as I faded in and out of consciousness, and I vainly hoped they’d used my keys to do it. Getting windows replaced would come with questions and police reports, and I had a conveyor’s reputation of discretion to uphold.

“They hurt me about as badly as they could without causing my death. I can keep secrets as well as the next conveyor, but taking one to the grave is a loyalty bought only by the ruling houses of our domains: that would be you or your parents, in my case. They know I was telling the truth now, that I really have no idea where their missing prince is. Returning would be an exercise in futility, especially because they probably think I’m dead.”

I attempted a reassuring smile and sipped more of my water, wishing it was tea. My stomach sank as I thought about the carnage on the stairs outside: the monsters had, shortly before they left me to bleed out, upended every bit of tea from the store as they looked for my foxfire. It was cruel and spiteful, and in some ways hurt worse than the beating. Ilovedmy tea, and some of it was going to be near-impossible to replace. Worse, without access to it, I really was reduced to the weak, minor enchantments that lingered in milk and sugar.

A bloom of garnet cascaded through my water glass as I drank, and we both watched it with mirrored expressions of fear. I coughed into my forearm, and more blood splashed my torn sleeve. I wasn’t healed; while my foxfire had helped stem some of the injuries, there were too many, the cuts poisoned with jagged shadow magic that swallowed my own.

“Oh my god, Mat! What-what’s going on? I thought you said your fire fixed what they did to you!” Her eyes flicked from the stain on my arm to my face and back again, body language tense with concern.

I coughed again, swiping my sleeve across my bloodied lips to little effect as I set my glass down, fear pooling low in my belly. “I said it would try, little vixen. Because my fire is me, and I am it, there’s not much power to go around right now: diminishing returns and all that. If this is to be the end of my tenure with your family, please know I was grateful to serve you all.”

“What? No! Don’t talk like that, you idiot. How do you get more…power, or whatever? Tell me how to help you. You’re not dying on my watch, you stubborn bastard.” Bailey was on her feet, eyes flashing, ready to fight in any way she knew how.For me. It warmed my heart, even as a concerning pain twinged in my chest as well.

I coughed a laugh, easing back into the plush cushions of my leather couch, trying to ignore the fact I was probably staining it with my blood. It’d be someone else’s problem soon enough, if the way I ached was any indication. I closed my eyes with a sigh and leaned my head back. “I’m not that sort of kitsune, and even if I were, I’d never use that sort of magic on you, Bailey. I may have gently urged your parents into retirement, but that was to benefit them— sort of a loophole in the rule not to act against one’s own ruling house. You, you’re a-” I coughed again, my chest squeezing uncomfortably. “Well. I did try to turn your eyes away from the account books, but that was only to keep you from seeing I didn’t take a salary. Generosity of that magnitude tends to come with uncomfortable, probing questions from nosy little humans like you.” I softened the tease with a smirk that twisted into a grimace as pain shuddered through me again.

She sank down beside me on the couch, gingerly, her voice quiet. “Well, what’sthat sortof kitsune, Mat? Do you need my blood? Like a vampire? If it will help you and it won’t kill me, I’ll do it. I’m not afraid.”

She was, in fact, very afraid but I admired her for pushing through it for my sake. It was difficult to keep secrets from kitsunes, especially those of an emotional sort. I let my hand drop to rest on hers between us, giving it a weak squeeze. “No, not your blood. Your lust, to put it indelicately. We’ve evolved and divided into many sorts of spirits throughout the history of our kind, but at our roots, kitsunes are creatures of sensuality.”

Bailey tilted her head at me, raising a brow. “Are you trying to tell me, sitting here half-dead, that the only thing that’s going to save you is fucking? Mat, I’m not going to lie, this sounds like a badly written porno:let’s bang or I kick it.”

I laughed through the pain, letting my head rest heavily on the couch cushion behind me. I was so, so tired. “Believe me, I understand. There’s a reason I went the route of passing messages and diplomacy: the old ways feel tawdry and impersonal, but youdidask.”

Bailey slid her hand out from under mine, and, to my shock, rested it prominently on my upper thigh. “That wasn’t a no, Mat.”

“Bailey-” I tried to sit up, to tell her it was well beyond a favor, that I had too much respect for her to use her as some kind of magical bandaid. Then she ran her fingers through my hair and brushed the sensitive side of my furred, pointed ear with the back of her knuckles. I groaned, leaning into her touch as my threadbare, exhausted willpower slipped.

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