Page 122 of Living Legend

My response wavered a bit. “We aren’t.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, the whiskey color of them seeming to glow against the sunlight. “Oh, well, you two just seemed so cozy, that’s all.”

“Cozy? Right.” I laughed.

“Maurice just told me this morning that Nick seemed more at ease. I mean, he has told me his son was always stubborn, but I guess he seemed…less like himself. In the best way.”

I took a sip of my drink, letting it simmer on my tongue. “I think Nick would claim I’m corrupting him.”

She giggled. “Perhaps, but I don’t hear him complaining.”

I nodded in agreement, smiling over my coffee mug.

Daya eyed me now, pressing her lips together. “The Soul Seether, huh?’

Not what I thought the first real topic of conversation would be about. Granted, the first time we ever spoke, she was knocking on the bathroom door, offering me clothes, and telling me I had a very eager angel waiting in the living room for me. That had made me laugh. I had made her laugh in return by saying that the leggings she gave me would probably give him a heart attack and proceeded to snatch them away from her.

“That’s what they call me.”

“That must put you under a lot of pressure.” She sounded concerned.

“Sort of. I mean, it’s the only thing I’ve ever known.”

She hummed. “Lilith is a special kind of evil, isn’t she?” This was poised more like her own opinion than a question.

I shrugged, taking a sip of my coffee. “Yeah, I mean she was alright in the beginning, but then things just changed….”

Daya remained quiet, letting me finish my thought.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but I started to resent her, that’s all. She would dote on me all the time, but then she started to pull away from me. It was so odd. It wasn’t like she found another demon or something, but she just got so busy, I guess. Now, that all makes sense.”

“What do you mean?” Daya asked, placing her hand delicately on her knee.

“Lilith masterminding all of this shit. She must have hit the start button, which was why she started to appear to me less and less. I always had Elise, so it wasn’t so bad all the time.”

“Elise is your friend in Oculus, right now?”

I had forgotten how much Daya knew and how much I had said at breakfast this morning. She had listened easily and never had a trace of judgment on her face, even when we brought up my dagger, how the powers in it were tethered to me, and when we talked about my use of it in the Ethereal Bastille. Judgement never reared its ugly head. She had a motherly way about her expressions that I wasn’t used to. She never asked for more than I was willing to give, and I thought about how much I appreciated that.

“She is in Oculus, yes. Friend? Umm, you would have to ask her. She has this weird way of not being my friend but having friendly tendencies. It’s better if you don’t try to figure it out.”

Daya laughed, angling her elbow towards the back of the couch, and leaning her head against her hand. “Maybe she’s afraid of hurting you.”

“Hurting me?” That caught me off guard. The one thing Elise was good at was hurting people, physically and mentally. The last thing she would be afraid of was causing pain.

“I’m sure in Purgatory, any sort of emotion that makes you vulnerable comes highly unwanted. Elise probably doesn’t want to show you any friendliness so that you can, I don’t know, keep up your appearance,” Daya explained, as if it were the simplest conclusion.

She had a point. Demons were friendly with each other, but at the drop of a hat, if Lilith were to suggest a match to the death between two friends, that friendship would be completely dissolved right on the spot. It’s happened on more than one occasion for her pure entertainment. Those were in my earlier days, when I liked to think she was showing me everything Purgatory had to offer, letting me see all the bloodshed from a front row seat. She even had me pull out a few of their souls before they died, once she had presented me with my dagger. She would take their souls in her hand when I was done yanking it out of their chest and crush it within her long fingers. It would turn to dust, the fine granules leaving her palm as she let it fall to the ground.

“Did you ever come in contact with her?” I drained the last of my coffee and placed the mug on the coffee table.

Daya yanked a pillow from behind her and placed it in her lap. “Who?”

“Lilith.”

She looked down at the rectangular pillow, tracing her fingers along the geometric pattern that covered it. “No, I never did, but I did come across her demons plenty of times when I was in the human world. They never really spoke much, nor did I speak to them, but they always looked on edge as I was watching over my humans.”

“They never knew you were around, the humans?”

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