Page 3 of Harnessed in Gold

I turn when someone snorts behind me. Rime stands in the entryway, elbows propped on the doorframe and a smirk on his face. “Because he’s a lazy son of a bitch.”

Leo barely glances at him. “Son of a bitch?Is that your newest expression?”

“Well, you didn’t like the last one.” Rime offers me a nod as he squeezes past. The kitchen is barely big enough for Leo and me, but with Rime in here, I feel like a sardine. The Taj Mahal would barely be big enough for him.

Rime grins at me, elbowing Leo out of the way of the kettle. “I like your expressions, you humans. Especially American slang.”

“Do you?” I ask. “Like what?”

“Likeloser,” Leo supplies. “Andboujee. He was stuck on that one for days.”

Rime side-eyes Leo. “He gave me a long history lesson on it.”

I bite back a giggle. Yeah, I’ll bet.

“So, what was the last one?” I ask Leo. “The one you didn’t like?”

His only answer is a roll of the eyes.

Rime tosses me a wink. “Douchebag.”

A laugh bursts out of me so abruptly I almost spill the spoonful of sugar hovering over my mug.

“Please,” drawls a feminine voice, “let’s all congregate in the smallest room in the apartment.” Topaz pushes her way past Rime, zeroing in on the coffee pot. I step back before she can shove me aside, too. She’s wearing a short, silky red kimono, her long legs bare and beautiful. All of her is beautiful, but not in a Tinker Bell sort of way. From an ignorant human’s point of view, she looks more like a succubus than a faerie.

She complains as she pours her coffee, speaking to no one in particular, “Everything’s small here. And dark. With your little apartments and your little windows and all the asphalt everywhere.”

Here in theSubworld.

“And what do you have in Nàdar?” I ask her, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

She blinks at me like she’d forgotten I existed. “Homes that let in light and air. Endless fields of wildflowers. No parking lots.”

“Sounds nice,” I mutter into my coffee.

She leans back against the counter and considers me. “So you were at a ball last night? I didn’t know humans still had balls.”

I refuse to wilt under her stare. “Yes, we have balls.”

“In a hotel?”

Rime reaches around her for a spoon and sings behind her back, “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“Wrong side of the bed?” She whips around. “What does that mean?”

I hide a snicker in another sip of coffee. Rime shrugs innocently and exits the kitchen, Topaz stomping after him, demanding he explain himself.

“Sorry about her,” Leo says to me.

“I’ve dealt with much worse.”

He gestures for me to hand him the half and half. “Do you mean that sorority? The one that blackballed Liv?”

I nod, passing him the carton. “At least Topaz isn’t a phony.”

“No.” His smile is hesitant, and crooked in that way that always makes me a little lightheaded. “She’s certainly not that.”

As he shuts the refrigerator door, my eyes snag on the notes and postcards stuck to it. Particularly the email address of a Dr. Joyce Logan, Professor of Anthropology, College of William and Mary.