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“No . . . Kai is a Bard, and a powerful one.”
    Deven tried to frame another question before he lost consciousness, but he felt Nico’s hand on his face, and the Elf said kindly, “Rest, my Lord. I promise we will talk later when you are stronger.”
    That was all he heard.
     • • • 
    Nicolanai rose gracefully from the bed, not at all rumpled from nearly four hours cross-legged. Whatever material Elves made their clothes out of, it was amazingly wrinkleproof. “Stay close to him,” he said. “He will have nightmares again.”
    Jonathan nodded. “Call the guards at your door if you need anything. Don’t hesitate.”
    “I will not.”
    The Consort started to speak, then stopped, but the Elf paused and turned his head back toward the bed, waiting, and Jonathan finally said, “Thank you.”
    Nico turned back and stared at him, his eyes penetrating. “You should not thank me yet. I gave you my word that he would survive, and he will, but there may be consequences to this we cannot anticipate.”
    “But at least he’s acting like he wants to try to get better,” Jonathan told him. “Now perhaps he’ll fight for his own life instead of just giving up.”
    Nico stared down at Deven for a long moment. “There is little enough left of my people, so few traces of our time here . . . to think that someone with such a high calling, such power, could be cast down and condemned and learn to value himself so little . . . perhaps my kinsmen are right that we should have sealed off the Veil forever and not set foot here again.”
    “Oh? What do your kin think about you being here, then?”
    A faint smile. “Only two of them even knew I left.”
    “You sneaked away? Why?”
    “Why did I have to sneak, or why was I willing to?”
    “Both. Either.”
    Nico sighed. “A great many prophecies pointed toward a day when we would have to return to the mortal world to aid in saving it. I believe that day has come. Others disagree. Vehemently.” He allowed himself another small smile, this one wry. “I expect to be in a fair amount of trouble when I get home.”
    Jonathan’s eyebrows shot up. “What, you mean they’ll punish you?”
    Something surprisingly dark and fierce crossed the Elf’s face as he glanced down at the sleeping Prime. “They can try.”
    With that, he left the bedroom, closing the door silently behind him.
    Jonathan stared after him for a moment before he was able to shake himself out of the spell the Elf seemed to cast over everyone he laid eyes on. The guards at the guest suite were utterly terrified of the Weaver, though they didn’t say so; no one had any idea what to make of him, but they all knew he was incredibly powerful, ethereally beautiful, and very, very weird.
    He told himself it was the Elf’s strangeness that bothered him, not the way Deven reacted to him . . . like all of a sudden the Prime really was a seventeen-year-old, tumbling headlong into a new romance, all tongue-tied and nervous whenever the Elf was near. In all their history together Jonathan had never seen his Prime genuinely attracted to anyone besides David, and that had been going on long before Prime and Consort met. As far as he knew Deven and David’s courtship had involved less blushing and stammering and more writhing and screaming.
    And while Jonathan was perfectly willing to step back and let Deven have an outside lover, that didn’t mean he wanted a front-row seat to the proceedings . . . but Nico could be good for him, if they didn’t let their fears get in the way, which was probably what would happen, knowing Deven. Jonathan hadn’t been lying when he said he would give anything to see his Prime happy.
    The Consort fished his phone out of his pocket to leave on the bedside table with Dev’s and noticed that Cora had called; he smiled. He had a feeling he knew exactly what she wanted. It would have to wait, though—by now it was midmorning in Prague, and besides, at the moment