“Fine. What happened to her?”

His reply was curt and sharp as he said, “I didn’t eat her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She gulped. Okay, obviously a sensitive topic. Does that mean it was someone he cared about? The idea that he cared about anyone didn’t fully seem plausible to her.

She stopped asking about the mystery woman and watched him work quietly, remaining only a few steps behind him. He eventually made his way around until it joined where he started.

When he stood, showing her he was done, he faced the sky.

“Night is falling, and you must remain inside when it is dark.” Reia agreed with that curfew completely. “Would you like to pick some food from the garden to eat before we go inside?”

Orpheus watched the little human he’d brought into his home with much interest as she began to work the cooking

hearth. It looked fairly similar to his fireplace where he’d placed stone and rock high and wide in a recess around the timber to protect it.

The hearth was small so that the flames could never reach the wood, and it sat in a small rock-like basin where he’d already placed timber good for burning in it. A small hole acted as a chimney for it, but he’d made sure it wasn’t wide enough for a Demon to crawl through.

The fireplace he’d made had multiple vents with small chimneys for this very reason.

He was seated at the table, working with the fresh dill and red christmas berries, while she was placing a pot of water over the fire.

While it was boiling, she walked over to the kitchen counter and began peeling and cutting the potato, carrots, and other various vegetables she’d obtained so she could make some form of soup.

He’d always found enjoyment in watching the humans he brought here cook. Even though they made similar meals, he didn’t think he’d ever smelt the exact same one made by two of them. He wanted to assist, to learn, since he once knew how to, but had forgotten over the long eons of being alone.

He didn’t try to since he knew they didn’t like it when he was close to them and peering over their shoulders to observe.

“Why are you making more of those?” Reia asked while she cut, peeking at him occasionally as if she wanted to know where he was always. “You just placed the others yesterday, and I thought you said they lasted a few days.”

He turned his sight down to the protection trinkets he was making.

“They were ones I prepared before I left so I could string them as soon as we arrived.” He tied the twine around the first one before he reached into a wooden jar that contained different small animal bones, such as bird and rabbit parts.

“They are already withered, and I should change them before they are too weak and break apart from the wind.”

When he was working on the third one, he noticed she was looking towards what he was doing often. She eventually came to stand next to the long edge of the table connected to the shorter one he was seated at.

Orpheus paused when she grabbed one of the trinkets by the bundle of dill stems and inspected it, making the bells jingle. She’d reached her hand right next to his own and was standing barely a foot away from him.

He couldn’t remember if he’d ever had a human willingly come near him of their own volition before if it wasn’t for their safety.

Actually, the only reason he’d allowed her outside with him earlier, when he had the others stay inside until he was done carving the salt circle, is because she didn’t seem too bothered being near him. And Orpheus always wanted to keep his humans close or in his presence.

“You said you would teach me,” she commented as she spun the trinket this way and that.

“Now?” he asked in surprise, a yellow hue filling his vision.

“But you are currently cooking.”

She placed it on the table and waved her hand up and down dismissively. “The vegetables are boiling. They’ll take a while before they are ready.”

She wants to learn. The yellow lightened into a brighter shade, a pleasant emotion filling him. One he thought might be delight or happiness.

Not wanting to waste time in case she changed her mind, he pulled apart the protection trinket he’d been making so he could show her from the beginning.

She watched as he bundled the dill together and tied it with a piece of white ribbon. A thrill was sent through his entire being, ruffling the inhuman parts of him, when she grabbed her own bundle to copy him.

“It needs to be tighter,” he told her with a hint of uncertainty in his voice, unsure if criticising her would make her lose enthusiasm with the task.

She nodded and just pulled the ribbon tighter until the dill’s leaf stems flared due to the pressure. He showed her to then tie the red christmas berries to the ribbon before making a bow. Her gaze was intense as she watched him attach the jingle bells, thankful she didn’t seem to realise they’d come from the headpieces of other offerings, before she did it herself.

Orpheus thought she would be averse to the next part as he began to twine string around the centre of the leg bone of a bird so it could dangle down, but she didn’t hesitate at all to reach into the jar and do the same.

He was pleased that she didn’t flinch when he reached over to take it from her, nodding his head as he inspected her work.

“Perfect, this will do just as good as my own.”

The sharp angles of her eyes softened while the edges of her lips curled just a little.

“Well, you’re a good teacher, I guess.” She wiped her hands on her dress. “You must have shown your other offerings many times.”

He twisted his head. “Not at all. You are the first who has wanted to learn.”

“What, really?” Her eyes grew wide before they shot down to what she had made. “It looked so easy to do, though.”

Orpheus refused to answer.

His other offerings had remained in the bedroom he’d shown her the previous day, generally refusing to leave it unless it was to be bathed or to eat. He thought if they had lived long enough, they may have ventured the house or its surrounding yard, but there had never been enough time.

For reasons unknown to him, whenever they came to Veil and saw his home, their fear had always grown. Either he’d react to it, and they never made it inside, or they’d suppress

it enough and find a way to escape. He’d boarded the window in her room for that reason alone after the second time one of them had climbed through it and ran away.

He also didn’t react well when they refused to leave their bedroom, growing angrier and angrier by the day. He brought them here to ease his loneliness, not deepen it, and it always created an ache in him to know there was something there that obviously hated him.

They’d offered themselves to him, but they must not have understood the reality of it until they came here with him.

Reia, however, was the first to be this relaxed even only after a few days of being with him. Was the first he’d taken outside while he carved his salt circle, was the first that had allowed him to carry her here, was the first to ask to learn how to make the protection trinkets.

She is the first to smile at me.

Will she be different? Not much made Orpheus afraid, but he feared becoming attached to her.

He was tired of growing attached to his offerings for them to only leave him one way or another.

When he didn’t answer, she shrugged and went over to the cooking hearth to stab a knife into the vegetables.

Happy with them, she took the pot away from the fire and began to do something inside it, perhaps crush some of the softer vegetables, but he wasn’t sure from his placement.