Leo sat down. And for the first time all night, he stopped trying to be an incubus. He just talked to her. About her book (she wasn’t actually reading it, she confessed, because she’d been thinking about whether her cat missed her while she was at work). About the coffee (too hot, always, but in a comforting way). About nothing, really. Small things. Human things.

Now he was standing in someone’s subconscious, and it was not going well.

Darith watched from the corner of the dream, invisible, and said nothing.

Leo picked petal fragments out of his teeth and tried to salvage his dignity. He was three weeks into his apprenticeship—the first incubus apprentice in two centuries, which sounded impressive until you realized it was because no one else had been desperate enough to apply. But Leo had his reasons. Rent, for one. The existential dread of being a twenty-two-year-old barista with no direction, for another. When the Infernal Registry had posted the position (“Entry-level dream-weaving, benefits include immortality and dental”), he’d clicked apply before common sense could catch up.