Sebastian

she called. "Nadia! It's Lynnea! We have to talk to you!" She looked around the gardens, trying to spot something out of place, something that meant trouble had come here. Nothing looked wrong to her, so she went back to pounding on the door.
    "Give her a minute," Teaser said.
    "Why isn't she answering?" Lynnea cried, feeling the frustration welling up inside her. "Where could she be?"
    "Maybe she's… occupied. You know."
    Lynnea paused, fist raised, and stared at him. "You think she's not answering the door because she's having sex?" She pounded on the door with more vigor. "Nadia!"
    "Not sex! I didn't say sex. Daylight, Lynnea. You're talking about Sebastian's auntie. I just meant…
    ladies take longer to answer a call of nature."
    It took her a moment to work that out. Teaser was turning into a prude. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? "Well, why is she sitting on the toilet when we need her to answer the door?"
    "It's not like she knew we were coming." He took a step back and looked up at the house. "Besides, I don't think she's here. With you making all that racket, she would have answered by now, no matter what she was doing."
    Lynnea sagged against the door for a moment, then stepped back to let the screen door slap shut.
    "You're right. She isn't here."
    What was she supposed to do? She hadn't considered the possibility of not finding Nadia. Her eyes fixed on the broken part of the wall, the part she and Sebastian had stepped over when they'd come here from
    …
    "We'll go to Sanctuary. People there know Lee, so they might know how to find Glorianna."
    Teaser backed away. "No. I'm not going to Sanctuary. I can't go to Sanctuary. I'm an incubus."
    "So is Sebastian," Lynnea snapped. "If he could go there, so can you."
    "But—"
    "Stay here then. Or go back to the Den, if that's what you want. But stop stalling!"
    She pressed a hand over her mouth and stared at him, feeling as if she'd glimpsed the person she might have become if she'd stayed on the farm with Pa and Mam. Mam's tone of voice. Mam's harshness.
    Mam's way of cutting at a person with words, even when she didn't reinforce it with a blow. Teaser's fear was real—just as her fears, as a child, had been real. And harsh words that implied inadequacy, when it wasn't said outright, had never done anything to extinguish the fear.
    "Teaser… I'm sorry. That wasn't kind."
    For a moment his blue eyes were sharp with a predatory anger, reminding her that, no matter how he acted or how distant he was from the roots of his kind, he still came from a race of creatures that could kill you with your own emotions.
    Then he looked away and was back to being the Teaser she knew.
    "Doesn't matter," he mumbled.

    "Yes, it does." She walked up to him and took his hand. "My… the woman who raised me… she sounded like that. She would have said things like that. I don't want to be like her. I don't want to sour the world that way."
    He gave her hand a friendly squeeze and let go. "You're scared. So am I. So we're both acting like we've got half a brain between us. Time's passing. Let's do this if we're going to."
    When they reached the clearing that held the bridge, she felt the difference. This was a resonating bridge.
    They had as much chance of reaching Sanctuary as they had of dancing on the moon.
    Teaser huffed. "We're doing this for Sebastian, right?"
    "Right."
    "We'll be able to get to Sanctuary because we're doing a good thing, right?"
    "Right."
    "And if we end up in a snake-infested pit of a landscape, it was your doing because you were mean to me, right?"
    She sighed and took his hand. "Right."
    That said, they walked to the spot in the clearing that would let them cross over to…
    *
    Sebastian sat on the floor, his back against the wall under the broken window. With the shutters closed, not much air came through the fist-sized hole in the glass, but he told himself the air smelled fresher in this part of the room.
    He couldn't keep the voices out, couldn't do anything to block the relentless whispers.
    No one will come for you. No one loves you. No one ever did. You don't deserve to be loved.
    Dreaming of daylight, incubus? There's no daylight for someone like you. There's no daylight in someone like you. Your heart is stone and barren earth. That's all you are. All you can ever be.
    That's all you deserve. A hard life. A barren life. A cold life. That's all you are, Sebastian. That's all you'll ever be. No one will come for you. No one loves you. No