Page 13 of Kazimir

“She just walked in,” he said. “The wards didn’t react.”

I crouched down.

“Who are you?” I asked, voice pitched for her ears alone.

She looked at me, really looked, as if counting the atoms in my face. Her gaze was old. Older than the youth of her face, older than the longing in my heart.

“Wow,” she whispered. “You’re…”

The girl cocked her head. For a second, her eyes changed: not in color, but in depth. Something immense moved behind her gaze—something older than the walls, maybe older than me. Then she blinked, and the moment was gone.

“I think,” she said, “I’m lost. Or maybe found. It’s kind of a toss-up.” She started to climb to her feet, then slumped back down, as if the effort was too much or the floor was safer than standing.

Yuri tried again. “You can’t be here. This place is—”

She ignored him. “You’re beautiful.” Her eyes found me, and the intensity of her focus felt like a physical blow. “Do I… know you?”

I felt the laughter in my bones. It escaped, a low rumble, shockingly real. I forced it down, reasserted my composure. “I think you probably feel like you do, but you don’t.”

She thought for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “No, seriously, I don’t know a lot of stuff. But one thing I’m pretty sure of is you.”

For a moment, all I could do was stare. The sense of the world had shifted. All my careful plans, my centuries of control—none of it prepared me for her. Goddess damn me to hell. I can’t do this. She was a child.

Yuri, bless his linear mind, tried a different tactic. “You need medical attention?”

She snorted. “If you have anything for existential confusion, that’d be great.”

I had to get her out of here.

“This nice man is Yuri.”

She gave a wave with her small hand. “Hi Yuri.”

“Hello little one.”

“Let’s get her name, shall we?” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice at his sweet nickname for her.

She shook her head. “Oh, um.” It was as if she had to think of what her name was. What was going on? What was she? “Devon. Devon Wade.”

I stepped closer, and the air between us became electric, charged with something that had nothing to do with the wards or the magic in the walls. I felt it coil around my spine, a promise or a threat. It was almost sexual, almost divine. Shit, divine.

“What are you Devon?” I extended a hand. It was the first time in years I’d made the gesture without calculation, without knowing what would happen next.

She hesitated, then took it. Her palm was shockingly warm.

“I um, what? What am I? I’m a woman? Last I checked.” She looked down at herself and inside the neck of her hoodie. It was in that moment I realized she had no idea what she was.

“I tell you what sweet girl, let’s sit down for a moment and sort things out.”

Chapter 5

Devon

He looked at me, and the rest of the room evaporated. I’d seen him before, somewhere deep in my mind or my dreams.

He spoke directly to me. “What are you?”

I blinked. “Uh—” My cheeks burned. Did he think I was a boy? Was it the sweatshirt? “I’m a woman.”