He was a terrible person. Selfish, selfish, selfish. In the face of Oberon’s uncomplicated happiness, he was bitterly disappointed.

Oberon wouldn’t need him anymore.

And he’d killed his guitar. There were other guitars in the world—better ones, and he could afford to buy them. But this guitar, this old sweet-voiced Martin, with the cutaway and the mother-of-pearl inlay, and the cracked tortoiseshell guard and the loose pickup—now it was gone.

Sniffling, he eventually got up and went downstairs. It was the middle of the night, and the house was dark and still, but he needed to walk. So he pulled on his coat and boots and went out the front door.

It was the middle of the night, moonless, and truly cold. The wind cut right through his heavy coat. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and the wind combed icily through his hair, froze on his swollen face, frosted his throat and lungs as he breathed. Not paying attention to where he was going, he slogged through the deep snow.

He’d been so careless, so stupid, so overwrought. How had he let the situation—relationship, love affair—with Oberon so overwhelm him that he failed to take the most basic care?

He trudged in a straight line until he reached the wall. He didn’t know how long he stood there, leaning against it, slowly turning into an icicle. Too upset to go back to the house.

Oberon was there. Oberon, who was brave and radiant and gorgeous and so, so alone. Oberon said he loved Ángel, and maybe he did. But Oberon was about to not be alone anymore.

Would Oberon and the new envoy be lovers? Would they communicate with touch, making beautiful magic together as they stroked one another’s skin? How soon would Oberon realize—if he hadn’t already—how pitiful a substitute Ángel was? How inadequate Ángel was at giving him the companionship he needed?

What he and Ángel shared could never compare with what he could share with a member of his own kind. And Ángel would be discarded again.

His mother hadn’t wanted him, and his father had thrown him away in disgust. His brothers were friendly but distant, his lovers temporary. Even the ones he thought liked him ended up writing angry songs about him. The Church certainly didn’t want him back. Oberon, too, would find that Ángel was just not good enough.

Ángel was crying again. He was being self-indulgent, self-pitying. Drama queen. He promised that he would be brave tomorrow. Tonight he would give himself over to wallowing, and then tomorrow he’d be brave and considerate and happy for Oberon. And welcoming and polite to the new envoy.

Or, oh God. Maybe he was expected to have sex with the other fae as well? Oberon had promised to introduce him. They were a polyamorous species. They lived in colonies, and made love together, and their magic combined like symphonies.