Lily came to fetch Ángel a few hours later.

“It’s almost dinnertime,” she said, kneeling by the bed and lifting the peacock-colored dust ruffle to peer at him. “Are you going to come out?”

No. I’m going to stay right here for the next four years.

He was the product of a Cuban and a Southern upbringing, though, and one thing both cultures agreed upon were firm ideas about courtesy and hospitality. It was the duty of a guest, not just to behave well, but to ease any social awkwardness by displaying pleasure with the accommodations. The host made the guest comfortable, and the guest assured the host that he was comfortable by enjoying himself. Hiding was unacceptable.

But what was his role here? Was he a guest? An employee? . . . Something else?

The envoy is lonely, the DOR agent had said. The envoy had paid ten million dollars and a generous salary for four years of Ángel’s time.

Ten million dollars.

Did the envoy expect him to be his lover? Had he been on the lookout for a vulnerable cutie he could pay to supply sex? Was Ángel the world’s most expensive fuck toy?

If so, did his parents understand what was expected of him? Had they knowingly pimped him to the elf-lord?

They wouldn’t have. Never. For God’s sake, Victor was a devout Catholic. But then Ángel remembered the way his father hadn’t met his eyes.

“Is he angry with me?” he asked.

“Oberon won’t hurt you.”

“How do you know?”

Lily shook her head. “I’ve worked here for years,” she said. “He’s very strange at first, but he’s nice when you get used to him.”

Maybe you’re not his type. “You don’t sleep here, though.”

“You can’t hide under there forever.”

Can’t I?

No, actually, he couldn’t. He needed to pee. “I know,” he sighed “Um. Does he want me to come down?”

“He told me to make enough dinner for you both.”

“Okay.” Ángel chewed his lower lip. “Tell him . . . Tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She left, and he crawled out from under the bed and went into his bedroom’s attached bathroom. It was tiled in radiant turquoise dichroic glass, and the fixtures were golden and shaped like sea turtles. There was an enclosed shower and a pink enamel claw-foot tub.

In the vast, impeccably clean mirror, Ángel looked at his hollow-eyed reflection. His curly dark hair had glued itself into rat tails around his face; his shirt was wrinkled, streaked with dust, and he smelled sour with fear-sweat.

“Get a grip, mongo,” he whispered to himself.

Oberon was a nonhuman creature from a different world. Less closely related to human beings than starfishes or palm trees. His beauty wasn’t the beauty of a good-looking man; it was fluid and graceful and toxic, like a jellyfish.

Elf-lord. Demon.