The week that followed was extremely strained.

Ángel got up at around seven every morning and ran on the treadmill. Then he would shower, play his guitar, email Marissa, or otherwise mark time until lunch. In the afternoons he would walk around the estate—the weather had warmed, melting the snow—listen to and play music, or surf the internet and watch movies on the tablet. No porn. Chandler was undoubtedly monitoring his online activities.

The isolation was getting to him. He almost never saw Oberon. The fae would be gone from the gym by the time Ángel got there each morning, though it sometimes still smelled like him. He always took him a lunch tray. Oberon would be listening to music—Kate Bush, or B.B. King, or Handel—but he would not look at Ángel or speak to him, so Ángel would drop off the tray and leave. And Oberon never emerged from his office for dinner anymore, so Ángel ate alone.

He’d never thought that he would crave Oberon’s company before, but he’d never felt so lonely before, either. He suspected it was wearing on Oberon as well—the rich cream of his skin had washed out to a kind of fish-white. Ángel wasn’t certain what that meant, but it couldn’t be good.

He wasn’t sorry the cameras were gone. He slept on top of the bed now, rather than underneath it, but when he masturbated—which he did every night, feverishly, unable to satisfy his longing for human touch—he still did so in complete silence, buried under the covers, not trusting that no one could hear him.

Oberon didn’t invite him to his bedroom again.

“This has to stop,” said Lily in the first week of October.

“What?” said Ángel, as if he didn’t know.

She scowled at him, tiny and fierce, dumping the remains of Oberon’s lunch in the garbage with a flourish. “He’s not eating right. He’s not coming out of his office. He’s all gray and he smells weird.”

Ángel had noticed that too: Oberon didn’t smell like cinnamon anymore. Instead, there was a slightly bitter tang in the air around him. “He’s mad at me because I got rid of the cameras in my room.”

She stamped her foot. “Well, make him not mad at you anymore!”

“How?” demanded Ángel, defensively. “I’m not sorry!”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry! You’re supposed to be helping him, not making him worse!”

Ángel glared at her. But after a moment he sat dejectedly at the counter. “I know,” he admitted. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“I know, but maybe you did.”

“I’m scared of him.” He ran a hand through his hair. “One time he told me he was starving to death. Is he really not eating?”