Oberon brushed the crumbs off his fingertips, and tapped the surface of his tablet. Con Marr’s voice, blended with Ángel’s, cut off abruptly. “Magpie to the Morning” by Neko Case came on.

“Now I’m happy,” said Ángel.

They listened to the song, then discussed its cryptic lyrics. Ángel found himself enjoying the conversation—he could relax and enjoy talking to Oberon so long as he kept his eyes on the gray sky outside the window. The tension and fear only came back when he looked at him.

After a while Oberon said, “What made you decide to seek me out today?”

Ángel continued staring out the window. “Well,” he said, reluctantly. “This is why I’m here, isn’t it? To keep you company. I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain.”

“Because you are afraid that I’ll hurt you?”

“No— I mean— I’m not really sure what I’m afraid of.”

Oberon sipped his tea. “I am bad at communicating with humans. I am only now realizing how very bad at it I am. I thought that learning a language would be enough, but there seems to be so much that I am incapable of either conveying or understanding. No wonder people want to kill me.”

Ángel dared a glance at him. “Your English is great.”

“It isn’t enough. And you—well. You are confusing. Do you want to know what I think?”

“Okay.”

“We of the fae—we speak a language, just like you. And like you, we have another way of speaking, which helps us understand when language is not precise. Your second way of speaking is visual. You move your faces, you send signals with your expressions. And your clothes, and ornaments. You constantly speak without sound. It is part of what makes you such a beautiful species,” he added. “You are so colorful, so visually varied. So constantly in motion.”

We are? Ángel bit his lip. I guess we are.

“But my species does not speak that way,” continued Oberon. “Our faces are always the same. While I think humans are lovely and I enjoy watching you, I can easily misinterpret the signals you are sending.”

Ángel thought about this, with the sensation of puzzle pieces falling into place.

Oberon said, “The fae’s second way of speaking— We feel each other. You’ve asked me if we read minds. We do not. But we feel each other’s feelings, we experience feelings together, in our skin, and in our hearts. Do you understand?”

Creepy. “Neat,” Ángel said, a little hoarsely, looking out the window so that he wouldn’t be confronted by Oberon’s eyes. “Do you have to, um, touch, skin to skin, to pick up each other’s emotions?”