Craving stimulation, he began to teach himself to play the mandolin. He watched technique and tuning videos on YouTube, and got Lily to bring him books and sheet music from the library. He practiced at tedious length, getting used to the small neck under his left fingers, keeping his right wrist loose as he picked the paired strings. It was probably agonizing to listen to, but Ángel wanted to sound like a mandolin player, not like a guitarist messing around on a mandolin, and for him that meant learning the instrument deep, through repetition. He needed to embed the instrument into his hands’ muscle memory.

And he tried to understand Oberon. To not be distracted by that predatory face, but to pay attention to his words, and the fluid gestures of his slim hands, of the tones and timbre of his voice, and to correlate them to the scent of his body and the color of his skin.

One day they were eating cucumber hummus sandwiches and tomato soup, listening to the throbbing strains of a piano concerto.

“What is this?” asked Ángel. “It’s so sad.”

“Rachmaninov.” Oberon was leaning back in his chair, his head resting on its cushion, his eyes closed.

Hesitantly, Ángel asked, “Are you sad?”

Oberon didn’t answer the question directly. “Each thinning of the veil, I expect a message from Otherworld. I thought it would happen this summer, but it hasn’t. That makes me very anxious.”

“The veil thins? Is another envoy coming?”

“No, I am afraid not,” he said, regret washing through his voice like a drop of blue ink in a glass of water. “No. When the veil thins, I hope for messages. I am longing for news of home.”

Ángel considered his own loneliness and desperation for contact with the outside world. He had only been here for two months. “How often does the veil thin?”

“Every few months. But I have had no messages.”

Ángel wrinkled his brow. “When was the last time you had news from home?”

“Almost three years.”

He grimaced with horror. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry. That would be driving me crazy. I can barely go three days without an email from Marissa. I don’t know how you can concentrate on this crap.” He gestured in the air.

“What else can I do?” asked Oberon. “Do you really think it’s crap?”

“No—”

But the Rachmaninov was wildly emotive, a tumult of agitated sorrow. Somehow it made Ángel think of the protests—the Molotov cocktails, the hateful signs. The assassination attempts.

What would those people think if they knew how homesick Oberon was? That he sat around listening to Rachmaninov and pining, because he’d had no news of home?

“Oh my God,” said Ángel. “I just had an idea.”