“We will go to an osteria tomorrow, not one in Heden. The one I like most in the city. The woman who cooks there, she is a goddess. And she will like you, but do not feel too proud. She is friendly. She likes everybody,” Faunus said.

Tedrey shook his head and crossed his arms on his chest, smiling up at him.

“Saturn will not be joining us,” he stated.

Tedrey stopped smiling and bit his lip.

Faunus lifted his large hand, slid it along Tedrey’s neck, and took hold of his hair at the back in a grip that Tedrey felt stir him, even if after their thorough play that evening, he did not think he had it in him to be stirred.

“I will warn you, Teddy,” he said after he dipped his face to Tedrey’s. “I am at the call of my captain. New Go’Doan have recently arrived in town and I’m one of a squad who is to watch them around the clock. If another cannot make their duty, I would be called to it. But if that should happen and we cannot go to that osteria tomorrow, we will the next eve. And I would like you to return to my home with me after.”

But Tedrey was no longer listening.

“New Go’Doan have arrived in town?” he asked.

“You are safe at the school, caro,” Faunus murmured. “Lorenz has seen to it.”

He was not.

Not anymore.

“What Go’Doan have arrived in town? Do you know names?”

Faunus was watching him closely.

“Yes,” he answered.

“G’Fenn?” Tedrey asked.

Faunus hesitated.

Tedrey wrapped his fingers around Faunus’s throat and demanded, “G’Fenn?”

“Why do you ask after this name?”

It was Fenn.

He was there because G’Seph failed, or he was there for Tedrey, or both.

But he was there.

Tedrey pulled away, turned and swiftly entered the house.

He felt Faunus on his heels.

They were in an informal chamber at the back, and Tedrey and Faunus were heard before they arrived.

He knew this when Nyx called out, “Did you have a good time with the men, tesoro?”

He made the doorway and saw them on the divan. Lorenz in dark yellow ante pants on his back, Nyx snuggled down his side, and it appeared they were reading from the same book propped on Lorenz’s flat stomach.

Both of their eyes came to him.

“Well, allo, Faunus,” Nyx greeted with a smile, pushing up to an arm.

But Lorenz’s gaze had come to Tedrey, it moved to Faunus, and then returned to Tedrey.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

“Is there a priest called G’Fenn at the temple?” Tedrey demanded tersely.

Lorenz looked to Faunus again and back to Tedrey.

But he said nothing.

“You don’t trust me,” Tedrey declared.

“Amico,” Lorenz murmured.