I liked this apartment. Before Saskia came into his life, Christy used to move about once a year, and half his books were still in boxes when the time came for us to move him again. That was about as often as he and I would deliberately got together. Everywhere he lived felt temporary—the way my living arrangements still are.

But it was different now. They’d been here a few years, and the place had a warm, lived-in feel that wasn’t just Saskia’s touch. She’d inspired Christy to actually put down some roots—get all his books out and shelved, put up photos and art, set out handfuls of small artful objects that, to date, had spent most of their lives in boxes.

I had to admit that I envied Christy. For finding someone like Saskia. For making a real home with her.

“Were you playing at a revel last night?” Christy asked.

And there was a big reason I didn’t have what he had. We’d both chosen—or had chosen for us by our respective muses—careers that didn’t exactly lend themselves to stability. But Christy had put the effort into making his writing an actual career, while I just let the music take me where it would.

This past couple of years, the music took me to the mall. To the fairies and Galfreya, and neither was particularly conducive to putting down roots—either with a home or a career.

But I didn’t get into any of that. I just nodded and said, “It was a good one. There was this visiting—hell, I don’t know what she was. Part tree, part something like an otter. But could she play this strange little set of pipes that she had. And she knew at least a half-dozen tunes I’d never heard before.”

“A whole half-dozen?” Christy asked, smiling.

I shrugged. “So I know a lot of tunes. But I don’t pretend to know them all.”

“I wish I had your memory.”

“Then we both have something the other wants,” I found myself saying.

He raised his eyebrows.

“All of this,” I said.

I waved a hand to encompass his life as represented by the room we were in. Cozy, full of comfortable furniture and shelves of books, thick rugs on the floor, photos and art on the walls that meant something in their own merit, as well as their placement to each other.

“A real home you can call your own,” I explained. “And more importantly, someone to share it with.”

Christy gave a slow nod. “There’s not a day goes by that I’m not grateful. Especially given . . . you know . . .”

He didn’t have to bring up the environment in which we’d grown up for me to know exactly what he was talking about.