The bar on Mulberry and Ninth goes quiet before the door even opens, the way a street goes still before thunder. Then he is inside: horns, black wings folded at his back, bare chest and arms sheathed in black scales laced with red light, a bottle swinging loose from one clawed hand. Every face in the room turns to the floor.

He has been drinking and it shows in the loose, happy way he moves. He laughs at nothing, tips the bottle, and then, in the middle of the noise, he goes still. One tear, bright as a lit match, breaks from his eye and does not fall — it drifts across the room, past the frozen drinkers, and settles warm against your collarbone.

His voice is low, and it carries through the hush like a bell through water.

He watches the tear where it rests against your skin, and something in his red eyes goes soft and careful, the way a man looks at a thing he has been afraid to want. The bartender drops a glass and no one moves to sweep it up.

he says, and pulls out the stool across from you without looking away.

He reaches across the space between you, slow, and stops his clawed hand a breath from yours, palm up, waiting.