Berries and Greed

“Oh.” He let out a squawk of nervous laughter, which kind of made me want to give him a hug. He seemed so tense. Shit, maybe he was already regretting this. “Sure, of course. You need to know where everything is, right?”

“We can do it later if you want,” I said cautiously, then gave him a tiny grin as I walked over. “Maybe you should go smoke a bit to chill out.”

He shot me a weak glare. “I’m chill. I’m totally chill.”

“Sure,” I said dryly, then swept my arm out in a grand gesture. “Well, lead the way, Greater.”

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Chapter Eleven

Beryl

After another disgruntled look, Greid turned and ambled down the corridor. I couldn’t stop looking around as I followed. The ceilings and doors were really tall, which made sense given the demiurgus’ height. Where there wasn’t framed artwork crammed onto every available inch of wall space, strange-looking tapestries hung, depicting scenes of vast cave networks with ceilings that glittered like they were studded with crystals and demiurgus dancing around a blue-flamed fire.

When we reached the second floor, I caught a glimpse of another tapestry that seemed to show some humans, but we continued descending the stairs before I could get a proper look. Once we were back on ground-level, Greid led me down a narrow corridor with only one door at the end. After opening it, he felt around for a light switch and descended the stairs.

Maybe I should’ve felt nervous going into a basement with him, but I just… didn’t. His vibe was completely non-threatening—dorky and shy and seemingly lacking the dominant trait that was rumoured to exist in all demiurgus. But then again, I’d had a pretty sheltered life, all things considered. Maybe I wasn’t as good at reading people as I thought I was.

Still, I was already in his house. It wasn’t like the basement was technically any more of a threat than the rest of the place. I followed him down and stopped at the bottom of the stairs when I realised the basement had been converted into a home gym. There was a stationary bike, treadmill and weight bench, with a set of dumbbells stacked neatly in their holder. A big TV dominated one wall, which all the equipment faced. My mouth twitched.

“You’re free to use it whenever you want,” Greid told me, crossing his arms and looking at the room with disinterest. “I used to work out a lot more, but”—he shrugged—“can’t be bothered much anymore.”

I chuckled, glancing at his long, lanky frame. “Well, you seem to still be in pretty good shape,” I said cheerfully, aiming for a platonic, friendly tone and not one that would make him feel uncomfortable.

He grunted. “Super high metabolism. A demiurgus thing.”

“I’ll probably use it,” I said, back to admiring the high-spec equipment. “I sometimes ducked out of our mandatory daily exercise sessions at the compound, but I like working out fairly often.”

I also liked food, and used to sneak a lot of snacks into my room, which was why I wasn’t as svelte or slim as all the others in the cult. But I was healthy—almost irritatingly healthy thanks to the cult’s strict diet—and I loved my body. It was soft and comfortable and mine. I liked my soft belly and wide hips. Life was far too fucking short to deny yourself things for the sake of someone else’s warped, singular idea of beauty.

Besides, it was no one’s fucking business what I looked like but my own. Aunt Violet had drilled that into me when I was a teenager, after one of the cult members made a sly comment about my “healthy appetite”. It was one of the few times I could remember seeing my aunt get truly angry. She’d yelled at the member, told me I was perfect, and had been tense and nervous in the days that followed, like she’d been waiting for the high priest to kick us both out.

“Well, you’ll get more use out of it than I do these days.” Greid turned for the stairs, so I followed him back up and out of the narrow corridor to the main hallway.

From there, he led me into the kitchen, which was as dark and cluttered as the rest of what I’d seen, but he flicked on the spotlights to illuminate the gleaming black marble countertops and copper fixtures. A huge silver fridge-freezer hummed in the corner, and a big butcher’s block dominated the centre of the space, the chopping board on its surface pitted with knife cuts.

Off the kitchen was the laundry room and a tiny downstairs bathroom. After Greid dutifully showed me both, we crossed the hall to the living room, which I immediately fell in love with. It was dark and cosy and full of interesting stuff, with a huge squishy sofa covered in blankets directly opposite an enormous wall-mounted flat-screen TV. The guy really loved his TVs.

A stained-glass window—slightly larger than some of the others—sent splashes of colour across the dark wooden floors and faded rug. Tucked right in the corner was some kind of enclosure. It looked like a little cubby, the entrance covered by a heavy burgundy curtain.