Because Eli didn’t want them. Couldn’t want them. He used them, yeah. Craved their devotion, their worship. Nothing else. The rest—niceties and concern—wasn’t real. Eligos, duke of Hell, caring for Kye, a nobody he’d found praying in a rundown apartment? No. They certainly wouldn’t let themself believe that. If they did, they’d have to face the love nestled like a wasp in their chest; hate chipped away and replaced by antennae, wings, stinger. “You’re
