"Dèlia, old friend. How long have I not seen you? A week? Or was it three?" Rafe smiled as he stood up and gave her a short hug. Though their kind normally never did this, they both had grown so close over the years that it was something ordinary to them.

She buried her face in his shoulder, the scent of leaves and wood never fainting from his black hair. It hadn't been long enough for her to forget how he sounded. That was the first thing one always forgot, strangely enough. Because the look of someone you could trap in a photo, the scent bottle up in a jar, but a voice, a voice you could never quite catch.

"It was the night that you were more rebellious than any other Seelie knight to ever be born, Rafe," she joked.

The other Seelies here to protect him seemed a bit flustered. No one ever dared to call him Rafe.It was only a name for his closest friends, of which he didn't have many. Yet it felt like coming home, honestly, for once, when she saw him and Joseph together.

Their history was old and almost ancient, yet they remembered it as the day of yesterday, looming through the streets of Paris in the evening, drinking, smiling, making fun of mundanes. Having the weirdest ideas on midnight and doing things no one thought was possible.

She really liked seeing them again, the scent of their adventures from weeks ago still hanging in the air.

"You were quite rebellious, weren't you?" Joseph laughed at his friend, who didn't seem to mind. Yet under that china-white skin of his was hidden a soft red blush. And she saw it. She always saw it. Besides, she was sure that Joseph saw it too. But when they made eye-contact they assured their Downworlder friend it was another secret that they'd bring to their grave.

"We all were rebels that night."

Thy weren't quite as rebellious as they were back in the days, centuries mankind had forgot or turned their back at, the warlock knew. Because if they were, the clave would execute them at sight. Rebellious Downworlders, ones who didn't listen to the clave, were meant to be in jail, or worse. And so, the trio had grown rusty and old in their mischief, bound by the checkless that those angel-blooded had tied them with, though escaping every month in order to feel their freedom again.

"Yes, we were. Now, what'd you say?" she smirked, hinting at her friends exactly what she wanted them to understand. Joseph gave her an evil grin, because he knew precisely what her mind had planned again, because he had already done the exact same.

"Friday, next week. I'm off duty then," Rafe responded.

"Perfect."

And with those words, the date was settled, the three would have another adventure long forgotten by mankind, which was perhaps the best. It wasn't often that all three of them found a day they could beak rules in without being tied up with other people's business. Joseph couldn't leave his clan and Rafe was bound to his queen, so she had been alone for the past decades, until she moved to Magnus a few years back.

Honestly, she had been too shy to even ask them for another night out this month. She was busy, day in and day out saving mundanes stupid enough to get themselves in trouble. She was almost ashamed when she thought about it and swallowed down her pride. Maybe she had more fears than she wanted to admit?

"Now that your date is all set, we could start the meeting?"

Lucian Graymark snapped her attention from her old friends, and she turned her piercing emerald eyes towards him, a soft light in them, though an almost unnoticeable hard edge made them look more poisonous than anything else, which was there to bury the demon she hid deep within.

It wasn't because he spoke through her or didn't let her finish her whole reunion, but because Luke didn't care about her friends, and treated them like some people wanting the meeting to fail. He should know better, of all people. Although she forgave him, of course she did.

"Of course, Lucian."