“Can we get coffee first?” He clung to my hand as I led him off the train and along the platform.

“Yeah. And breakfast.” I threaded our fingers together and squeezed. “I’m so excited. I want to see the whole market.”

He chuckled. “We will.”

It was somewhat early on a Sunday morning, so the station wasn’t too busy as we made our way through the turnstiles and out onto the street. I shivered in the cold morning air, tugging on the gloves I’d bought on our way to the station earlier. It was getting really cold now, and some stores were starting to advertise for Christmas.

“Do demiurgus celebrate Christmas?” I asked Greid as we walked down the street, which had a mix of human- and demiurgus-made buildings crammed in beside one another.

“Some do, yeah. Not for any religious reason. Just as a holiday.”

“Does your family?”

“Yeah. Mom fucking loves it. Still goes all out every year.” He glanced down at me with a rueful expression. “She will definitely invite you to the obligatory family dinner, but you don’t have to go, obviously. I can—”

“I’d love to, if you want me to,” I interrupted eagerly. “We didn’t celebrate Christmas at The Order because it’s not a ‘true demiurgus holiday’. Can we get a tree for the house?”

“Yeah, I have a potted one that I bring in every year.” He ducked his head, ears fluttering. “And, um, yeah, I want you to come. If you want to. If you’re sure you want to spend an afternoon with all my siblings. And my aunt and uncle.”

“I really do.” I grinned up at him, excited at the thought of being surrounded by a big family. “Where does your mom live? In the city?”

“No, suburbs. Still in the same house we all grew up in. Kiti still lives at home because she prefers spending her money on vacations, not rent, and Mom is too soft to tell her to grow up. And my brother Sorin recently moved back in ’cause he broke up with his boyfriend and had to move out of the place they had together.”

“Oh, that sucks. Do you see them often? Your siblings, I mean.”

“Eh.” He shrugged. “Not too often. We all just kind of do our own thing, but we text fairly regularly and all meet up when Mom forces us to.”

“I really liked your mom when she came to visit. And Kiti. But especially your mom.”

Greid’s mouth quirked. “Yeah, she’s awesome. In a mom way.”

I chuckled. “What’s a mom way?”

“You know, like… overbearing and nosy, but out of love. Wants the best for her kids so takes it upon herself to make what she thinks is best happen for them. That kind of stuff. And she’s a great cook.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” I squeezed his hand. “Mani and Ron have invited us for dinner sometime.”

His fingers twitched against mine. “Oh. Okay. Um, yeah, we can do that, if you want to—”

“We don’t have to.” I didn’t want him to feel pressured. “I only brought it up because Ron mentioned making some demiurgus dish. I can’t remember what he called it, but he said all demiurgus moms have their own versions and people get weird about eating other versions.”

Greid chuckled. “He probably means porin. And yes, he is absolutely correct. My mom’s version of porin is the only good version.”

“Of course it is,” I deadpanned. “What is it?”

“It’s just, like… a casserole thing.”

I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. “Descriptive.”

“I don’t know, it’s just really good. Meat and whatever. Some kind of root vegetable. It just tastes amazing and any version other than my mom’s is shit. When I first went to college I used to order it a lot from this little family-owned restaurant down the street because I—” He coughed self-consciously. “You know, missed my mom or whatever, but it just didn’t taste the same. The seasoning was wrong. The meat was too tough.”

“That’s sweet.” I tugged on his hand until he leaned down so I could kiss his cheek. “You’re so cute.”

“Shut up,” he mumbled, nudging my arm with his.

I laughed. “Okay, cute but smoking hot. How about that?”

“Better.” He grinned down at me, then nodded ahead of us. “Market’s just up ahead.”

We turned a corner and it came into view, two rows of market stalls that seemed to stretch endlessly either side of a street teeming with people, both human and demiurgus. Some stalls were basic wooden or tented structures, others were carts or repurposed campervans selling food and drink.

“It’s a permanent market,” Greid told me as we made our way closer. I noticed he was leading us directly toward a fancy-looking coffee cart with a small line of waiting customers. “During the week there are different trader markets. You know, like textiles or fresh produce that small businesses come and buy from. But yeah, on Sundays it’s open to the public.”

“Oh, okay. Cool.”

“I actually used to have a stall here.” He shrugged self-consciously as we got in line for the coffee cart. “When I first started my business. And I’d come here on Thursdays when there are stalls selling stuff for jewellery.”

“Oh really?” I grinned up at him, shuffling closer until he lifted the sides of his coat to wrap them around me and keep me warm. I slid my arms around his hips. “Bet you were glad when you got successful enough to stop doing that.”

“God, yes. Dealing with the public is the worst. Almost made me give up several times. Plus, Kiti would help out. I could never decide which was worse.”

I laughed. “So she’s not an asshole then. She loves you.”

He grunted. “I guess. She only did it because I let her try out hairstyles on me in exchange. She works in a salon.”

“Ooh, what kind of hairstyles?”

“All kinds.” He shuddered. “She gave me a bob once that made me look like some… demonic Victorian schoolboy. God, that was the worst.”

“Are there photos?”

He sighed in defeat. “Yeah.”

Biting my lip to suppress a smile, I turned to look at the coffee cart’s menu. “Then I am definitely coming to your family’s Christmas dinner.”

“Hey, there’s a shop here I want us to go in.”

Greid had perked up considerably after getting coffee and a breakfast sandwich, and we’d already spent an hour wandering slowly along the stalls, stopping at most of them at my insistence just so I could have a look at the kind of things demiurgus traders were selling.

There were stalls with extortionately priced tapestries, strange-looking instruments, stuffed toys aimed at demiurgus children, clothes in bright colours studded with beads, adornments for tails and lots of the little glass ornaments that were everywhere in our house.

We passed a stall that only sold items with depictions of Mother Mila on them: candles, paintings, wood carvings and crockery. Another had rows of fat cloth sacks on display, filled with different spices and herbs used in demiurgus cooking.

Greid dumped our empty coffee cups in the trash and grabbed my hand to lead me toward a store tucked behind two stalls. The sign read Dropclay Flea Market, and as we stepped inside I took in the shelves stuffed with second-hand knickknacks, the haphazardly stacked and slightly dinged-up furniture, the walls lined with artwork for sale in ornate, old-fashioned frames.

“Oh wow, this is cool,” I said in a hushed voice as Greid led me deeper into the store, because it wasn’t overly busy in here.

“Yeah, I used to love coming in here to look around.” Greid seemed to be taking us to a specific part of the store, so I clung onto his hand and let him lead me.

“Look,” I whispered, pointing at a surprisingly vast display of eerie vintage clown memorabilia. “Clowns.”

“It’s probably all possessed by the spirits of evil dead clowns,” Greid whispered back. “Don’t go near it.”

I laughed, trying to take everything in as we kept moving deeper into the store and up a rickety staircase to the second floor.