Leno

Sitting on Elise's couch, in the biggest living room of her mansion, I looked around. Jimena was in the middle of a discussion with Yon. Abosede was talking with Elise and the two immortals I had met today, Tadatsune and Joe. Lucas sat beside James and Amaury. And on the other side of the room, near the open window, Sonia was smoking and chatting with Anna, and Zoé.

"Do you know why we are here?" I asked Carlos.

"Sorry, what?" He said, interrupted in the middle of his not-so-subtle series of compulsive glances in the direction of Sonia.

I grinned. "I said: do you know why we are here?"

"Oh, right!" He smiled sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. "Well, one may consider it's a doomsday meeting, considering everyone is here. But Elise assured me it was not."

"Apparently, she has a project," Ikshan added. "But no one knows about it."

Carlos shrugged. "We'll see."

Suddenly Ikshan squeaked: "Oh. my. god." I turned my head towards the focus of my lover's gaze. Aidan had entered the room with the cutest puppy in his arms. I chuckled. We were not going to hear the end of it.

"And who's that?" Ikshan asked, with as much a baby talk voice as his stature and deep tone could manage.

The dog looked wary.

"Don't scream. You're scaring the dog," Zoé said, rolling her eyes, from the other side of the room.

Ikshan pouted, and I caressed their arm with a smile.

"This is Melyn," Aidan said with a laugh. "It means yellow or gold in Welsh. I adopted him recently."

"Do you think I could hold him?" Ikshan asked, their eyes full of hope.

The whole room was now focused on the puppy, heads tilting and eyes smiling. I could not resist the charm of the animal either but Ikshan's love-struck face was even more fascinating.

Aidan looked down at the puppy against his chest and petted him softly. "Do you want to go see Ikshan?" He said. "They're a friend. They're very nice. You're going to love them." And he extended his puppy-full arm towards my love.

Melyn curled up in hesitation and then seemed to decide it was safe. He tried to reach for Ikshan. They beamed while lifting the dog into their arms and stroking him gently from between his eyes to the top of his head.

"I'm going to take a picture," I said, fumbling with my phone.

"Sure, one more picture," Zoé said. Then, she added to Sonia and Anna, but loud enough for everyone to hear. "Since he discovered he could take pictures with his phone, he's shooting at librarian-of-the-month here every 2 seconds."

Anna laughed while Sonia raised an eyebrow.

I took the picture, and Aidan got his dog back, before sitting on one of the armchairs.

"Stanislas is not here?" I asked Ikshan, lowering my voice, in fear of a social faux pas.

"Elise told me he was invited, but he declined."

I nodded.

Elise waved and called everyone to gather up around her. We all sat down, our attention focused on her, while she smiled at us with fondness and joy. It was definitely not a doomsday meeting. However, the suspense was unbearable.