“Really? What about your little shenanigan at the baggage claim?”
“That doesn’t—”
“Or the time you conjured a demon and made him follow your friend’s ex-husband all over creation?”
Raya whirled around to face him. “I didn’t mean to conjure you, specifically.”
He smirked. “Didn’t stop you from threatening to make me do your lawn work, did it?”
“I—”
“Relax,” he interrupted. “I’m just winding you up.” He turned her around again by tugging strategically on the jacket, then slid it off her shoulders. “You really are easy to rile.” He folded the jacket over his arm and sauntered off in the direction of the nearest cash register.
Left to fume among the racks of clothing, Raya didn’t know whether to feel complimented or insulted by the comparison between their respective moral failings.
Either way, she’d somehow ended up coordinating outfits with the most irritating demon she’d ever met.
5
Before bed, Raya rummaged through her collection of free samples from the convention, placing a concentration crystal, a wand-cleaning swatch, and a packet of herbal perfume aside before holding a tiny bottle of dream-enhancing lotion up to the light.
She turned the bottle this way and that, looking for a list of ingredients. The bottle appeared to be too small to include the ingredients on the label. Raya twisted the cap free and sniffed.
The lotion smelled of rosemary and mint, with a sweet trace of chamomile and something else she couldn’t identify.
She tipped the entire contents of the bottle into her hand.
Where to put it?
Raya dabbed a little on her arms and legs, and patted the remainder on her neck for good measure. She could always buy more if it worked.
She placed the empty bottle on the nightstand and turned off the light, then moved to the window and pulled the curtain aside.
The moonlight illuminated the creamy stone exteriors of the buildings lining the street, giving them an ethereal appearance despite their solidity. She held her wand to the window and opened her free hand, concentrating on absorbing the light of the moon through her palm and her wand.
Raya let the curtain fall back into place. She crawled into the bed and laid her head on the square pillow.
She’d never shown any skill with lucid dreaming, despite plenty of reading on the subject. Her dreams tended toward the fragmented and abstract, more like impressions than anything coherent.
Demons, on the other hand, walked through dreams as easily as they walked through the waking world. Too bad the skill didn’t rub off from hanging around Phoenix.
Why had he followed her to Paris, anyway?
Her thoughts slid into blackness as sleep vanquished her consciousness.
A fire appeared before her. She reached toward it, not in longing for warmth, but in desperation for the flames to go out.
Her belongings were burning in the pyre.
She could see the outlines of her books, their pages curling up as they burned to ash.
Lost in the logic of the dream, Raya plunged her hands into the fire, grasping at the books, her hands and arms struck by searing pain. She felt tears fall and heard them hiss into steam in the flames.
A door slammed, and the fire disappeared. She leaned against the door, pushing with all her might, knowing that it would never swing open for her again.
“Please,” she said, pressing her hand against the door. “Mom? Dad?”
They would never open that door again.
