Raya blinked at her. Did she really think right now was the time for a language lesson? “Sure.Mon bagage.” She flipped the phrasebook open and prepared to further murder the French language. “J’ai perdu mon bagage,” she finished triumphantly.
The airline representative looked her up and down.
Raya could only imagine what went through her mind as she took in the view of Raya’s disheveled hair, fading makeup, and a black t-shirt that read “Don’t Make Me Drop a House on You.”
The woman sighed and switched to English. “Please give me your address. We will send it to your hotel.”
“Couldn’t you check for it? Maybe it’s still here,” said Raya.
“We will send it to your hotel.”
Clearly the woman did not wish to be bothered by rumpled Americans with petty luggage problems.
Raya removed the wand from her bun. The bun poofed open, sending her hair tumbling down. She inhaled slowly, cradling the wand in her hand, and exhaled gently, imagining her breath casting a web like spider’s silk across the counter. A spell wasn’t a bomb. A spell was a butterfly wing flapped in the right place, at the right time. “Please?”
The woman’s expression softened ever so slightly. She regarded Raya with something closer to pity than contempt. “Very well. Wait here.”
Fifteen minutes and one formerly missing suitcase later, Raya took off at a jog to catch the next train into Paris. She took one escalator after another, continuing downward from level to level, until she reached the train platform a little out of breath but smiling to herself.
She boarded the train with her bags and found a seat, letting her gaze drift over her fellow passengers.
Were there any other witches aboard?
Witches were rare, to be sure, but there would be an unusual concentration of practitioners converging on Paris today to attend the international witchcraft convention.
Raya looked for tell-tale signs: a crystal, perhaps, or unusual tattoos. Even a scent could be a giveaway.
No witches. No demons, either, that she could see. Demons stood out like they were highlighted in red, and tended to avoid witches like cats avoid water. Raya had encountered precious few of the lords of Hell.
When you conjured a demon, you never knew what you were going to get.
Raya watched the lights of the Paris suburbs flash by outside the window until her grumbling stomach reminded her of her hunger. She turned from the window to rummage hopefully in the bottom of her bag.
A tapping noise interrupted her digging.
Raya looked up. She glanced around the train car, but saw nothing unusual. She returned her attention to the search and reached deep into the bag, spurred on by the faint crinkling of a wrapper.
The tapping sound, now more insistent, sounded even closer.
Her hand seized something at the very bottom. Was the tapping coming from outside? She glanced out the window as she carefully tugged the crinkly item up.
Raya stifled a scream as a shadowed floating head appeared outside the window. She recoiled in panic and knocked the bag over, sending its contents across the floor.
The head outside the window floated closer, revealing a finely shaped nose and an insolent grin.
As Raya’s eyes adjusted, she perceived the floating head’s shock of thick hair, insouciant in its effortlessly tousled style—and ruffling attractively in the wind coming off the speeding train.
“Phoenix, you bastard!”
Phoenix laughed heartily at her expostulation, the sound of it muted by the glass between them, but his expression was perfectly clear. He flapped his deep red wings with supreme unconcern.
Of course it had been utter folly to allow a demon to follow her to Paris—no matter how good-looking he was or how he occasionally managed to make her laugh.
No, not folly. Sheer madness.
Only then did she realize how she must look to the passengers sharing the train car. She snuck a furtive look around.
The other passengers quickly looked away.
